Dear MSD

In another 12 hours or so, you will walk out - rains permitting - to toss the coin with the Peter Pan of Pakistani cricket. And the burden on your shoulders will be the most that any sportsman has ever carried anywhere in the world, any time in history.
Tomorrow at this time of the night, I don't know what our frame of mind will be. Whatever it is - crushing sorrow or orgasmic elation - we won't be able to type out a coherent sentence for sure!

You know what the silliest slogan for this Cup is? 'Win it for Sachin'.
Here is a man who had given 22 years of his life to make us deliriously happy and all we can think for him is charity? As if he can't win it for himself. And to make it worse, the media have gone berserk over his forthcoming 100th hundred. As if there isn't enough pressure on him already. But don't worry. He can take the pressure.
You know, don't win it for Sachin. Win it for yourselves.
Or worse, let him retire from international cricket with 99 hundreds. And no World Cup against his name. Sometimes, a blemish makes it look better. You see 99.94 and know what I mean.

Tomorrow, we may be stoning your house. You know how we are...
But while we are in our senses - and till we come back to it again - we love you guys. Just love you.
How can you not love Viru - who's started every single match with a four.
And Yuvi, who's outdone even his own mentor as far as redemptions go.
Zak, who seems to be getting better with every match.
Ashwin, who's come into his first World Cup with nerves of steel. 
And all the other guys. Some of them may have floundered a bit recently but have given us those moments of glory that we will remember for the last days of our lives.
Who knows which one of them will do that again tomorrow? 
(*touch wood*touch wood*touch wood*)
And we will love you guys even more for that!

You know the last time India played a World Cup semi-final at home?
It was in the city of this blog - a place known for cultured connoisseurship. And you know what we did? We stoned the players out of the ground when it was clear that India was about to lose the match.
We claimed to be experts of the game and we didn't realise that it was harakiri to bat second on that pitch. We cheered like banshees when Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharna got out in the first over of the day. We cheered like monkeys when Sachin was playing like a maestro on that minefield of a pitch. And then, we pelted the future World Champions of cricket with plastic bottles.
You see, for all our professed knowledge about the game, we know NOTHING!
So ignore us when we hassle you for picking Chawla. You did the right thing by choosing Nehra for the last over. Well almost the right thing, because the only guy who could have won us that last over was probably Sachin.        

We are saying all this because of two reasons.
1. If you lose tomorrow, there will be a complete breakdown of logical faculties and we will want to kill you for that. We won't really kill you but may try/want/need to.
2. You know why you have to listen to nonsensical jerks like Srikkanth? Because, he was part of the last team that got us the Cup. And if that isn't enough to get your form back, I don't know what will. So, errr... change the game.

Incoherent mail? You bet! Was meant to be a short note to lift some pressure off your shoulders.

Oh - and one last favour. Kill the bastards.

With all our love and best wishes -
The Blue Billion

Fourth Umpire: What Undid the Aussies - Mirrors, WAGs or Asha?

(Published in Sify.com, on 25th March 2011, retrieved from http://www.sify.com/sports/what-undid-the-aussies-mirrors-wags-or-asha-news-columns-ldzqA4gebig.html)

“YESSSSSS!!!”



Sachin jumped up and high-fived Arjun, who hugged him, screaming, “India-Pakistan! India-Pakistan!”


“It’s as if they made India win,” Samyukta smirked, looking at her brother and the other four-and-a-half foot creature swaying around the room with him, before nodding at the television screen, “that’s exactly what Yuvraj and Raina are doing there. It’s creepy when men hug each other.”


Arvind laughed, like all straight men will at anything that stirs homophobia, and added to his daughter’s sentiment, “It’s not as bad as Paes and Bhupathi’s chest bumps, though.”


“Let them celebrate a little,” Sunita said, not making it clear whether she was referring to Sachin and Arjun, or Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina, “India’s won, after all.”


“Look at that loser!” Samyuktha laughed, as a bandaged Brett Lee stared dolefully at one of his teammates.


“India won because they knew their houses would be tarred if they lost before meeting Pakistan,” Arvind said, “that’s our biggest motivating factor. They get cars and houses if they win; they lose their existing cars and houses if they choke.”


“But it’s not only the Indian people who do that. They did the same thing in Bangladesh. No?” Sunita frowned.


“Probably. At least they didn’t send those guys to work in quarries like Kim Jong-Il did to the North Korean football coach,” Arvind said.


“Did they actually do that?” Sunita gasped, “what happened to him?”


“I’ll ask next time I meet someone from that mine,” Arvind promised his wife.


“Did you observe that Australia and India were fielding like each other?” Arvind’s father called, from his reclining chair, “absolute shame!”


“You think that’s fixed too, Pa?” Arvind asked.


“I think it’s divine retribution for that sidey video Brett Lee made with Asha Bhonsle,” Samyuktha grinned, “the ball did what everyone across the world wanted to do to him after it came out.”


“Asha Bhonsle made some video with a foreign band also, no?” Sunita said, “Scarlet Boys or something? Why does she do all these things?”


“Code Red,” Samyuktha said, “though Scarlet Boys would suit them just as well.”


Her grandfather turned, “I don’t think it’s fixed. But Modi probably had some black magic worked on the Australians. They broke an LCD in his dressing room, no?”


“The Australians went to Modi’s house?” Sunita asked her father-in-law.


“No, no, Ponting broke a TV in the team dressing room in the match against Zimbabwe,” her husband said impatiently, “after he was run out.”


