South Asia Daily

Finally, some clay in Sachin’s feet

If there was any doubt that Sachin Tendulkar is not god, it was laid to rest at Mohali yesterday. For once in his career he actually looked unworthy of his own genius. It is a measure of how below par he was, not just by his own improbably high standards but even by those of lesser mortals, that even after six survival chances he did not make his 100th century.

He should have got out first when he was only 27, then 45, 71 and 80. Those four catches were dropped by Pakistani fielders as if the ball was laced with an infectious disease. I am not even including two very close calls he survived before that, one for lbw and the other for stumping. I am sure Tendulkar had his very private expression of WTF in his mind every time he got away.

The only reason why the match does not appear to have been fixed was because the incompetence of Pakistani fielding did not come across as manufactured but genuine. Even the generally resourceful bookies could not have ordained the pathetic Pakistani fielding. Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik may still discreetly try to find out about all the spectacular fumbles.

That said it has to be acknowledged the Indian team has in recent years evolved into a unit propelled as much by its obvious talent as by its self-belief and persistence. It is as if the team has rid itself of any sense of defeatism until the very end. They convey the sense that they are in it to win it. This transformed mindset can also be attributed to the overall climate of ‘can do’ that one sees in all walks of life in India these days. What would barely 20 years ago have been regarded as audacious has now become the norm in India.It is a great quality to have for a country that is trying to lift hundreds of millions out of debasing poverty.

Coming back to cricket and its reluctant deity, it could be poetically fitting were Tendulkar to score his 100th century in Mumbai on April 2 against Sri Lanka and in the process help India win the cup again after 28 years. If he is indeed leading a scripted life as many Indians believe he is, then let the climax be predictable where his triumphs personally yet again and in the bargain helps India triumph too.

A strangely disembodied experience

Tracking the India-Pakistan World Cup cricket semifinal match without audio and video is a strangely disembodied experience. It is somewhat like watching the stock market ticker where numbers keep changing in a clinical fashion, leaving it for you to imagine what they represent. Once you separate human emotions from it, it is nothing more than changing digits.

As I write this Sachin Tendulkar has just got out at 85 missing his much anticipated 100th international century. I can guarantee you that people were more concerned about that than whether Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani can make any progress in their bilateral talks. It is just as well that Tendulkar got out at 85 because this would not be the century he would have cherished considering he survived at least four distinct ousters.

Speaking of the disembodied experience that digitally tracking the match is, when Tendulkar got out nothing dramatic happened on my computer screen. His name was quickly replaced by Suresh Raina. I am beginning to like the stoicism of following only digits.

Television channels in India have been ignited with bombast about the semifinal being a mother of all mothers of all battles in all wars, or something like it. Talking heads popped up everywhere in the run up to the game offering what each thought was the most compelling perspective about the wisdom of mixing cricket and diplomacy as Singh seems to have done in inviting Gilani. Diplomacy on the sidelines of a cricket match is nothing new in the subcontinent. That device has lost its novelty. Of course, as excuses go this is as good as any to bring the two sullen neighbors together.

No one expects that by the time the semifinal is over later tonight in India, the two prime ministers would have solved all bilateral problems. In fact, no one expects that the two would have even begun to talk substantively. They both know one of the teams has to lose and both wish in their private mind that the loser is the rival team and not their own. There is only a slight advantage in India winning the game. Handing Pakistan a defeat in the World Cup semifinal can only make the people of India munificent, which in turn can allow Dr. Singh to be more flexible while dealing with Gilani.

Conversely, if India were to lose, you can be sure of a sense of national bereavement. There would only be a funereal indifference towards everything, particularly bilateral talks. On balance, Pakistan wants and needs a World Cup victory way more than India because the country has nothing else going for it. India wants and needs it too but it can absorb a loss much better than Pakistan.

Rehman Malik’s touching faith in his cricket team

What one finds most amusing about Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik’s warning to his country’s cricket team against fixing their World Cup semifinal match against India is its implicit conviction that merely saying so would actually make it so.

While Malik has apologized since issuing the extraordinary warning, the fact that he felt compelled to issue it publicly at all is indicative of how serious the problem of match is.

“I gave a warning that there should be no match-fixing. I am keeping a close watch. If any such thing happens, we are going to take action,” Malik said.

Everything that Malik said in the warning seemed to stem from a raging suspicion of wrongdoing, if not outright presumption of guilt altogether. Notwithstanding that the team had “very clean members the members were being closely monitored to see “who are meeting them and the position of their telephones,” he had reportedly said.

