An Open Letter to C A (Cricket Australia)

Dear Sir,

Cricket, as they said, in my childhood was gentleman’s game. My father considered it a waste of time. Now with population of gentlemen dwindling to a mere 11 to 15, collectively called as Australian cricket team under your able management, I agree with my dad’s observation.

I salute Mr Hayden’s humility. Bhajji is such a magnanimous nuisance to your otherwise serene game and he still calls him just a weed! Obnoxious? We have to agree. On Australian tracks, your stroking woods were expected to dispatch all his balls across ropes. And being the annoying one that he is, he disrespected your ability and bowled with an economy rate of 4.03!

Bowling is still cricket, Sir. More challenging is his audacity. He looks into eyes and blabbers a mouthful to your well built gentlemen. Especially to so decent looking Mr. Symonds. I sincerely apologize on his behalf sir. He never meant to make any comment on Mr Symond’s race. If what he had said is true, he must have commented on his face. It’s a facial abuse sir, not racial.

But there was a misunderstanding due to a googly of mispronunciation, nicked by ignorance. Atmosphere in Oz holds us in perennial awe. And as our jaws drop out of it, our pronunciations tweak. So a “Maaki” in Hindi, sounded a “Mowki”. Cold Australian wind must have shrunk nostrils giving a nasal tone to Mowki, making it Monkey! Maaki in Hindi means - Mother’s! I swear Sir, Bhajji was referring to Symond’s biological mother and not ancestral lineage. And Maaki is certainly no insult. Even if it is, Harbhajan should learn an Australian’s love for animals. Mothers can wait.

If Harbhajan was not enough, Sir, we got you Ishaant. Pacing to crease on a 6 ft plus built, long hair waving across the shoulders, releasing a rocket paced perfect length swinging delivery and forcing errors on batsmen, is a right and sight reserved just to your bowlers. This is infringement. And Mr. Hayden is right Sir. I understand how hurt is well placed ego must be. Those who cannot be belted on the pitch, should be bashed in the boxing ring.

Sir as I pen my apologies India has won the first finals at Sydney. I hope these words would soothe those new scars too.

Not so gentleman
An Indian

The Hierarchy

In corporate world you have Goldmines and Landmines. Those who find a goldmine - succeed, those who hit the land mine – perish. But those who find a goldmine and place a landmine over it – rule the place!

If you know the work, you are just a worker. If you don’t know but still strive to fake it, you are the senior worker. If all know, that you don’t know, but you still manage it, you are the manager. If you know your managers and don’t know what they manage in general, you are the General Manager. And when you bang the table and say, I need not know anything to manage everything, you are the TOP BOSS!

What we learn in our school and college, should be kept aside. Here it’s a delicate art. When to say, what to say, how to say, how much to say, whom to say and where to say? Type or talk? Mail or call? Who should read the mail and who should be kept off the list? This or that attachment? Which data should be sent and which shouldn’t be? When a mistake should be deliberate? When a fact should be revealed? When to call for a meeting, when to stay closed in a cabin? The list of this art will never end. If you have mastered all these, in worst of storms you will still float like a fallen tree.

If you are the worker, the sooner you alienate yourself from work, the faster you grow. Just be smart enough to convince the senior, that more you remain at work, greater the harm you may cause. Senior will understand. He did the same thing. Start looking for the bigger picture. If its not there, create one. But remember while you do that, you are standing on the smaller picture. Don’t worry, none above have the flexibility to bend and check what you are hiding.

If you are the senior, you should not work. You should fake it. Very soon you will be the manager if you start managing your fake art smartly. When its said ‘smartly’, the rule is simple. All mistakes are THEIRS, all accomplishments are MINE. You should be the header and footer expert. Insist all ideas to be sent as a document. Change the header and footer. Stamp your name on it and send as your idea. It works!

As a Manager you are above worries. People below will judge you but do nothing about it. People above can judge but won’t judge you. For judging, they need to know why and what you are supposed to manage. And never worry they won’t understand a bit of it. Time is ripe for you to ignore the body of the mail and worry about those is in the To and CC list.

When you get the cabin the message is clear. Now on everything is transparent. After all you are behind glass walls. But transparency ends there. Minus side is you are not direct ears to gossip. You must manage your managers to hear that. That’s what the requirement of the position is. The plus side is you can do anything. Watch You Tube, have a cam chat with your secretary who is at home, play games or bitch about your boss on Yahoo. Till your ears drums are vibrating fine, your job is secure.