“He can’t even aim his cricket kit properly,” snorted Arvind’s father, “no wonder the team didn’t make a single direct hit. With fielding like that, you don’t need the bad luck a broken mirror brings.”


“Does an LCD qualify as a mirror, Pa?” Arvind asked, innocently.


“He’s only continuing the curse,” his father answered, “remember, Hayden broke a mirror in Sydney during the Ashes series.” He added sinisterly, “remember what Ranatunga said. Remember where they come from. Crime is genetic.”


“That was in 2003. Didn’t seem to bring them much bad luck,” answered Arvind, “if you ask me, it’s the WAGs.”


“Wives and Girlfriends,” Samyuktha explained, before her mother could ask.


“What about them?” Sunita asked, curiously.


“The Indian WAGs create a scandal if someone finds a picture of them smoking a few years before the wedding. The Australian WAGs make news when they show up wearing see-through clothes at dinners. Which team do you think was more distracted?”


“So your theory is – in order for a team to perform, they need behnjis for wives?” Samyuktha scoffed at her father.


“Didn’t another one of the...WAGs, is that what you call them? Didn’t one of them get caught in some photo scandal? Bungle or something?” Sunita said.


“It’s a pity it couldn’t happen in the Eden Gardens,” Samyuktha said, “the crowd would have won it for them. None of the Australian cricketers would have been able to go near the boundary rope.”


“Yeah, and the match would have been awarded to Australia,” her father said.


“It’s all because of the mirror, I’m telling you,” his father declared, “you cannot damage a Gujarati’s property without consequences.”


“Like black magic and bad luck?” Arvind suddenly paused, “Pa, if only you could be in charge of a world-wide organisation for racial profiling, the Indian government would have fewer protests to lodge.”

Is the Turban a Terror Threat?

(Published in Sify.com, on 24th March 2011, retrieved from http://www.sify.com/news/is-the-turban-a-terror-threat-news-columns-ldym9eiahag.html)

(Photo Copyright: Sify.com. Unauthorised reproduction of this image is prohibited.)



On the 15th of March this year, Indian golfer Jeev Milka Singh’s coach Amritinder Singh was forced to remove his turban in public for a security check at the Milan airport. He told the press that he was being harassed despite being a sportsperson from a country whose Prime Minister wears a turban.

Ridiculously enough, despite having received a letter of apology for the conduct of the security officials from the Italian Golf Federation, Amritinder Singh went through exactly the same humiliating exercise at exactly the same airport on the 23rd of March.


While Foreign Minister S M Krishna has condemned the incident and India has issued a demarche to Italy, we’re left wondering why the incident occurred, and then repeated itself.


Is it racism? Is it religious prejudice? Is it a sadistic streak in a single security official? Is it paranoia? Or was it caused by the same twisted impulse that makes a watchman force someone to change the way he or she has parked the car, or a security guard ask someone to empty out a wallet or handbag at the entrance to a mall – ‘I will because I can; and I’m simply doing my duty’?


Most of us have been subject to such invasive searches at pilgrimage sites, as to put us off religious trips, if not religion itself.


The actual procedure is so cursory and indifferent as to allow anyone to carry anything inside – and it might well be, since terrorists are unlikely to pack bombs into their backpacks.


But the guards on duty often seem to find a bizarre pleasure in making a squirming visitor as uncomfortable as possible. And each one of the people who choose to exercise the little power they have in the most insulting manner possible has a ready excuse – “there have been so many terror attacks!”


Some people may shrug their shoulders and agree that the security officials have a valid point.


However, I doubt any country other than India has had a former President, a current Ambassador and a sportsperson frisked at international airports.


Abdul Kalam was subjected to a body search, reportedly including his footwear, in June 2009, at the Delhi airport of all places. The search is believed to have happened at the behest of the American head of Continental Airlines, and the story stayed away from the press for nearly a month.


The Indian Ambassador to the US, Meera Shankar, was singled out for a full-body pat-down while visiting Mississippi in December 2010 – purportedly because she was wearing a sari.


In both cases, the airlines coolly said there was no violation of protocol, and that their security rules allowed no exemptions, in response to India’s protests. We took it lying down, as always, just in case the harmony of our relationship with the US was disturbed by our remonstrations.


Now, the coach of a leading Indian sportsman has been coerced into submitting to an act he equates to stripping in public.


When security officials have got away with frisking two people carrying diplomatic passports, whose credentials don’t suggest they intended to hijack the planes they were travelling in, do we really expect this protest to be taken seriously?


Whatever the airline or the Italian government has to say, chances are that our politicians and diplomats will smile, shrug and shake hands, while the media goes berserk.


The fact that this particular incident comes so soon after American diplomat (and suspected CIA spy) Raymond Davis literally got away with murder in Pakistan makes me wonder why India throws up its hands so easily when it has reason and logic on its side, when clearly, other countries don’t hesitate to back their citizens even when they have none on theirs.


Is it simply a reflection of the attitude that made us subject to foreign invasions for so many hundreds of years? Is that what made us pack Warren Anderson off to safety after the company he ran had destroyed so many lives? Is that what makes us issue ‘strong condemnations’ and then sit back?


If we chew our lips thoughtfully, and then concede that the turban is a terror threat this time round, we’ll know the answer. Or, perhaps we should wait for Manmohan Singh to oblige the same official on his next trip to Milan before we know for sure.

