A Woman's Words

I've never been particularly fond of her.

At best, she came across as a harridan. At worst, she paled under the shadow of her more (in)famous hubby first; and then in comparison to his wide-mouthed, more attractive intern.

Then she decided to come into her own and ended up giving Mr Obama a run for his online-acquired money. She lost her party's nomination narrowly but, instead of retreating and licking her wounds, came right back fighting again. Only, this time, the target was someone else and she was on Obama's side.

Grudgingly, I began to change my opinion of the would-be first woman president of the US of A.

Yesterday (or was it the day before in another time zone) she wowed America with what must be a speechwriter's potential prize-winner. Read it or watch it (in three parts unfortunately). And soak in every word that's winning hearts and votes.

Either way, Hillary Clinton's moved up in my esteem. And in many others' I guess.

If only she'd become Obama's running mate... would've been interesting to see the shadow-play then.







Does Mr McCain have anything to say, I wonder?

Me, Myself and i

For all those obsessed with a misplaced sense of self-importance, check out Caroline Winter in NYT...

Dog Flight

Okay, so the BMC is ready to dish out Rs 1000 for every pothole you spot in Bombay!

I've just landed in my favourite city and haven't spotted a single pothole... aren't there any between the airport and Chowpatty? Or am I so used to the craters of Gurgaon that Bombay seems like a dream-run?

Talking of runaways...Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport (mouthful!) opened India's longest runway today with a dog chasing its shadow down the asphalt... spotted it on a news channel; can't find it online.

Wonder what would happen to dogs that chase cars and finally catch up... what would they do next? Lift a leg and wet a tyre, I guess.

Cheers!

Teach not Cheat

If only we could Teach India not to Cheat India...

Superheroes

There's been so much written about Dark Knight that I'm  glad I didn't read a single word about it till today and that I finally managed to see the film yesterday... almost alone.

I'm also glad I heeded the advice of a young designer who shared the movie off his pen drive but cautioned me not to watch it on the MacBook until I'd seen it in the movie hall first. Was he right!

How I wish Ramesh Sippy would see the film along with his Vijay and see what one can do with a double-headed coin all through the film.

And what if Gabbar had met the Joker (may both their angry souls rest in peace)?

I was warned that this was a dark, depressing film and that I shouldn't take it too seriously (its tagline is 'Why so serious?'). True, it's depressing but in an alluring kind of way... like the little boy lost in the world of comics and superheroes, I too need that willing suspension of disbelief as long as one doesn't try to imitate the winged wonder and defy gravity... bruises and pain are the only result of "what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object (The Joker)." 

And if there are superheroes we need and superheroes we deserve, it's going to be tough choosing between the two. Just as it is with friends in real life.

What's good about the Nolan duo is that they've crafted a tight plot and turned it into a gripping masterpiece that's a hit in every which way. And so Batman meets James Bond meets Darth Vader (almost).

There are also plenty of reviews that'll show up when you search but this one is insightful and doesn't show up on Google yet. Read it only after you've seen the film.

As for me, I'm going to see it again (also because of Morgan Freeman). And will try and "endure" this world as Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred (Michael Caine) put it... no point giving up just yet. There are a few jokers yet to be dispensed with.

By the way, almost allegorically, I think the real dark knight is Aaron Eckhart, the D.A. And the real hero is the one who's the villain.

Perhaps that's what makes this film almost tormenting in its hangover...

YouSpirit

Perhaps it's my paranoia of getting drowned in a swimming pool, or maybe it's the sheer awe of watching a superhuman re-create Adidas' 'Impossible is Nothing' theme in real life... either way Michael Phelps has lit a spark somewhere on this lazy Sunday morning.

As he stroked his way to win his eighth Olympic gold medal (the number's lucky for the non-Chinese as well!) with yet another world-record less than a couple of hours ago, the glory of a quartet winning a relay was overshadowed by this one man who is now being called Phenomenal Phelps.

Some of us watched water catch fire as it happened today. In other worlds still asleep, people may have missed out on this feat. And even if they were up and about, there is little chance of them having caught the action - in at least one so-called developed world that I know, some people have no access to daily newspapers and certainly no television set. The only way someone can afford to stay in touch with the world is either a radio (yes, it still works!) or the free Internet.

Enter YouTube... much abused for copyright violations from publishers in Belgium to the music mafia in India - and everyone in between. But what we tend to miss is the service YouTube delivers at moments like these... if the Olympics is all about bringing the world together in one triumphant spirit, the money-making machine that TV companies have become is in clear contrast. For all those who missed the freestyle swimming relay finals this morning, they'll catch glimpses of it on news bulletins for sure. But if you really want to relive the breathtaking win, if you want to replay it at will and have inspiration delivered on demand, only YouTube will have the full spectacle online soon (it isn't up yet - I just checked) as some kind soul rips it off TV and uploads it.

Criminal? Perhaps to the legal boffins.

But to many of us, YouTube is equal to YouSpirit. Always.