When your managers do all the calculations and submit just the graphs to you, don’t trouble yourself to understand. Just nod your head. Be mean. Throw jargon. Ask mode and median. Keep throwing your gaze on your female subordinate outside and inside debate about dropping curves. Never allow a meeting to decide anything. Ask them to think and come back. Take graphs home, check with someone and next day decide. To decide you need not justify anything. You can decide because as General Manager you have the power to decide.

When you fly in business class, a chauffeur drops you at a sea facing star resort and you call up the General Manager – “So how things are going there?” you know you are sitting at the top. When alls bills are paid by the company, stay calm. People down under are working. Your worry should be your comfort. Ensure everything of yours belongs to the company. Door mat at the door, the furniture in the house, the house, the dog, the S class Merc… just about everything.

Only your boots are yours. And you can decide when to hang them!

Our prayer for Rohit

The apple fell from the tree and Sir Newton did not eat it. Instead he made a discovery. I thought the apple went wasted. When my teacher taught gravity, I blamed Newton for my misery. In an attempt to drill it into my brains, my dad twisted my ears red enough to make the apple look pale. But ask me now. I may not understand the science behind it, but I salute the phenomenon behind the discovery of gravity. Reason, the naughty little brat – Rohit!

Minutes after he is awake from bed, he possesses the restlessness of a million nuclear fusions. Whole marble floor is dotted with his toys, utensils, tubes, bottles and any rubble that can be held, dragged and pushed by his tiny hands. Shout a NO, would look at you, and dilute the protest by a smile before getting on to the next naughty act.

All was fine till he developed a new fetish. A curious entertaining one for him, a costly draining one for us. Picks up just about anything in his way, carries to the grill of the balcony, drops it on to the parking driveway and presses his tiny head against the grill to stalk the falling object with his gaze. Once his ears acknowledge the thud he sprints back with determination to find another victim. Cell phone, ceramic cups, cloth hangers, shoes, spoons, combs, toys, pens, clothe clips, ear rings, purse almost everything in house has once prayed fervently for a parachute. I hope this curiosity subsides before he is big enough to lift the TV.

Yes, I ‘hope’ that curiosity to either subside or get matured by time. I would never dare to stop it. A shout, a pull of ear, a slap may very well strangulate it. It’s up to us how we allow him to experiment with that curiosity and keep alive the flame of creativity. Our job for him is cut out. Teach the basics, show the direction. Rest should be left to him and his learning from life. If he wants to be a racing jockey, I won’t force him to wear a tie and sell an insurance policy. His fundamentals should tell him that even if his horse fells him off the back, he should make peace, climb back and complete the ride.

Kids need direction and not dictation. Few moments with them and we cannot fail to realize the bundle of energy, enthusiasm and creativity that they are. They have an unquestionable yet very simple sense of logic and reasoning in place. And we as elders commit a sin to take that innocence away and teach them - two plus two cannot be always four.

Our prayer is clear. Grant him the sagacity to decide between the good and the bad. Let him know the art of meshing his passion with skills to create wealth. And as far as he goes, let him hold his head high in pride!

Good Food

Some one commented that I abuse a lot in my blogs. I decided to become the good boy and talk about good things. And what else can be better than food! But then writing on the vast world of food is a laborious task and blogs are about short cuts. Thus what else could be better than writing a review on a book related to food. So here it is... Chew it up!

Rude food is a book about food and certainly not cookery. Contrary to its name, the book has a rather delicious appeal. What acts as an appetizer is, it’s not written by a Chef, neither a nutritionist, nor a gastroenterologist. The serving is by a seasoned Veer Sanghvi, a journalist, who puts forward the joy of his well tasted meals from all corners of the world. He lends his bold, adventurous and investigative journalistic instincts to his buds and Rude Food is a pleasant result of that effort.

Veer advocates, that food is good which tastes better. No matter where, how and by whom its made. One of the mouth watering examples he adds is that of the Chinese Manchurian. The only Chinese connection of this recipe is, it has a prefix reading as– “Chinese”! Born in India, it captured the not so imaginative buds of Indians. It ruled the offerings of street side Chinese bundies and eventually crawled into the menus of posh Chinese restaurants too. Ironically beyond the shores of India, no one even knows about it. Veer further adds the irony to it. In most cases the chefs who make it are actually Chinese looking Nepalis!

