Why oh why, Farah?

I remember the time when Main Hoon Na released. Skeptical and curious about a choreographer turning director, I was sitting at PVR Priya's with a bunch of as-crazy-as-you-get Shah Rukh Khan fans. Amidst the hooting and impromptu dancing, I had one of the best times ever in a movie hall. I came out with a spring in my step and still laughing aloud. Here was a director who spoke directly to me, shared my passion for old Hindi cinema, and cracked my kind of jokes.

And then came Om Shanti Om and I loved that one too. The jokes cracked me up again and the emotions got me all teary eyed.

So, needless to say there were lots of expectations from Tees Maar Khan. And all I am still left with after a day of watching it, is utter disbelief.

What happened to our shared sense of humour Farah? How and when did you cross the thin line and go to the other side of silly land? How did the dialogues of your movies which were so delightful turn into laboured lines of idiocy?

No, your film didn't entertain me, didn't make me laugh, didn't get me emotional and didn't do anything. It just made me gasp with disbelief that I could so dislike your movie.

No on second thoughts, there is something that touched me. Your obvious love and loyalty towards your husband Shirish Kunder.. Shirish is one lucky guy and I am one unlucky viewer.

8 Lessons to learn from: HISSS

Do you like movies that make you think and reflect on what you learnt from them?
I do. For those who missed it (about 100% of the civilized world), here is the summary of the magnum opus we know as Hisss.

1. Cancer is routinely curable. All you need is to extract a jewel from a cobra. Yes, cobras have jewels. The cobra has to be female, though. Yeah, male cobra jewels don’t cure cancer. They cure AIDS.
2. Snakes are familiar with the concept of kidnap and ransom.
3. MS Paint is the best way to make great 20th century movie graphics. Especially when it recreates already existing designs like Angelina Jolie’s poorly Photoshopped snake-woman costume from Beowulf.
4. Female cobras tracking down kidnapped snakeboyfriends are possessed by a sense of justice that makes them find and gruesomely kill men who mistreat women. Anywhere. In fact, they might spend all their time doing that, and forget about the snakeboyfriend till the end of the movie.
5. Female cobras have several superpowers: that of owning ridiculous jewellery (like Bappi Lahiri), that of changing into women (like Bobby Darling), that of not wearing clothes (like Salman Khan), that of accidentally running into evil people who need killing (like Superman) and that of making people scream (like Maria Sharapova).
6. When police find that an American has kidnapped a snake and the snake’s girlfriend is out for revenge, they raise an eyebrow, scream a bit and go about their business. Nothing ever perturbs them. They are Zen.
7. Julian Lennon composed music for the film. Now we know, John Lennon wasn’t assassinated. He shot himself in disgrace.
8. No matter who directs the movie, whether it’s a Bollywood or Hollywood movie, or what year it is, a naagin movie is guaranteed to put you to sleep in less than 5 seconds.

Why Is Rahul Failing???

Because he has yet to show his administrative mettle.

Bihar results should come as an eye opener for the Congress in the Hindi heartland as their public mascots are failing to attract votes. Perhaps they need to re-strategise their winning formulas if they wish to break the two-decade old jinx and win the largest, but the most backward state, Uttar Pradesh from where their revival in the Northern belt could start.

The alibi that the Congress is trying to extricate itself from the cesspool of coalition politics is not credible as people suspect them of exploiting the CBI probe tool to keep the troublesome allies like Mayawati, Lalu Prasad Yadav — even Mulayam Singh Yadav in check. Yes the party has to start from scratch !

How? Perhaps by convincing the electorate that the Congress would return to the so call Indira’s slogan of ‘Roti, Kapda and Makan’ with no communal, political or caste considerations derailing it at any cost. This could mean taking tough stand against both Hindu and Muslim fundamentalists without fearing any political backlash from either of the two communities.

Is Congress ready for that?

The prospects don’t look very bright but for the very reason that finally the development plank is back in the poll arena. The electorates in recent assembly polls in Northern states have pushed caste and communal considerations aside to vote for development. Even Ayodhya verdict couldn’t help Lalu as predicted by many as the Muslims opted for Nitish’s development to Lalu’s communal card.

UP is crying for development. Successive governments led by almost every party from the BJP to the SP and the BSP in the last two decades have not delivered. Not that the Congress regimes pre 1990 were any better. But whatever development was made in the state was during that regime– people remember the days of Vir Bahadur Singh and Narain Dutt Tiwari.