After 40

A couple of Saturdays ago, I dropped in to meet a former colleague and still a dear (but not very near) friend who'd emerged from a separation with a well-known actress and had suffered a near-fatal heart attack. Fortunately, he survived. Not easy at the age if 41, I'm told...

While there are several stories about this gentle lad in his copywriting days in Calcutta, there's even more hilarious stuff about another mutual friend and fellow-writer who also happened to be there that evening.

He's the kind of guy who flashed his PAN card when he asked for the bill at a restaurant. Or - and this is true - mixed up his pregnant wife and dog's stool samples while sending them to separate laboratories.

He's bright but absent-minded. Yet, pithy enough to come up with this classic: "Till we're 40, we ask 'Who am I?'; after 40, we ask 'EMI?'"

Cheers!

Kabhi Kabhi A...

Jaane tu ya jaane na isn't quite the film it could've been. So, the less said about it, the better - though I must admit that when I saw it on a pirated VCD, it felt good. A nice timepass.

Later, it sank home that all I'd liked was just one song not only because it is very hummable but because, like all songs, it has associations with people, places, memories... all of them very far away right now.

So what if nostalgia is a thing of the past... Kabhi kabhi Aditi is right here, right now. And makes every day worth living...

Denmark-USA-China

Ever since I vacationed in Beijing and Shanghai last October, I've been waiting for China's coming-out party at the Olympics. And, while much is being written about how they faked a lot of the razzmatazz, the fact is they're out to show they can do this better than anyone else. In fact, London is struggling to complete its Olympics Village for the 2012 Games because of a paucity of funds and might as well consider outsourcing the entire Games to China!

Juxtapose this with the rest of the world - India included - reeling under rising oil prices. While the Arabs seems to have all of us by the short and curlies, Thomas Friedman finds solace in what Denmark does... what's this got to do with China? Read till the very end, my dears...

(Am reproducing an essay he wrote in the International Herald Tribune on August 10. But you can also read it on their site.)

Flush with energy

By Thomas L. Friedman

COPENHAGEN : The Arctic Hotel in Ilulissat, Greenland , is a charming little place on the West Coast, but no one would ever confuse it for a Four Seasons - maybe a One Seasons. But when my wife and I walked back to our room after dinner the other night and turned down our dim hallway, the hall light went on. It was triggered by an energy-saving motion detector. Our toilet even had two different flushing powers depending on - how do I say this delicately - what exactly you're flushing. A two-gear toilet! I've never found any of this at an American hotel. Oh, if only we could be as energy efficient as Greenland !

A day later, I flew back to Denmark . After appointments here in Copenhagen , I was riding in a car back to my hotel at the 6 p.m. rush

hour. And boy, you knew it was rush hour because 50 percent of the traffic in every intersection was bicycles. That is roughly the percentage of Danes who use two-wheelers to go to and from work or school every day here. If I lived in a city that had dedicated bike lanes everywhere, including one to the airport, I'd go to work that way, too. It means less traffic, less pollution and less obesity.

What was most impressive about this day, though, was that it was raining. No matter. The Danes simply donned rain jackets and pants for biking.

Unlike America , Denmark , which was so badly hammered by the 1973 Arab oil embargo that it banned all Sunday driving for a while, responded to that crisis in such a sustained, focused and systematic way that today it is energy independent. (And it didn't happen by Danish politicians making their people stupid by telling them the solution was more offshore drilling.)

What was the trick? To be sure, Denmark is much smaller than us and was lucky to discover some oil in the North Sea . But despite that,

Danes imposed on themselves a set of gasoline taxes, CO2 taxes and building-and- appliance efficiency standards that allowed them to grow their economy and gave birth to a Danish clean-power industry that is one of the most competitive in the world today. Denmark today gets nearly 20 percent of its electricity from wind. America ? About 1 percent.

And did Danes suffer from their government shaping the market with energy taxes to stimulate innovations in clean power? In one word, said Connie Hedegaard, Denmark 's minister of climate and energy: "No." It just forced them to innovate more - like the way Danes recycle waste heat from their coal-fired power plants and use it for home heating and hot water, or the way they incinerate their trash in central stations to provide home heating.

There is little whining here about Denmark having $10-a-gallon gasoline because of high energy taxes. The shaping of the market with

high energy standards and taxes on fossil fuels by the Danish government has actually had "a positive impact on job creation," added

Hedegaard. "For example, the wind industry - it was nothing in the 1970s. Today, one-third of all terrestrial wind turbines in the world

come from Denmark ." In the last 10 years, Denmark 's exports of energy efficiency products have tripled. Energy technology exports rose 8 percent in 2007 to more than $10.5 billion in 2006, compared with a 2 percent rise in 2007 for Danish exports as a whole.

"It is one of our fastest-growing export areas," said Hedegaard.

It is one reason that unemployment in Denmark today is 1.6 percent. In 1973, said Hedegaard, "we got 99 percent of our energy from the Middle East . Today it is zero."