Of Jaya’s history, Karthik’s geography and the DMK-Cong chemistry

(Published in Sify.com on 18th March, 2011, retrieved from http://www.sify.com/news/tn-polls-jaya-s-history-karthik-s-geography-and-the-dmk-cong-chemistry-news-national-ldssKJaagdg.html)

Picture Courtesy: Sify.com. Unauthorised reproduction of this image is prohibited.


The vernacular media had a field day on March 17, filling their pages with analysis, accusations and grievances against sundry parties in their reportage of Jayalalithaa’s move in denying her allies the constituencies they had demanded.


However, Dinamalar seemed less agitated by the AIADMK’s announcement than the Election Commission’s rules. Its lead story goes, “This time round, the Election Commission has announced a plethora of new rules, which have left parties, voters and even officials confused.”


The newspaper does have a point, though. Among the stranger regulations was this one – “All posters, hoardings and posts bearing part flags or the faces of members should be removed from public places, and the colours on them removed.”


But even more bewildering is the urban discrimination of the EC; it has reportedly said, “Only in rural areas, and with the permission of the owner, can political parties put up wall advertisements. But no posters, banners or photos can be put up.” What exactly the content of the wall advertisements can be remains unclear.


This injunction may seem a little weird, especially given the cost of liquor in TASMAC shops – “People cannot carry more than Rs. 1 lakh cash or more than three bottles of alcohol.” Clearly, there is a connection between these two entities, which none of us can fathom.


Not all newspapers were distracted by the rules, though.


‘Why did Jayalalithaa abandon Andipatti?’ screams website OneIndia. We’re not sure whether the writer of this piece has a bone to pick with Jayalalithaa, Brahmins, soothsayers or deserters of Andipatti as it declares, “after being warned that winning would be very, very difficult if she contested from any area near Madurai thanks to heavyweight Central minister Azhagiri, ADMK General Secretary Jayalalithaa has decided to contest from Srirangam, which is largely populated by people of her Brahmin caste.”


However, the report contradicts itself, suggesting Jayalalithaa had considered contesting from several other constituences, including some in the northern part of Tamil Nadu, and arrived at Srirangam by elimination, as her earlier preferences were strongholds of the DMK and its allies. It goes on to mention the ‘plethora of corruption cases’ against Jayalalithaa, and reasons that the AIADMK chief won at Andipatti in 2002 thanks to former Tamil Nadu governor Fathima Beevi, whom it christens her fairy godmother.


It leaves the reader with this nugget of a conundrum - “Since the time of MGR, ADMK’s enormous vote bank of the Mukkulathor community was being safeguarded by Jayalalithaa with Sasikala’s help. So, she has been contesting bravely from Andipatti. But in the past few elections, though she won, it has become obvious that the people of Andipatti have cast her aside. So, having been forced into a corner, Jayalalithaa ruled out Andipatti and will contest from the place where her fellow-Brahmins dominate by numbers. At this juncture, it may be noted that she said her roots are in Srirangam!”


This insightful piece then informs its readers, “former Minister Pandurangan, despite having a big moustache, slaps himself – sorry, touches himself – on the cheeks when he sees Jayalalithaa.” This article evidently tries to convey that he wasn’t given a seat despite this intriguing quirk. It ends with a note that Jayalalithaa will begin her campaign in Madurai on March 18.


An earlier report from the same agency said the MDMK scheduled a high-level ‘emergency meeting’ for March 19, four days after Jayalalithaa said she was willing to give the party only 8 seats, though they had hoped for 16. It quoted anonymous party cadre as chorusing, “when so many people betrayed Jayalalithaa’s trust, we stood as firm as mountains; we never thought she would behave this way.”


The report also states that MDMK leader Vaiko had maintained a calm silence and shown extreme patience, realising these qualities were integral to the self-esteem of his party after a snub from their ally (though other newspapers hinted that he may head a Third Front in response to Jayalalithaa’s affront – umm, that was not intended to rhyme).


The agency then accuses Jayalalithaa of having an unjustifiable degree of pride after bringing DMDK leader Vijaykanth into her fold. The actor, whose honorific is ‘Captain’, is most famous for making a transformer burst with the electric impulses of his nerve endings when the movie villain tried to electrocute him; this feat was only topped by his performing a complicated surgery by the light of a mobile phone.


Sadly, the significance of this paled when Rajnikanth’s Robot performed a Caesarean without a brain, in the middle of a fight with its lady love, and assisted by a team of students. Some may argue that Aamir Khan and the other two Idiots had outdone both when they used car batteries and a mobile phone to deliver a baby.


However, we digress.


Dinathanthi manages to report Jayalalithaa’s announcement, without evident prejudice, while subtly including a report in its latter pages on the benevolence of Karunanidhi in bestowing 63 seats on the Congress.


DMK party mouthpiece Murasoli, which Karunanidhi claims is the first child he fathered (his sexagenarian children continue to be ‘young leaders’) and the one he is proudest of (his other offspring have shown more grey shades than the newsprint), cheerfully ignores developments on the AIADMK front on its website, while focusing on the grace with which the DMK patriarch gave the Congress the seats it wanted.


Dinamani’s headlines read, ‘ADMK’s list of candidates: Communists shocked!’ After saying the Marxist-Communist parties had “emphasised that AIADMK should withdraw its candidates from the areas in which the Left wishes to contest”, it quotes a complicated press release from the Left bloc. The gist of the press release, which speaks of several meetings between several committees of spokespersons, seems to be that this move from their ally has left them shocked, as the meetings ended only an hour before the announcement.