Can Rahul be Bihar’s Nitish? Speculations are already there that UP will be the launch pad for Rahul’s beginning as an administrator.

It’s another matter that Congress has a major credibility issue, bogged down as it is with scams coupled with the charge of indecisions and inaction. The recent 2G scam has punctured the hype created by Obama’s visit.

The question that comes to mind is why is Rahul failing. People like him, but they don’t vote for him. His yatras get applause, not votes. They clap when he talks about cleansing the political system, they love it when he appeals the youth to join politics, they like to emulate him when he dumps security concerns and walks and talks like a commoner.

But when it comes to polls, they don’t vote for him. Bihar is an example.

So are the two November by-polls in UP – in Lakhimpur Khiri and Etah, where people preferred upcoming parties like the Peace Party floated by a medical professional to national parties like the Congress. Though Mulayam Singh Yadav won both the seats, the runner up were little known political groups.

To me it appears, the top-heavy Congress doesn’t have a machinery, the infrastructure to convert crowds into votes.

Secondly, its credibility in the northern belt is in question- people neither trust its intent nor its winnability.

Thirdly, which perhaps is the most important, they want Rahul to showcase his competence by translating his much-hyped vision into practice. Mere speeches or a commoner’s conduct would not work as a magic wand when people want action, that too swift ones.

In other words power comes with responsibility.

Obama is right. Stable Pakistan is good for us

The breathless media, at least in India, has debated threadbare US Prez Obama's decision not to single out Pakistan as the perpetrator of terror. Instead, when asked directly by students in Mumbai why and how Pakistan is a strategic partner of the United States, he proffered that India should work towards improving relations with Pakistan and that it is better for both nations if India were to do so. Almost alluding that India has not done its bit towards making it work with Pakistan. He repeated that later at the joint press conference in Delhi.

Quite expectedly, the commentators have had a field day, with most trashing Obama and some even saying, based on his first 7 minute speech itself that the visit is a disaster and will be written off as a failure.

For these commentators, the reactions from Pakistan's side are telling. Almost all analysts spoken to from the other side have stressed that Obama's reluctance to name Pakistan specifically shows the high esteem he holds the nation in and also chuckled at, what they interpret as a mild insult to his hosts.

But keep your patriotic hat aside for a moment, and don't go into the politics of it all, you would see merit in what Obama had to say. Of course Pakistan has unleashed a wave of terror on us, of course the nation has been training terrorists to target India and Indians, of course it forced us into a war, of course it creates trouble in Kashmir all the time. But just think for a moment, would Pakistan be as scary a nation as it currently is for us if it were stable?

Remember, it is not merely a nuclear armed nation, but one who's control and command is suspect. Who is in real control is always in doubt. Is it the civilian administration? Is it the President? Is it the Prime Minister? Is it their powerful army? Is it the powerful ISI? What control or influence do the powerful terror organisations that are mentored by the state have over these weapons? These are the questions that are worrisome, extremely at that. Add to that the unstable nature of the regime and the real fear arises.

Wouldn't you be more comfortable if your nuclear powered neighbour was stable instead?  I would certainly be happier to live in a state where when I visit the market, or travel by train, I go to enjoy the experience alone or move from point A to B and not worry about whether some moron has sneaked through the security apparatus and planted something to kill and maim my countrymen. Sure, even if there is a stable nation, some individuals can be expected to indulge in such stupid activities, but chances of it being state sponsored would go down, I think. And we know well that an unstable Pakistan sponsors these terrorists.

And look at what can happen with stability. We may be a fast growing economy, but despite platitudes from Obama and several world leaders that need Indian business, that India is "not a rising power, but a power that has arrived" the truth is we languish at the bottom of almost all human indicators. To address some of these basic factors such as education, health and hygiene, infrastructure, etc, we need huge funds. Huge expenditure on defence necessitated by an unstable nuclear armed neighbour denies our own citizens the funds that could have been used to improve the quality of their lives.

So, even if Obama refuses to name Pakistan as a terror state, perhaps for his own domestic and economic compulsions, perhaps to negate the growing Chinese influence on a nation that is strategically located for access to the riches in the area US in interested in, the fact is unwittingly too he wants us to do something that would benefit, not harm us.