Last year, the Pakistani cricket team was caught in the midst of what became known as a “spot-fixing scandal.” The distinction between spot-fixing and match-fixing is mainly in the realm of semantics. Spot-fixing, as opposed to match-fixing, involves deliberately altering playing tactics at particular stages of a given match by cricketers who have been bribed to do so. The logistics of fixing an entire match are far more formidable than fixing spots because while the former requires concerted efforts of the majority of the team, the latter can be executed using a few pliable players. Of course, spot-fixing can also potentially alter the outcome of a game.

In the overall societal climate of cutting corners that Pakistani players have grown up in and seen the handsome benefits that it has paid to those who indulge in such practices in other walks of life, is it any surprise that some of them yield to the temptation of a fast buck?

The problem with Malik’s warning is that it has already prejudiced people’s minds. In the event that Pakistan loses the match today, a large number of cricket followers in the subcontinent would look for clues pointing at match-fixing even though it may not have been. During my visit to India this time just as the World Cup matches had started I came across a large number of people—anecdotally I would say more than five out of every ten—who were long convinced that everything was already rigged. In a climate of such widespread suspicion Malik’s warning can only make things worse.

It is too late for Malik to walk the beast of suspicion back now. It is already out prowling and gnawing at people’s minds. That he is Pakistan’s interior minister with access to actual intelligence reports is bound to strengthen what people already suspect, and perhaps unfairly so.

In the end though it helps to remember that it is just a cricket match that is unlikely to make the earth’s axis topsy-turvy.

A racist closet gay man who stood for caliphate?

Sixty three years after his assassination and dozens of books and biographies later Gandhi watchers continue to scrutinize the phenomenon. The latest one titled ‘Great Soul—Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India’ (Knopf, 425 pages, $28.95)  by Joseph Lelyveld apparently shows that Gandhi was “implacably racist” (The Wall Street Journal reviewer Andrew Roberts’ words) towards the blacks in South Africa.

Going by the same review it seems Gandhi was also gay who never came out of the closet with his love for Hermann Kallenbach, a German-Jewish architect and bodybuilder. Roberts definitively says that Gandhi left his wife Kasturba for Kallenbach in 1908. He also supported the Muslim caliphate in the 1920s. So once you add up these three broad personality traits you have a Gandhi was was a racist closet gay man in love with a Jewish bodybuilder who stood for fundamentalist Islamic domination over the world. If one man could host such stunningly contradictory personalities in his life in the midst of one of the world’s greatest and most tumultuous campaigns for freedom, then that man ought to be a freak of nature.

I have heard all of these conclusions about Gandhi separately at one time or another, but never quite strung together the way this particular book, as reviewed by Roberts, appears to do. I have not yet read it but given News Corp’s stellar record, I am sure this one is accurate the way they understand accurate.

The problem is when you read The New York Times review of the same book by the paper’s critic Geoffrey C. Ward, you feel as if he is talking about a different book altogether. Ward calls ‘Great Soul’ “a noteworthy book, nonetheless, vivid, nuanced and cleareyed.” In contrast, Roberts infers that while the book may be “generally admiring” of the man, it does show him to be “a sexual weirdo, a political incompetent and a fanatical faddist.”

Incidentally, Lelyveld is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, who was once worked for the Times covering South Africa. He also reported out of India for several years. In short, he has the credentials to write this book. My problem is which book to believe—the one that Roberts read or the one that Ward read. I will read both, I suppose. With some luck I will also interview Lelyved who has to be just one man.

Sam Pitroda, WikiLeaks and lying

If you are looking for a refreshingly nonconformist view of WikiLeaks compared to the painfully obfuscatory spiel from the Indian government, here is one from Sam Pitroda. In this little clip from a recent event in New Delhi, it is compelling how Pitroda quickly travels from openness about information to Gandhi to the absolute need to have no contradiction between public and private positions.

“WikiLeaks, which seen today as sin by some, is going to be the norm in the 21st century,” Pitroda says. “Today all governments are focused on command and control because this is the mindset of the past..You will understand that the Gandhi way of dealing (with information) is required. In other words, public position and private position will have to be the same.”

“WikiLeaks really talks about two positions. What you say in public is very different from what you say in private. And that’s why there is tension on WikiLeaks. If you had said the same thing in private and public you would not have a problem,” Sam says.

“I think information will demand openness. So I will have to say the same thing and that’s what Gandhi talked about all the time. I think the leaders of tomorrow will have to recognize that the old days of command and control, secrets is going to minimize, not go away. Some information related to national security and all will have to be tight. But a lot of the information which is considered today confidential is really not confidential. It is all about lying,” Pitroda says.

One of Sam’s many current passions is to release information from the shackles of what he describes with some relish as the “nadawali file”, the kind of the ubiquitous Indian government file with a little red flap and a white string that remains firmly tied unless someone in authority ordains it to be opened. “Let the nada (string) be untied forever and information be released,” is Sam’s firm conviction.