A user comment on the online version of the article had sage advice for the Left. It reads “Hi, dear communist. If you want, please join Karthik or TR. All the seats will go to you. Enjoy!”


While actor-director-cameraman-music director-editor-writer-universal brother T Rajendar, who is sometimes better known as Simbu’s father, has not made news recently, actor Karthik – who was last seen leaping from pillar to post in Mani Ratnam’s Raavanan – is reported to have broken ties with the ‘back-stabbing’ Jayalalithaa, lauded Karunanidhi’s magnanimity, and announced that his party will field candidates for 40 seats.


Unfortunately, an astute reporter points out that many of these seats don’t exist anymore. In a report titled ‘Karthik’s party, which contests even from nonexistent areas!’, the scribe says, “Actor Karthik, the chief of All India Naadaalum Makkal Katchi, announced that the party would contest from 40 constituencies, and released a list of candidates too. However, this contained constituencies that ceased to exist after delimitation, such as Cheranmahadevi, Saathaankulam, Kadalaadi, Ilaiyaankudi, Samayanallur and others. Thus, he has announced his intentions to contest from nonexistent places.”


The piece went on to quote him as telling reporters, complete with ellipsis, “We ha-ave writte-en a letter...to...the ADMK party General Secretary Jayalalithaa...madam. We did this in four sides, four pages. I don’t want to think again about why we came out.”


The reporter, having announced that he is running out of space to use ellipsis, quickly sums up the actor’s ode to Vaiko. The report finally chides Jayalalithaa for allowing Karthik into her fold despite his poor geographical skills, and cautions the actor to make sure the cars he uses for canvassing are provided with engines.


Nakkeeran chose to focus on Karunanidhi, who held a press conference late on Wednesday night. When asked about the ADMK planning to contest from Communist constituencies, he reportedly said, “I don’t peep into the next house or the opposite one.” The reply was greeted by titters, though the report did not say whether the source of mirth was perceived wit, or a mental image of the octogenarian negotiating his wheelchair over the fences that separate good neighbours.

Nuclear Power: Is the Threat Worth the Risk?

(Published in Sify.com on 18th March, 2011, retrieved from http://www.sify.com/news/nuclear-power-is-the-threat-worth-the-risk-news-columns-ldslKhddgcf.html)

(Picture Courtesy: Sify.com. Unauthorised reproduction of this image is prohibited.)

First, the earthquake in Japan set tsunami alerts ringing across the world. Then, the rating of the subsequent nuclear emergency began to increase every day. While the television beams voyeuristic scenes of trauma and dread into our living rooms, the newspapers carry detailed reports of diplomatic discussions and critical precautions.



The worry of radioactivity in Japan, arguably the most in-control nation in the world today, has set such a wave of panic in motion that our e-mail and phone inboxes are filled with cautionary bulletins about the prospect of acid rain and nuclear danger. However, the world does not seem to see this as a situation where our thirst for nuclear power has to be questioned.


While comics have made mutant superheroes interesting, and movies have made mutant predators horrifying, the only emotions pictures of the victims of the Chernobyl tragedy evoke are pity and concern. Some of these victims were born decades after the actual accident, which itself occurred years before the nuclear arms race became a global contest.


‘If that didn’t serve as a warning to the world, what will?’ one may ask. Perhaps the fact that we don’t live in times when America could get away with dropping the atom bomb on Japan. Yes, America has been accidentally killing civilians all over the Middle East, but if Saddam’s imaginary weapons of mass destruction were anything to go by, the threat of nuclear power is no deterrent.


The world today is full of powerhouses that have loaded guns pointed at each other, so that a deadlock may be facilitated just in case a duel is called. Worse, each country that possesses nuclear weapons, and is conducting nuclear research, claims that it is seeking a method of power generation to replace fossil fuels.


Incidentally, the only controlled nuclear fusion reaction that the earth has access to – the one that’s going on in the sun – is already being harnessed successfully as a clean alternative. We all know that we won’t stop using fossil fuels till we run out of supply.


While Japan tries to recover quickly from a series of related catastrophes, and several countries along the Pacific coast are reviewing their safety mechanisms and keeping their fingers crossed, it’s time the question of nuclear disarmament was taken more seriously.


Since the turn of the century, we’ve seen natural disasters of mammoth proportions nearly every year – Tropical Storm Allison in 2000, the Bhuj earthquake in 2001, Hurricane Katrina in 2004, the tsunami of 2004, the Kashmir earthquake in 2005, the Java earthquake of 2006, the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, the Australian heat wave and resulting bushfires of 2009, the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption in Iceland in 2010, and the Pakistan floods of 2010 come to mind at once.


In this year alone, the earthquake and tsunami in Chile was quickly followed by floods in Australia and an earthquake in New Zealand, before the horror in Japan.


With our current carbon footprint doing nothing to decrease the threat of global warming, several astronomical marvels being predicted that could alter the forces acting on the earth, and naturally occurring tectonic shifts in the offing, it is only to be expected that we’ve not seen the last – or the worst – of natural disasters.


While the drop of a bomb could wipe out entire nations, a leak from a reactor can damage millions of lives, many of which won’t be conceived for years to come.


As we face the very real danger of this in Japan, shouldn’t we focus less on the implications that the paralysis of a booming economy has for the business world, and seriously think about nuclear disarmament? I’m not talking about stopping expansion here, because that isn’t enough. It’s time the world as a whole thought about dismantling its nuclear apparatus.