We must, therefore not feel bad about it. Instead, going by the actions and deeds so far on this visit, it seems we may actually be in a stronger position to drive harder bargains than anytime in the past. Seize that opportunity. Build on a growing relationship with the US, but at our terms. Remember, it is the US that is getting billions of dollars worth of business, it is the US that will have "fifty thousand jobs created" as a result of the deals signed in India during this visit. It is the US that is now indebted to us.  Perhaps Obama has already started repaying some of it by seeking a stable Pakistan. Of course, it would help if he also stopped rewarding that nation by throwing obscene amounts of funds to fight terror, knowing fully well where those funds are siphoned off. Pakistan is a prime example of a failed policy that says terror can be contained, indeed purchased with money.

BO is Coming...

It is festival season in India. The festivals at this time of the year
start off with Dussehra - the festival of the goddess and its various
forms. It winds through a few smaller festivals like Karva Chauth and
reaches a crescendo with Diwali - the festival of lights, arguably the
biggest festival in India. The season signs off with Christmas and New
Year.

But this year, Indian media has a special festival - a festival
that is off the calendar. The Barack Obama (BO) festival. And like all
festivals, we will be treated by our media here in near encyclopedic
formats. Presidents and residents of lesser nations do not get much
coverage as the President with the teleprompter does. Having supported him during his elections, it is a bit of an irony that his visit here comes at a time when the nation which elected him is not sure about the change they believed in. But, as it is a festival, we wont let it matter too much in our coverage.  

The media in India is already falling over each other to tell us
everything about the man that is BO. The breathtaking coverage that
will end like an Olympics race with split second differences. And as
voracious readers/viewers as we are, you can bet that they know
more about BO and his visit than he can. Expect bumper offers at shops,
shopping festivals and BO quizzes as the season peaks. It may not reach
the manic proportions with BO tees or BO masks and BO caps, but it
could. Could we see cutouts of BO erected at crossroads and offered
milk? Perhaps.

As the day of his coming draws closer, TV Coverage
will peak and reveal everything they are allowed to cover and uncover.
Today I learnt that his personal chef will prepare a variety of dishes
for him. One newspaper has speculated that he could have what they call a Malai Tikka burger (if something like that exists). Over the next few
weeks, we will know the colour of his room furnishings, his
handkerchief, his blackberry and his dogs favourite food as well. But we
don't stop at that. We will know the cologne he wears, the colour of his
socks and also that the colour of his shoes is not exactly what we see.
We will know his menu each day, possibly before the President himself.
And after his visit, restaurants could offer yet another "Presidential
Platter" or his table at a "special" prize. 

At every pitstop of his, we will hear the back story
of the man who is his driver and marvel at the good fortune of the
doorman who got to hold the door for that microsecond. In between there
will be rare exclusive interviews of the man who waited on him, the
person who got to iron his jacket or the tailor who was suddenly called
in to repair a stitch on the Nobel prize winner. It is this eye for
detail that makes Indian media so great for visitors.  

Our media has convinced us that we scored a
diplomatic victory by not getting him to visit our neighbour. They have
begun well. Over his visit, a lot of non victories need to be gift
wrapped for us. If we are distracted enough, we might even forget the
irony that, to the man bearing the peace prize - we would have ended up signing up deals worth millions if not billions of dollars worth of weapons by the time his visit ends.

Get young on Kashmir

When was the last time you saw an MBA grad or a research student stripping off his shirt, baring his hairy chest to the muzzle of a gun, challenging the frazzled security personnel to pull the trigger? When was the last time you heard of students keeping to the straight and narrow of campus education throwing their career out of the window and walking shoulder to shoulder with protesters, demanding withdrawal of armed forces from their turf? Not often. Not very often.

India hasn't seen many stirring student movements since the 1990 Mandal agitation. Note the year. 1990. Within months of the agitation, India opened up its economy, let the globalization breeze in -- it helped mint-fresh college graduates to reap rich job benefits. The ghost of unemployment -- at least the way it came to haunt the left-of-the-centre India in 1970s and 1980s -- was to be put to fire and, hopefully, for ever. Just around then, in the quiet Kashmir Valley, secessionism, too, began taking roots, robbing an entire generation of the innocence of its childhood. This generation of kids born after 1989 went to sleep to the lullaby of jackboots, played to the report of gunfire, and attended schools and colleges during squeezes of time when curfew was lifted.

This is a generation of kids which grew up on vitriol, and not on the oxygen of free speech the rest of India had plenty in store. For a nanosecond, contrast this generation with the kids of liberalisation -- whose journey is purposefully aspirational, pursuing campus education with a definite window to the booming job market, and a placid ecosystem that got punctured by terror attacks only of late.