Bob Christo, the Al Pacino of bit players

White actors have been used in Hindi cinema as objects on which over two centuries of colonial subjugation of India has to be avenged. No white actor accepted that role with as much eagerness as Bob Christo, the Australian who died last week. He “acted” in over 200 films never rising higher than a glorified extra, and yet within the world of bit players he must have felt like Al Pacino.

Christo’s career requires more academic explanation than just Hindi filmmakers’ penchant to typecast actors. His roles, if you can call them that in a fit of generosity, were contrived for the sole purpose of capturing the worst caricature of the white colonizer. Not that he played a Raj era Englishman much but whatever he got was a derivative of that image of an oppressive colonizer. His tragedy was that he was not even the main oppressive colonizer, but one third from left. It is possible that in some films he had to play a third fiddle to an Indian actor pretending to be a villain from the West. It cannot get more belittling.

Once you look at his body of work you discover that he was asked to stick to just two expressions: buffoonery and cruelty, preferably both in a span of a few seconds. It was not as if Bob Christo would have stayed awake all night preparing for his roles and nailing his lines and accent. I can sum up the brief given to him by his directors throughout his career in one line: ‘Go humiliate yourself.’ For a qualified civil engineer I am sure it took him some effort to live up to such specific direction film after film.

Somewhere beneath those two trademark expressions, it is quite possible that given half a chance Christo would have developed into a decent enough actor. If Shah Rukh Khan can learn the tricks of the trade, I suppose a civil engineer with his structured thinking sure could. I am not suggesting that he would have blossomed into a thespian, but Hindi cinema is littered with examples of actors having learned on the job. Pradeep Kumar, for instance, or even Bharat Bhushan.

Christo’s face and physique had a severity about them that made him a perfect casting for a legion of sidekick goon roles that he went on to notch up with ferocity in the 1980s. In a career spanning nearly 30 years, Christo accepted just about anything that came his way.

I can imagine that his conversations with producers and directors would have gone something like this.

Producer-director “Would you mind standing in the third position to the left of the main villain’s sidekick?”

Christo: “Yeah, why not?”

Producer-director: ‘You know your role—just grind your teeth and clench your fist.’

Christo: ‘Roger that. (In his mind he is thinking, ‘Like Sylvester Stallone’)

It is possible to say that Christo brought complete integrity to his work even when those who assigned him may not have intended for him to do so. “Arey set pe aa jaao. Kuchch kar lenge (Come to set. We will improvise something),” would have been what his director of the day may have told him.

If for nothing else, for dwelling the world of extras with such grace Bob Christo deserves reminiscence.

Note: The video above is from a movie ‘Farz ki Jung’, possibly his longest role. If you cannot tell who Bob Christo is in the scene, there is no point for you to read this post.

Legislating philanthropy

Sarah Jane Dias in ‘Game’ directed by Abhinay Deo (This image has nothing to do with the first post)

Governments can legislate philanthropy almost as much as conscience or good tastes. Statute books are not the best places to enshrine what ought to reside in people naturally. As the Indian government prepares to enact a law making it mandatory for businesses to spend on corporate social responsibility, I wonder whether it makes any sense.

The proposed Companies Bill in India requires companies spend two percent of their average income of three years on philanthropic causes. Philanthropy by its very nature is a distillation of the best in human qualities. If law has to coerce out of the wealthy, it is no longer philanthropy. It is legal extortion. While at some level it may make sense to force corporations to play their societal role beyond just fattening their profit margins from it, one is not certain whether legislation is the best way to do it.

I understand the underlying sentiment of the proposed Companies Bill but the way the Indian government is going about can only reduce CSR into just a motion that companies go through. Companies can also get around this law by setting up their own CSR projects, which would essentially mean they are taking the money out from one pocket and putting into another.

What a boring post this is. So to make up for it check out this sexy number from an upcoming Hindi movie called ‘Game’ directed by Abhinay Deo. This burlesque number features a new comer called Sarah Jane Dias. She looks smoking hot at least partly because she is but also because of the way she has been dressed, made-up and lighted. What adds to her sensuality is also the brilliant set design. It is amazing how sensuality is as much a product of what one really is and the ambience one inhabits.

 

For some reason, which is not all that hard to understand, the song above reminds me of another song by a Pakistani song called ‘Mahive’ by Faakhir. I mean not the composition but the visual treatment.

 

‘Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo’

Robin Williams

‘Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo’ by Rajiv Joseph. If I were Rajiv Joseph, I would just leave it at that. The title is intriguing enough for people to build their own plots and stories around it. But it has become a celebrated play on Broadway with the unputdownable Robin Williams playing the central character of a tiger in Baghdad in the midst of war.