Of course, there will be objections, and of course experts will argue against the logic of such a drastic call. Governments will assure us that they have the right safeguards in place. But unless we intend to fight a war to end all wars yet again, we’re only setting ourselves up for a cataclysm to destroy life as we know it.

Secret Diary: Dhoni's Debt to Rajni and Captain

(Published in Sify.com on March 17, 2011, retrieved from http://www.sify.com/sports/Secret-diary-Dhoni-s-debt-to-Rajini-and-Captain-imagegallery-cricket-ldqruageiea.html#galname)

A sting - like most, imagined.

A Nobleman with an Evil Streak: Interview with Jeffrey Archer

(Published in I-Witness, The New Indian Express, dated 13th March, 2011)

This is an interview I did with Jeffrey Archer on his promotional tour of Only Time Will Tell, the first book of the five-part Series The Clifton Chronicles. The audio of the interview is here, and the text of my write-up below. From his mock-racial profiling to his rant against publishers and Bollywood, none of the author's barbs is seriously meant. He was usually pulling the leg of someone or the other within earshot. So, here's the interview - which consists largely of his witticisms and my giggles - and a write-up, which some of you may prefer. As for the interview, and I'm not saying this to sell it, the last bit, about colour-blindness, is the funn(i)est.

As I wait in the Presidential Suite, I wonder whether I should address Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare as ‘Lord Archer’, ‘Mr. Archer’ or ‘Jeffrey’, and prepare for a suited-up, right-wing nobleman to walk in, adjusting his pince nez as he dusts off lint with a monogrammed handkerchief.

When a white-haired, T-shirted gentleman saunters in, hands in pockets, hollering, “’Morning!” to the squirming hotel staff, I’m so surprised I say, “Hi!”


“Hello!” he grins, and looks around, “nice room! Why wasn’t I given this one?” Shaking his head in mock-frustration, he plonks himself down on the sofa.


“It can’t be much fun to be on tour when the World Cup is on,” I begin, and the author says, “It’s awful not to be able to see any. Which reminds me – come back, Australian!” – this to Daniel Watts, the Managing Director of Pan Macmillan, Asia (whom he bullies at regular intervals, seemingly with more enjoyment after I remark that it’s like watching the verbal-attack version of Bodyline). He wants his latest offering, Only Time Will Tell, first book of the five-part series The Clifton Chronicles, hand-delivered to AB de Villiers, on pain of death.


He then chides the Australian for not knowing who de Villiers is, and the Indian representative of his publishers because, “Your problem is AB can run three runs while your lot run one. You’ve got the best batting team in the world! But they can’t run between the wickets, and they can’t field. They’re FAT!” Having left the two men looking suitably sheepish, he turns to me, “The final will be between England and Ireland!”


“What is with you and the Irish?” I burst out, forgetting that this man has been a bestseller since before I was born, and that his weekly tax bill likely tops my annual earnings.


“Oh, I love the Irish!” Jeffrey Archer smiles, “They’re such a great race! Good people. They read such a lot of books too. Big readers, big writers.” In The Prison Diaries, he declares, “God gave the Irish the gift of language, and threw in some potatoes as an afterthought.”


We finally remember he’s here to promote Only Time Will Tell, which traces the early years of Harry Clifton, the son of a waitress and either a stevedore or a titled shipping magnate. The series will span a century, but the first book is a cliff-hanger. “It’s a horrible ending!” I whine, “the book’s too short!”


He gasps, “It’s nearly four hundred pages! What do you want, blood?” He waves his hand dismissively, “stop complaining. You’ll know in a year. I’ve written the first draft, so I know what happens to Harry. At the end of the first book, I thought, ‘oh, my God, how am I going to get out of this?’ I’m not TELLING you! The one thing I will tell you is that he’s a writer. So you’re going to get all my knowledge of awful publishers, and all the experiences I’ve been through!”


The other things he reveals about the second book are: (a) it could be called Above and Beyond, or The Sins of the Father (b) it’s set in the 1940s, with the backdrop of World War II (c) half of it will take place in America. “No KGB,” he smiles.


I ask if his writing has got more personal, since A Prisoner of Birth took us to Belmarsh, and Only Time Will Tell takes us to Weston-super-Mare and Oxford – Archer’s alma mater. “All authors do that, don’t they? You know, you write about what you know about. Jane Austen, Scott Fitzgerald... Of course, Shakespeare didn’t. He never went to Denmark or Italy or France, and he wrote about them all the time.” I smirk, “if he had, he’d’ve known there were no monasteries in the Roman Republic.” Archer laughs, “good point!”


He then says, “There’s a lot of Harry in me. I want Harry to come from a background I understand. I’m going to do him for a hundred years, and I don’t want to keep making him up.” Harry’s mother Maisie is based on Archer’s own mother, who graduated at sixty, wrote a novel, and created a character called ‘Tuppence’ – Jeffrey’s alter ego.


When I indulge myself in psychoanalysis, and suggest Archer got more comfortable talking about his own life after writing The Prison Diaries, he muses, “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that! How interesting!” I venture to suggest his experience in prison was contrary to a poignant sentence in Harry’s story – “an abundance of sympathy can be more overwhelming than solitude.” To that, his Lordship snaps, “You don’t take everything so literally! I’m a writer. I do what I do. Treat me as a simple man!”


On the subject of hypocrisy, I tell him that for someone who was once so proud of not being computer savvy, he’s rather an avid blogger and tweeter. He gives me a ‘gotcha!’ look and says his secretary Alison does all of that. “I tell her on the phone, or I dictate it!”