Whenever terror attacks shatter the calm of a metro, students, in all their seriousness, light a candle, shed a tear or two, and wear white T-shirts and march down the downtown thoroughfare. Not for them bunking of classes and holding demonstrations at the townsquare, screaming their lungs out for a cause. This is certainly not to belittle their concern; they're certainly bothered as much about the nation's security as like any concerned patriot. But the kind of violent protests that bring students out on to the streets of Kashmir has something to do with the way they have been treated since their childhood.

That street protests in the Valley since mid-June this year have the clear sanction of troublemakers, maybe from across the border, is a given. There's no denying that there's inciting from a section of separatists. But the question is: why is that an increasing number of educated youth are turning up at protests and defying the forces the way they do? Has the voice of the youth been muzzled in a medley of political rhetoric? Have the youth been given short shrift in the New Delhi-centric solution-finding exercise? Have the youth's hopes been blighted by the bayonets of the forces?

It's a paradox of ridiculous proportions that the youth in Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah hasn't found a matching wavelength with the agitating young men and women of the Valley. Call it out of the box, but try holding open houses on the Kashmir problems on the campuses: let each political party send a representative to listen to what the students have to say. Throw open a debate. Let students take the mike, let them speak, let them be heard. For a change, let netas listen to them. Set up a webpage and invite their suggestions and opinions on what's going wrong with their state and what correctives do they carry in their quiver. Let them hurl solutions, not stones.

At the risk of being dubbed an agent provocateur, I'd say if we don't listen to the Kashmiri youths today, tomorrow we may have to argue with them in a toxic war tongue, for this generation __ brought up on a deadly cocktail of denial of rights, war-like neighbourhood and a democratically elected government that's never there __ could spring a nasty surprise. Craft a delectable policy with the youth being the centrepiece. It might work.

Whose boycott?

Writing in the Sunday Times of India, Chetan Bhagat made an impassioned plea to all of us common citizens not just of Delhi but of all of India to boycott the Commonwealth Games. The writer argued that showing any form of support to the CWG would be to endorse the seemingly bottomless pit of corruption and scams that lies beneath the veneer of an event supposedly meant to promote sport in this country. It is an excellent argument.

Regrettably it won't work in practice. Why? Because you can't boycott someone, or something, that has already boycotted you.

Mohandas Gandhi used boycotts to protest against colonial rule by urging Indians not to buy British-made goods. The strategy was at least partly successful in that it must have hurt imperial coffers, whether or not it stung imperial pride. However, as rapacious and thick-skinned as our colonial masters undoubtedly were, it seems that in both rapacity as well as thickness of skin they have been outdone by our current set of rulers. Under foreign rule, Indians could make their dissent felt by boycotting British products and institutions. Today, a boycott by us of a sarkari product like the CWG, for example, will have little or no impact as it is becoming increasingly clear that our present-day powers-that-be have boycotted us long before we could boycott them, or any of their projects.

In the case of the Commonwealth Games, for instance, it was or ought to have been clear right from the start that the whole show was going to be a money-making exercise for various sarkari agencies, and their contractors, suppliers and middlemen. The participation of the athletes, the involvement of the general public, and the promotion of national pride appear not to have entered into official calculations at all. What we, the common citizens, thought of the Games, or what our experience of the event would be, was not of even marginal concern. Those responsible for the preparations and running of CWG represent a closed system from which the general public has been excluded: the Games boycotted us before we could boycott the Games.

So skip the Games, if you so choose. Your absence (or your presence) won't really matter. Because, whether you're there or not, the primary purpose of the Games will have been achieved: that all those within the loop of organising and preparing for the event end up making a lot of money.

The CWG is only one example of the sarkari boycott of the people. Farmers of western UP are up in arms because, in the name of 'progress' and 'public interest', some 22,000 villages in the area are going to be bulldozed without payment of adequate compensation to make way for the Yamuna Expressway. Which 'public' is this and what is its 'interest'? Is it the general public, or is it the self-enclosed coteries of politicians, bureaucrats and contractors whose sole interest is to rake in as much money as possible from such 'public interest' projects?

The tribal communities of India have long been boycotted by successive governments. Many have been displaced from their traditional forest habitats, again in the name of 'progress' and 'public interest'. The intervention of the Supreme Court has highlighted the plight of the Kondhs of Orissa whose ecologically-fragile homelands in the Niyamgiri hills were threatened by bauxite mining operations which had been given governmental clearance without adequate environmental safety checks. But for each such case reported, a dozen or more slip beneath the radar screen. Can tribals boycott sarkar-approved mines, or steel plants, or do such projects boycott tribals?