Rajiv Joseph

“The lives of two American Marines and an Iraqi translator are forever changed by an encounter with a quick-witted tiger who haunts the streets of war-torn Baghdad attempting to find meaning, forgiveness and redemption amidst the city’s ruins. Rajiv Joseph's groundbreaking new American play explores both the power and the perils of human nature,” is how the play’s website describes it.

The New York Times says,"This boldly imagined, harrowing and surprisingly funny drama is wonderfully daring."

I have not seen the play (Remember I live in a basement?) but it seems to me that there could not a more compelling fit for the character of the tiger than Robin Williams. It is almost as if Williams has overdosed on talent. I can picture him owning the stage as a raving and ranting tiger.

Joseph, a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for the play, has an interesting background. His Wikipedia entry describes him as a native of Cleveland, Ohio, whose mother is a “Euroamerican of French and German ancestry” and whose father is Indian. The 36-year-old playwright spent his formative years in Senegal as part of the Peace Corps. Imagine his influences—French, German, Indian, Senegalese and tiger.

 

Nothing diffuses parliamentary tension like Urdu poetry

Nothing diffuses tension in India’s parliament more quickly than Urdu poetry. There is almost no political standoff that cannot be overcome by a verse or two.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, being badgered by the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday over the WikiLeaks disclosures suggesting that his government won a trust vote in 2008 by allegedly bribing some Members of Parliament, responded with an Urdu couplet.

I am not sure if the content of the verse is immediately relevant to the fractious debate, but apparently he was responding to something that Sushma Swaraj, the leader of the opposition belonging to the BJP, had said in her address.

If you did not know context in which Dr. Singh recited the verse, you might think he was flirting with Swaraj. The verse went something like this as far as I could hear it over the general din in the house:

Mana ke tere deed ke qabil nahi hun mein

Tu mera shauk to dekh mera intezaar to dekh

Perhaps I am not worthy of even looking at you

But at least do concede my tastes and my long wait

Who would have thought that the US-India nuclear deal that President George W. Bush initiated in his infinite wisdom would still be radiating years later in India’s parliament and inspiring poetic banter?

Everything is a triumph for Mr. Modi

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi (Pic: www.narendramodi.in)

All successful politicians are crafty spinmeisters, but perhaps none in India does it better than Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. He is now turning the publication of WikiLeaks cables in The Hindu newspaper about his 2006 meeting US Consul-General in Mumbai Michael S. Owen into a personal triumph.

What began as a fairly businesslike and even courteous encounter between Modi and Owen, during which the US diplomat acknowledged the chief’s minister’s success in promoting economic growth in his state, turned frosty when it came to the question of communal relations. Specifically, when Owen raised the way in which the 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots were handled by Modi, the chief minister was none too pleased.

The Hindu quotes this bit from the diplomatic cable: “A visibly annoyed Modi,” the Consul General reported to the State Department, “responded at considerable length.” The Chief Minister, he said, made three essential points: “the events of 2002 were an internal Gujarati matter and the U.S. had no right to interfere; the U.S. is itself guilty of horrific human rights violations (he specified Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and attacks on Sikhs in the U.S. after September 11) and thus has no moral basis to speak on such matters, and; Muslims are demonstrably better off in Gujarat than in any other state in India, so what is everybody griping about?”

The cables also noted, quoting Congress party Member of Parliament Digvijay Sinh,  Modi’s reputation as a politician who is “completely incorruptible.”

When you consider that everything Modi says, clearly in confidence since the contents of such meetings are never meant to be made public, is consistent with his public pronouncements on the subject, you get the measure of the politician. It is almost as if he is saying these things with a calculation that if they ever got out, he could use them as yet another proof of his deeply felt convictions. To Modi’s good fortunes, they have indeed gotten out in the form of the WikiLeaks cables.

Inevitably, Modi has instantly latched onto this opportunity to reassert what he in his mind as well as  that of his uncritically receptive political constituency in Gujarat and beyond  believe to be genuine convictions. He told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Gandhinagar today  that the Indian government should address the issue of US interference in the internal affairs of India. He also pointed out that the US knew how incorruptible he was.

And then to bolster his nearly worshipful image among his followers as someone who takes no non-sense from any quarter, Modi told reporters "I looked into his (Owen’s) eyes and said do not preach... I am a son of India, I know what human rights violations you have done. Good that the dialogue has been faithfully reproduced.”

On balance, from Modi’s standpoint everything in the cables is personally glowing and politically sanguine. I would not be surprised if after reading The Hindu stories, he went to his personal bathroom in the antechamber of his office, stood in front of the mirror and punched air in utter triumph, even while exulting to himself in Gujarati  “Joi leedhu ne? (There, you have it).