Frankly, when you compare how America has responded to the 1973 oil shock and how Denmark has responded, we look pathetic.

"I have observed that in all other countries, including in America , people are complaining about how prices of [gasoline] are going up,"

Denmark 's prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told me.

"The cure is not to reduce the price, but, on the contrary, to raise it even higher to break our addiction to oil. We are going to introduce a new tax reform in the direction of even higher taxation on energy and the revenue generated on that will be used to cut taxes on personal income - so we will improve incentives to work and improve incentives to save energy and develop renewable energy."

Because it was smart taxes and incentives that spurred Danish energy companies to innovate, Ditlev Engel, the president of Vestas -

Denmark's and the world's biggest wind turbine company - told me that he simply can't understand how the U.S. Congress could have just failed to extend the production tax credits for wind development in America.

Why should you care?

"We've had 35 new competitors coming out of China in the last 18 months," said Engel, "and not one out of the U.S."

Rani to Rani

Once upon a time we had Chamko Rani in Saath Saath.

Then we got Billo Rani in Omkara.

The girl next door has morphed into a hot item number.

Polar opposites they were... or are. As actresses and as characters.

Bollywood's come a long way, lady.

Punjabi Dictionary

This one is from my Sindhi brother for all you Punjabi lovers...enjwoy!

A is for Aiscream ~ And it needs no further axplanation, my dear!

B is for Backside ~ And it has nothing to do with the rear. It is an instruction to go to the rear of building or block, shop or whatever it may be.

C is for Cloney ~ and is not the process for replicating of the sheep, nor is the first name of it George. It is merely the area whare people live e.g. ‘Defance Cloney’.

E is for Expanditure ~ arbitary spanding of the money.

F is for Fackade ~ and even though it is the sound of a bad word, it is actually just the front of the building (with ‘backside’ being its rear).

G is for Gaddi ~ and the way a Punjabi can speeden his ‘gaddi’ puts any F1 driver to the shame. (If the Grand Prix does come to Dalhi, there is no way Hamilton, Alonso or Kimi can overtake the Balvinder, Jasvinder or
Sukhvinder’s taxi.)

H is for ‘Ho Jayega Ji’ ~ and the moment you hear of that, you have to be vary careful because you can be rest sure it is jast not going to happen.

I is for Intzaar ~ and to know more about it, please to see P.

J is for Jutt ~ which is what the every Punjabi seems to be.

K is for Khanna, Khurana, etc ~ Punjabi equivalent of the Joneses (e.g. ‘Keeping up with the Khuranas, ji’)

L is for Loin ~ who is the king of the jungle.

M is for ‘Mrooti’ ~ the car that an entire generation of Punjabis grew up with.

N is for ‘No Problem Ji.’ ~ To find out how that is working, please to see H.

O is for Oye ~ which can be surprise (Oyye!), greeting (Oyy!), anger (OYY!) or pain (Oy oy oy!).

P is for Panj Mint ~ and no matter how near (1 km) or far (100 km) a Punjabi is from you, he always says he will reach in ‘panj mint’.

Q is for Queue ~ the word that jast does not axist in Punjabi vocabulary.

R is for Riks ~ the Punjabi is always prepared to take one, even if odds are all aganst him.

S is for Sweetie, Sunny, Simmi and Sonu ~ all of the who seem to own half the cars in Dalhi. (The other half by their Pappas - like as ‘Sweetie de Pappe di Gaddi’).

T is for the official bird of the Punjab ~ Tandoori Chickkan.

U is whan you lose your sax appeal and become ~ ‘Unkel-ji’

V is for VIP phone numbers ~ @ Rs 15 lakh is the bare minimum.

W is for Whan ~ as in ‘Whan are you coming, ji?’

X is for the many ax-rated words ~ that flow quite freely in all the Punjabi conversations.

Y is for ‘You nonsense’ ~ when axtreme anger replaces the vocabulary in any
shouting between Punjabis.

Z is for Zindgi ~ which finally avry Punjabi knows how to live to the fullast.

Me who?

George Clooney...

Michael Douglas....

Richard Gere....

Someday when I'm old - older actually - I'd like to be like one of them.

And then when I'm really old... Morgan Freeman.

Will I ever be me?

Who's me, I ask?

Update on August 18: if not Morgan Freeman, then Sean Connery.

Butterfly

Overheard on Radio Mirchi this morning: 8.8.08 is supposed to be a lucky day because of the number 8... evidently some people believe it to be true; others may not.

China evidently does: why else would it launch itself at 8 pm on 8th August 2008? The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games is more than just a sports spectacle; it's the coming-out party of an entire nation.

Today could also be the day when people end one life and start another... like the Tibetans, for instance, who protested and hoped they'd make it to centre-stage (and they did for a while, at least).

Ironical then, when one is reminded of the Buddhist saying: "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly."

Go for Gold...China and Tibet and whoever else is charging off the blocks of life!