The boycott by the weak citizen of a powerful raj was Gandhigiri. Today we are witnessing the boycott by a powerful sarkar of weak citizens. Gandhigiri or goondagiri?

Match-fixing: devoured by deceit

A blind man's love for a woman is a flight of imagination. The fullness of her lips, the glint of her eye, the contour of her breast are all flawless in his head. When sight is restored though, the horror is stark. Her face he discovers is covered in warts. Her hair chewed by lice. Her teeth gnashed by vermin. A return to blindness is no comfort because the myth is shattered and the ugliness of her being has permeated his mind. I suspect for us believers, that moment has arrived in Pakistan cricket. For long we admired its talent. We revered its skill. We celebrated its uniqueness. We even forgave its excesses. Alas, we were blind. Underneath a layer of lip-smacking chocolate lies a bitter and disgusting potion.

We must ask what prompts young men, barely out of their teens to cast aside all notions of integrity? What drives them fearlessly into the arms of shadowy operators? Why are they consumed by the lust for money? Is greed their only ambition? How has Pakistan's cricket team created a structure where a willing ally in deceit is an 'insider'. And the occasional dissenter is cast aside.

Perhaps Pakistan's new crickter feels the world 'undervalues' his talent. He looks enviously on as players with lesser skill enjoy the riches of the IPL while he is a pariah. He wonders why his Indian counterpart has a stream of doting sponsors at his doorstep while he endlessly waits for the phone to ring. Maybe as his shambolic country slips further into chaos, the pride to play for Pakistan is just a punch-line to be mouthed at an appropriate forum.

So does an Amir lie in bed and think, 'Damn that Pollard, not half the cricketer I am and yet he merrily munches on a million bucks every year. Might as well take the cash, its only for a little no ball after all' Does an Asif convince himself that if Praveen Kumar can have a garish gold chain dance around his neck despite not being a patch on him as a bowler, then the glib talk about pride can wait. Can I have the cash first?

This is a cricket team that has institutionalised corruption so it is why the game must be played. It is a team that convinces its newcomers of how their talent must extract a price. This is a bunch of men so devoted to the cause of acquiring wealth that there is no squeamishness about method. Defeat is for the fan to mope about, because within it lies the real victory; a fatter bank account. 'There you IPL buggers, look how I beat you', they seem to be saying; 'You get a million bucks to bowl four overs, I can do it with one no ball'.

For those of us pulverised by the videos, this day brings a lesson. Naivete must be forsaken and suspicion must become a guiding principle while watching this game now. No longer can we afford to merely applaud skill and admire talent. We must question each odd occurrence. We must raise the red flag after each collapse. We must murmur about a dropped catch. We must mistrust a missed stumping.

Urged on by shallow and insidious men, the game seems to have spawned a mindset of willingness to set the bar lower. Integrity is an over-rated theory, best for the pundits to pontificate about. Today it is the Pakistanis, but will it end with them? Every 'glorious uncertainty' in the game from now on will stink of a taint. The gap between a mistake and a crime has narrowed. A pure game has been over-run by suspicion. We have been devoured by deceit..

Memories...

BLOT : This is not meant to glorify ragging any which way. Just sharing my enjoyable experience.


"Whats your name!! You idiot" thundered a voice, I looked back and there was a guy with muscles ripping out of his tight T-shirt and fag in his hand. I timidly said " Shreerup Rudra", With disgusted look in his face he asked me "What do you think just because you brought your dad along, you would be spared of ragging??". The word "RAGGING" somehow managed to break all the steely resolve which I had managed to show thus far.


With whatever guts left in me I replied " Bhaiya Ragging se darta nahi hoon main". I don't know what I said but it somehow made that oriental looking guy to break into a laughter. Later I realised that in IHM nobody is bhaiya or didi, it has to be Sir's and Madam's.


So after a day or two my dad left and NOW the 5ft 11in tall dark and frail looking guy was on his own to survive what we were told torturous ragging period spread across 6 months. So we were 16 odd guys used to stay in hostel which was oddly called " Front Hostel" the reason to which was that this hostel was right in front of our college, perfect recipe for disaster was that the "Amma" of hostel was very good cook and most of our college seniors used to come to "Amma" for their dinner.Now since not everybody gets food at one go, the seniors have to wait for their turns and while waiting for their respective turns they usually called us for "Personality Development Program" or PDP more civilized word for Ragging.