If I were to give a verdict, I am all hands for Veer. Any recipe that reacts positively with its consumer’s saliva, is good food. A good meal is not prepared by a good recipe. It’s made by a good intent. Cooking is not about chopping, heat, fumes, noise and dumping on a plate. It’s about cutting and slicing; tossing and frying; steam and aroma and finally, dressing and serving. Its playing with color and imagination. In literal terms its about a spicy art.

Veer used to spice up Hindustan Times Delhi edition magazine with his Rude Food articles. This book is a collection of all those articles. Similar to the art of cookery he took delicate care in choosing the ingredients for this compilation. A full course of it and you know why Durian is banned in Indonesia or how to relish Caviar. The dressing on the serving is tastefully balanced. All the articles have been compiled keeping in mind their relevance to the date.

What moved the book from the neighborhood of my pillow into my kitchen was his intelligent sprinkle of few recipes in between chapters. What made these recipes so attemptable was their simple English, easy to understand description and use of our daily kitchen terms. He made sure that fuss goes up the chimney and taste settles on the hob.

Having tasted this meal I would be honest to mention there are few servings in between where the gravy longs for few more ingredients. They are not dull but they aren’t juicy either. Its not bad or rude English but perhaps a less imaginative platter of subject and words. But then who doesn’t understand. Once in a while every chef has a bad day.

I still remember, in my childhood our scramble for the last molecule of Aloo Fry stuck to the base of wok. The hunger for it never died. Rude food pumps the zeal a notch up. The zeal to experiment with new tastes. The zeal to stretch the scope for our buds. Rude food is a must taste.

Help them blow!

[Tring Tring]
“Thank you for not TARGETING us but CALLING us. How may I help you?”

“You constipated ass hole, will blow your appendix, if your don't tell why my BMW didn’t blew into pieces?

“Sure sir I would help you blow, however to assist you further would you please whisper your code number registered with us?”

[Caller confirms]

“Thank you for successful release of your information; may I know where you wanted to blow up?”

“You empty strip of crocin…What difference does that make?”

“You need to understand sir… there are so many cars that are getting ready to blow up at so many places. We have to understand the wind, the outside temperature, the type of bomb you made, brains of the holy idiot who inspired you to make this bomb… etc sir?”

“You product of a failed pill… do you realize my 250 liters of gasoline, 150 meters of wire.. 50 kilos of nails, one mobile phone and one syringe have gone waste?”

“Syringe????”

“Yes. What else do you expect from me. Mate listen I am also as fucked up as you. Studied something and doing its opposite. What else do you expect if a doc makes the bomb?”

“Got it sir. Remove the car from the parking, uninstall the bomb, reinstall it and this time use dynamite and not the fucking syringe”

[Click]

Brilliant isn’t it. Much before any intelligent outsourcing happened to us, we were outsourced terror. And here we are today producing one of the brilliant brains in the world of terror. Name it and we can blow it. Don’t worry about who and how. Don’t bother about those satellites watching from which ever sphere. Plane, train, car or cooker… just pay us we can blow anything at any place!

It’s an industry. Let’s make money out of it too. Terror call center would be a perfect idea. Millions of graduates, who dint have luck to become anything else, can mint a fortune with us. Naah we are not spoiling their future. They never had it in the first place.

Supporting doesn’t amount to bombing. And yes it’s for sure safer than making and triggering one. And don’t miss the overseas trips for training. From Kandahar to Kashmir, Arial view of New York to hidden depths of London Tubes, Crowded locals of Mumbai to open desserts of Egypt, various Mosques and Temples… now who can ignore a global profile?

And come on you aren’t supporting bunch of morons. They may not know what they are doing. Unfortunately they may not even live longer to master their passion. But still they have an enviable literate past. Doctors, pilots, lawyers, engineers…! Like them, you needn’t believe, practice, preach, defame Allah. Do it in the name of Moolah.

Hell as I put up this blog I see a bunch of uniformed men swooping into my place. I read their identity as MI-5, CIA, Mossad. This paranoid caucus of idiots wants to kill any idea of outsourcing to our lands. But I liked the man who winked and gave me a MoU to sign.

The letter head reads ISI.

The great Indian plan!