He speaks of how painstakingly he brought in the temporal setting, of an era when tennis players wore long trousers, and football fans applauded the opposition. I smugly point out that he referred to the United Provinces as “Uttar Pradesh”, before 1940. “Oh, that’s bad!” he says, looking sheepish for once. Then he adds graciously, “Well done! But it didn’t stop your enjoying the book!”


However, he refuses to allow my contention that colour blindness isn’t inherited from the paternal side. “Stop making things up! I had that checked by a leading doctor. Go back and get in your basket!” he roars. “So there’s no loophole?” I ask, and he shakes his head furiously, “no loop...ah! Wait for Book 3!”


I ask whom he would cast if the series were televised. He wags a finger at me, “Only Indians say ‘who will play the main lead?’ It’s because of Bollywood!” He sighs, “get back to serious questions!”


I decide to do all his fans a service. “You have to tell me who Mentor from A Matter of Honour is!” Archer looks puzzled, “Mentor?” and pauses. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! The only book I’ve read in the last twenty years of my own is Kane and Abel, which I re-crafted. I don’t read them again. I’m on to the next book.”


However, he plans to take “a whole week off” after his sixteen-cities-in-four-weeks tour. Then, it’s back to writing in chunks of two hours through the day, with the indulgence of two theatre visits a week when he’s in London.


He’s also busy with charity auctioneering, and will conduct auctions for the Queensland floods, and the earthquake in New Zealand on his tour. I can’t resist asking him what he thinks of Anish Kapoor’s art and he sighs, “I can’t work it out. I’m not a modern. Very popular, though. Very highly thought of.”


As he signs my books with a felt-tip pen, we discuss a mutual hatred of people who can’t read books without bending their spines. Daniel steps in with a hard-sell of the limited edition hardback, which Archer ruins with, “humph! A first edition of Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less is worth something. This isn’t!”


He chases me off with, “We’re tired of you. Go away and don’t darken my doorway again! Write your own novel. I’m going to find lots of things wrong with it!”


As I leave, he begins telling Daniel everything that’s wrong with the Australian cricket team, since “the day you lost Gillespie, Gilchrist and Warne.” I recall reading that journalists in Mumbai had to interview him with the England-South Africa match on mute.

The Logic of Brands: It Doesn't 'Ad' Up

(Published in Sify.com on 11 March, 2011, retrieved from http://www.sify.com/news/the-worst-ads-of-the-season-news-columns-ldlmdxecajj.html)

There’s such a thing as getting too much sun. However, with the summer yet to set in, the heat seems to have got to our ad agencies. If someone were to have to select the worst advertisement of the season, he or she would be hard put to make a decision.



In the beginning, there was that unforgettable soft-drink ad.


Suddenly, five cricketers decided to go topless, with body paint; clearly, the ad agency had been going through back issues of Sports Illustrated when inspiration struck.


The major debates in my family were about whether Harbhajan Singh had broken the statutes of his religion in taking a razor to his torso, and whether Virender Sehwag had used a body double to do away with some of his unflattering curves.


However, I believe the larger impact of the ad was that seeing our cricketers half-naked was so hard to stomach that most people purged the drink from their shopping lists, and switched to its rival.


Sadly, the executives of the rival then felt compelled to come out with an even more repulsive ad – which seems to have been nicknamed the ‘Brr’ campaign.


Some of my friends believe it was originally inspired by Javed Jaffrey from the ‘Hamdard ka Cinkara tonic’ ad, which was last televised when all of us were in school. But I believe it has drawn from the dances hijras have been performing in every movie that spoofs them. This time round, the debate in my family centred on whether the pigeon had been shaved for the ad.


The prospects of snacking while watching cricket matches have been severely dampened by a high-definition video of M S Dhoni streaming sweat as he steps in to bat. It does damage the image of ‘Captain Cool’, while simultaneously making me wish my television screen was as blurry as the ancient one my grandfather bought.


The other sector that has decided to appeal to the un-aesthetic sense of its target audience is the motor vehicle industry.


It began with a man staring out of the window and “wowwwww!”-ing as a woman in high heels walks by, while having dinner with his annoyed wife. Clearly, the ad makers were naïve enough to think we were naïve enough to think he was staring at the high-heeled woman, and not the box-like car that was following her. But, when the couple is out petting other people’s babies in prams, the wife “wowwwww!”-s at the car. Inexplicably, the husband looks pleased with himself.


What is even more bewildering is a note from the makers of the car, saying they had slowed down the footage, so we could take a good look at the car – just in case we thought that was the car’s top speed.


But this ad appears positively classy when compared to the campaign for a bike – scratch that, a scooter – that any man would be embarrassed to ride. The latest ad for that one shows two women sexually harassing their boyfriends from the backseat, ostensibly in a bid to outdo each other. An old woman shields her stuffed toy’s eyes from the sight – a disturbing image in itself – while her husband excitedly tells her that the lasses are trying to prove that the scooter has body balance.


Among the other epiphanies I’ve had pre-summer is that the Khan with the least annoying voice is Salman. I don’t even remember which brands Shah Rukh Khan represents – in his determination to outdo Amitabh Bachchan, he seems to have signed more ad contracts than the Big B, in addition to the Don remakes and KBC Version 2.0. The reason Aamir Khan’s brand image is so foggy is that, irrespective of which company he’s advertising for, he has a penchant for disguise. Saif Ali Khan’s pencil moustache doesn’t quite qualify as a disguise, but I do wish the sound engineers would man up his voice next time round – you know, take it a few octaves down.