The usual ragging stuff were there and to people who know what all things are done in ragging they would know the inner secrets. but more than any other thing it was interaction with the seniors and other classmates of mine which usually enticed me to go for those ragging sessions, there were time when I used to be at some seniors place when ideally I shouldn't be there. The perks for ragging were also great so if you are hungry and if you are at  your seniors place the senior is now bound to take you out for or some snacks and my snacks usaally used to allo patties and coke. Also of you had managed to create a good rapport with any of the seniors he would go on to save you from going to some "HOT" places (places were the worst ragging in IHM used to happen). during ragging period we were barred from smoking and a senior who know you good enough would end up offering you a fag from is cigarette that was again a quite a good deal. I had lost count how many pound of patties and how many liters or rather gallons of coke I had in my ragging days.


There were few people who never used to give us a free hand. One particular senior was DSR, He was  real pain in our ass always upto find ways how to make life difficult for us. It was his room where i always hated to go because everyday his room required a spring cleaning. I made a promise to myself post freshers party  I would first go and confront him.One more interseting aspect of ragging was that the seniors used to give their clothes to juniors to wash and we would wash there clothes in WC out of shear disgust. And next day those seniors proudly used to wear those same clothes which apparently were "washed".


During all these things there were few instances were we as a juniors would always stand to gain. During lunch time in cafeteria juniors were always given the priority to take food first. No money was to be paid by juniors if he is in market with any of the seniors. Students who were unlike me and who wanted to to study would always getting extra notes from there seniors and i can tell you those notes were sufficient to get a decent enough marks. 


After six torturous months of ragging it was decided that on first sunday of Dec we would have our freshers party, but before freshers party there would be two days mass ragging days. the concept of mass ragging is simple. It's like that irrespective of how good or how bad you have done in your ragging drills you would end up having 20-25 slaps on  one given day. these two days were the worst days of my life till few months back.


Finally the freshers party it was no hold barred party where there was unlimited booze, food and pulsating music. The seniors in the party were no menacing seniors but one who were smiling at us and telling us why on earth they were so bad during our ragging days. Its was one fun filled evening which would always have a strong imprint on my heart and mind. As far as DSR is concerned he was the first guy in the party who took me away  and gave a swig of JW Black Label for first time in my life and thats when i decided to bury the enmity.


 

Starting Off

Sitting on my bean bag and thinking what to write, to get some thought I put my TV on. There you go another debate on national television as to how ready are we for Commonwealth Games. Great Question!!! I wish someone has answer to it.  Not sure about the corruption allegations which are doing the rounds, overlays are higher, games officials getting jittery, sports minister is forced to eat his words and chief minister of Delhi is hoping for some divine intervention.

Being an Indian I really want to see a world class event to be successful in India, its not that India had never hosted world class events (Asiad 1982, Cricket World Cup 1987 and 1996, Afro Asian Games 2007 (Hyd) and Commonwealth Youth Games 2009 Pune, Hockey World Cups) there are more events which could be bracketed under the world cloass events however no events has managed to generate so much media hype and public scrutiny as CWG-2010 that too all for wrong reason.

I remember reading an article about how 1982 Asian Games where brought to New Delhi, 1980 India got the bid to host the games and in 1982 we had our very first world class event happening in swanky new stadias. 2 years flat amazing!!! considering that Indian former Sport Minister who is so much against the games sat on the CWG-2010 expense file for 2 years that too when India got the successful bid in 2003.

I guess there is not enough time left in asking the question “Were the previous Governments wise in bringing the games to India”. We have only 50 more days left before the opening ceremony. I think its “bit” too late to ask this question. Government has spent 28,054 CR Rs  for this game. It just makes me think how many more godowns could have been created to stop grains from rotting or how many more districts could have been covered under NREGA.  Money spent is for good this is what government saying are we ready to buy this theory??? When we see there is rampant corruption all around. 

One of my very dear friend is working in Organizing Committee (OC) of these games and everytime I had a discussion with him around the negative publicity the games is generating I feel a pain in his voice when he says “ Kare Kallu aur mare Lallu” . It’s not worth mentioning who is “Kallu” out there.

India as we all know is better known for its magic tricks and amazing rope tricks. Just hoping that the OC, State and Central Government has some kind of magic wands in their hand which thay can use to clean up all the mess which is lying on Delhi roads so that the road to the CWG’2010 is far smoother and better than what it is now.