A Blog is about an author’s thoughts and his reader’s misery. A party where you are invited and you don’t have an option to detest it! Inviting you to one such party…

This thought ignited in reaction to a headline in today’s Times Of India – ‘UK celebrating India’s 60th year of Independence’. The Indian Foreign Office, as expected, is at its poetic best to thank Queen for this gesture. Oh idiots wake up! They are not celebrating India’s independence but the moment when they got rid of us.

‘Sir’ Rushdie might claim - “Midnight Children” is a fiction. Well that’s not the fact. My uncle wailed out of the womb moments after Nehru announced India’s tryst with destiny. He was the fourth successful output of the six overall attempts. Sweets on his berth did not have any reason. They were a mere ritual. But then, he was part of a greater plan.

Somebody conspired this, everybody executed it but nobody ever mentioned it. Captive for 700 years then, India in its many pieces was desperate to break out of the shackles and be free. In the last 200 years of British rule we found in them, the way, the reason and ample foolishness to execute our plan.

The seduction wasn’t our wealth, wine or woman. It was pure economics. To run industries, Brits needed raw material and imports from foreign lands were a costly affair. And sense would have told them, a land is ‘foreign’, till you own it. In India Brits found not only the raw stuff in abundance but also the resource that would convert them into finished goods – the human juggernaut that we were. We were hard working, intelligent but meek enough to suppress. We were sweating, Brits were saving and her highness was earning.

Overwhelmed by our tropical libido’s caliber the greed donned over them. Already dictating our production, Brits forced us as their market too. Indians were not to purchase anything that isn’t made by Brits. We were producing for them and they were selling to us at a higher price. And then happened Gandhi.

As wise he was, Gandhi did not trust the Indian made guns and swords to fight them. Instead he knew where to hit them. Below the belt! (For christ’s sake I meant pockets!). He devised an intelligent formula to kill… shun anything that’s produced by Brits, deny them the market, choke their warehouses, clog their factories, burden them with our weight and kill their hold over us. And they were killed.

So didn’t get the plan of which my Uncle was a part? Here it is… someone said, TO SCREW BRITS... KEEP SCREWING!

It’s just that my uncle was born after the demise of its need. Nevertheless he contributed towards its extension. Of his three children, one is settled in Boston, another in Munich and the last one in Malaysia. What makes the plan look more effective is, his nephew, who is situated to Southwest of his Munich son, decided to bore few more fellow Indians living with him.

He wrote this blog sitting in Gibraltar.

Its all about timing!

“Meetkv” – doesn’t ring a bell of any house, instrument or animal’s neck. It’s an ordinary, lost in the bites, e-age login ID. I made it and none met me. Its my net ego and has the same fate as my self ego. Its there everywhere, yet, no where. I realize, its all about timing.

It began long back when I was just KV. I lost the big school as my primary was not a recognized school. The batch before me was recognized and their looks told me that they have made it to Harvards. My parents felt it… its all about timing.

When math had just started getting tougher, in my brave attempt I scored 87. Walked with a swollen chest to my dad and returned with a sulking face. My elder bro was before me with 98 on his card. I could have still hit the ball with gusto had I realized that the comparison should have been with his 4th class marks and not 7th class. Just when Maths got tougher he made only 72. I screwed up my formula… but was too young to realize… its all about timing.


Just when the biggie one made it to engineering I was chasing a writer’s dream. Rest in the house were busy chasing it out of my mind. They wanted me to be what they couldn’t be. Had to take up commerce and study it too as I was expected not to disappoint the legacy of no failure in the family. Barely had I passed, they were ready to make me a banker. I rebelled, broke the traditions, jumped the house and became an ad guy. Was just standing on my feet, when the economy decided to sit and it sat on my fate. No one was interested to make ads. No one was interested to hire me. Desperation brought me to e-education to e-world to e-service and en-route was born my e-identity - meetkv. I thought here I am and I will let my e-ego do what I couldn’t do. When I looked at the bitestone I realized I am far behind and many have already made it to the zenith.

I was grown up and I had to pinch myself and tell “Bloody hell… its all about timing.”

It takes 95% of luck and 5% of fate to strike it right. I realized for the first one I am a bankrupt and there aren’t any credit cards for it. The second one is like a floating piece of wood from a sunken ship and I am just clinging to it. In mid-sea, on a wooden plank, waiting for rescue, you don’t have right or wrong time. You just have time.