Another ad whose brand I don’t remember stars John Abraham, Akshay Kumar, Ritiesh Deshmukh, and a portly character whom I’ve never seen before, pledging to forgo various types of food till the Indian team achieves a stipulated goal.


Though the Zoo-Zoos lost their cuteness a while ago, their new Super-Zoo-Zoo is the only ad character who makes me smile when he stops the bullet, however kitschy the Chuck Norris and Rajnikanth jokes have made that particular action.


My conclusion from this analysis is that a series of unfortunate inspirations can make a cliché funny.

Fourth Umpire: It's All Because of Emigration!

(Published in Sify.com, on 10 March 2011, retrieved from http://www.sify.com/sports/it-s-all-because-of-emigration-news-columns-ldjqg8hhjae.html )

“Pa, why are you watching Kenya vs. Can...?” Arvind trailed off, as the seventy-year-old man raised one hand, and continued to write with the other.



“Dad!” Sachin whispered, tugging at Arvind’s shirt, “he’s not letting us watch highlights of all the matches we missed because of school. Arjun and I want to take leave for all the India matches.”


“No.”


“Dad! Arjun’s parents said yes!” Sachin whined.


“I’m sure he told them your parents said yes,” Arvind grunted, “no, Sachin.”


“Why do you want to take leave for all the India matches?” Sachin’s grandfather called, without turning around, “you should be watching these. These are the teams of the future.”


“Kenya and Canada?” Arvind scoffed.


“You were laughing about Kenya, Holland and Canada when I said we’d have a new winner. Two out of those three have almost been giant-killers this tournament,” his father finally turned, “and remember, Bangladesh almost beat India. Ireland did beat England. Canada would have beaten Pakistan if not for Afridi.”


“Pa, that’s the point of a game. See, there’s an Afridi!”


“No, no, no,” the old man held up his handiwork, “I have calculated the chances of who will make it to the top. It’s an open field now. We could see all the so-called minnows go through. Except Kenya – I don’t expect them to make it on current form.”


“Excellent analysis, Pa. You should join Sidhu and Ganguly,” Arvind suggested, “at least you have something original to say.”


“You know why this problem has come up?” his father smiled triumphantly.


“Because you’re senile?”


His father waved the comment aside, and handed over the paper he had been scribbling on, “I mean the problem of the minnows.”


“I want to take leave! Arjun will laugh at me!” Sachin screamed, suddenly.


“Ask your mother,” Arvind frowned at the figures as his son dashed off, “Pa, India cannot lose to Netherlands!”


“Psychological advantage. We tied with England, but the Dutch almost defeated England, and Ireland did beat them. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is here!” and the old man pointed to an underlined word.


“EMI?” Arvind sighed, “now, your theory is the cricketers have to pay EMIs, so they are taking money to pay badly?”


“Not EMI. Emi. Short form of ‘emigration’. That’s the problem!” his father ran the pen down a list of names, “look at the Canadian team – full of Indians! That boy Balaji Rao was a Tamil Nadu player. If we had used him properly, he’d be taking wickets for India now. Waste of potential. There’s even a Mishra in the Kenyan team!”


“And what about Ireland?”


“Cricket brings Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland together. It’s like an India-Pakistan XI!” his father said, excitedly.


“No, Pa, they’re not the enemies!”


“Yes, correct. England is the enemy. Our politicians still don’t understand that!”


“Okay, so now, it’s not just emigration. It’s all because of colonialism,” Arvind rolled his eyes.


“Ah, but to understand the influence of colonialism on cricket, you have to look at a different team,” his father smiled, “South Africa.”


“What, reservation and affirmative action?”


“No, no. All those players would be in the Dutch team if not for colonialism!”


“Yeah, colonialism wrecked everything. Otherwise, Afridi, Sachin and Balaji Rao would be in the same gilli danda team!”


“Arvind!” Sunita came in, with the other Sachin, “you told him he can take leave? And now you’re discussing his gilli danda team!”


“I don’t have a gilli danda team! You never listen to me, Dad!” and their son stormed out of the room. Suddenly, he peeped in, “if you don’t let me take leave, I’ll drink tap water and fall sick!”


“Good parting shot!” his grandfather called.


“That’s one good reason to emigrate,” Arvind conceded, “that threat wouldn’t work in Canada.”

Sale! Sale!

As we enter the last leg of the league matches of the World Cup, a quick update on the World Cup book may be in order! Excuse the subtle (but pompous) emphasis on the. 

To start with, The Times of India listed the book in the World Cup special of their What's Hot supplement - as one of the few books to buy during the tournament. It had some totally cool books for company including Mathew Hayden's autobiography and Shehan Karunatilaka's Chinaman (which is being touted as the - again, emphasis - Sri Lankan novel). Most people complimented me on the positive 'review' before they discovered it was the blurb!  

My colleagues at work realised my predicament and soon, the book made an appearance on HT City as well.

The first serious review of the book appeared on Suhel Banerjee's blog. 

The adult in him was disappointed but the child was suitably happy at "the well researched statistics, the junkets of trivia gleaned from over 35 years of the WC, the jovial sketches of players, coaches and commentators, the most spectacular matches which the present school going generation couldn't watch live, highlighted and described with the love and passion for the game - all this put together makes it a must gift have for most school going kids"

Another 'social media friend' - Abhishek Mukherjee - was among the early adopters and wrote me a very complimentary email (which also pointed out some errors). Since the note was personal and the errors were embarrassing, I will not reproduce them here (heh heh - smart, no?). But I will do post a very cool picture of two books he received from Flipkart on the same day. And I was mighty pleased to hear that he read the one on the left first. So what if it was because of the looming World Cup?   

My batchmate - Karishma a.k.a Kim - decided to give me a signpost on our alumni website, where I got featured alongside the HR Head of P&G (a senior of mine) and a batchmate who is a prospective Mills & Boon writer! I was quite amused find myself in the company of two beautiful women for having written about 11 not-so-beautiful men! Kim also took this picture at Landmark Delhi and put me in the august company of a former Prime Minister.

After this, two media behemoths of East and South decided to post very positive reviews of the book in their book/young sections. 

The Telegraph - on March 4 - listed Cricket! in its Paperback Pickings. 

The review started with "need of the hour" and ended with "...neatly compiled and accompanied with caricatures, this book provides facts that are indispensable to a cricket-lover’s arsenal". Needless to say, this review gave a fitting reply to all those in my hometown who thought that my crowning glory was getting a three-digit rank in the West Bengal JEE. 

When last heard, my mother was preserving the day's paper and my father's childhood friend was hunting for the book high and low!

The Hindu sprung the other pleasant surprise when the book got listed in its Young World supplement.

The venerable Murali N. Krishnaswamy's reviews contain phrases like "thoughtful touches", "sprinkled with history and facts" and "well-rounded book". 

It also says that the book has "a series of delightful illustrations done by the author himself". While I totally agree with the delightful illustrations bit, let me quickly point out that they are done by Dipankar Bhattacharya.  I can't draw to save my life.

Nevertheless, ignoring The Hindu is not something even Ms Jayalalitha or Mr Karunanidhi does very often - making the recommendation very clear! 

UPDATED TO ADD: Shri Time Out Delhi has come out with a nice review too. They feel "the author has kept the content simple and breezy for his book’s younger audience" and "with its wide field of anecdotes, trivia and statistics, it’s a pretty good read for adults too". They get the publisher's name wrong but hey, nobody's perfect! Oh - they also mentioned the author's "well-known and witty blog". 
Thank you, thank you - you are too kind!

All in all, I have all the material for the second edition's blurb stitched up. Only, I need the first edition completely cleaned up before that can happen. 

Ladies and gentlemen - 

I have been told by the super-efficient folks of Dial-A-Book that they have a few 'author-signed' copies (ahem) left. I am sure they can even get you a non-signed copy, should you want. 

The online bookstores (listed helpfully, on the right column) are your fallback choices - if you are anywhere in India. 

Or, you could walk into one of the real bookshops near you.  

What? Still reading this post? Where's your copy of Cricket - AYWTKATWC? 

(Shit, I should have made the name simpler!) 

SECOND UPDATE: The Telegraph has decided to call the book one of the 'Five Fast-Selling Titles This World Cup' on their The Good Life (wow!) section, right underneath an interview with Gautam Bhimani (eww)! I swear I have not paid them anything for such super reviews. They seem to have actually liked the book (wow! wow!) and their trivia about the book says - "The author was born and brought up in Calcutta." (have run out of wows now!)

International Woman of Mystery

The second child has lots of déjà vu around it. The same doctor, same nursing home and even the same labour delivery room only heighten the feeling. You are a little more relaxed about the process but as – if not more – anxious about the outcome!

And a planned delivery date (to induce labour) makes it a wee bit orderly, maybe? So, my brother-in-law, his wife and I allowed ourselves a few jokes with the attending doctor.

Doc: Any complications during last delivery?

Me: None during the delivery. But the boy’s growing up is a different matter altogether.

Doc: I will be there for the delivery.

My sis-in-law: Can we get Aamir Khan to do the delivery?

*********

The formal name (bhalo naam) was easier to decide this time. We had a girl’s name from last time, which did not lose its charm in the four years. And it also met the specs of my boss who messaged, “…and please to bless her with an easier name!”

The nickname (daak naam) was trickier. I thought it was settled when we named the son Joy. Like all Luvs have brothers named Kush, all Joys are destined to have siblings named Viru. Being a god-fearing Indian, I thought that is what the epics ordained.

Except my son – a Cartoon Network devotee – had other ideas. (Cartoon Network is to Sholay what Scientology is to Christianity.) In line with his favourite show’s names, he has named his sister Ferb. Yes, yes – don’t ask!

And since I remember an idiot called Roon who named his younger sister Moon (and no one objected), I stood around while this happened.

Ladies and gentlemen – meet Ferbie Chaudhuri.

Like most embarrassing Bengali nicknames, we are hoping this will sound less sillier with time.

*********

A girl child born on International Women’s Day is expected to grow up to become one hell of a woman. But then, why should women be special only on one day of the year?

Having as much faith in sun-sign based astrology as Dhoni has in Sreesanth, I am always wondering what a child will turn out to be. So, I always look for people born on the same day and want to believe that the child will turn out like that. Five years back, Roger Waters being born on September 6 was reason for great joy.

This time, we had a very bubbly young colleague who was born on the next day and the girl’s mother the day after. I was quite satisfied with that since Fardeen Khan is clearly not in the same league.

But I am happy now that there are no ‘famous’ predecessors on the same day. I just hope that a few decades on, some other father would search for famous birthdays on 8 March and feel very happy that Drishti Chaudhuri was born on the same day.