Obama, No soup for you!

Arizona State University my Alma mater recently created a controversy of sorts when they decided not to give an honorary degree to President Obama. He has been invited to give the commencement address at their spring commencement ceremony in the month of May this year.

Many universities do have their own traditions which include giving honorary degrees to invited guests. However, I tend to agree with ASU in this case. Nevertheless there has been a big hue and cry regarding this with university being pushed on the back foot.

The reason given for this alleged Faux Pas is that Obama's body of work is yet to come. Which in my opinion is correct. Let's face it, the only notable achievement that President Obama has to his credit is running a very successful election campaign and occupying the esteemed office. When I say this, I say it in no demeaning way. I expect him to succeed, I want him to succeed. We all need him to be the best president in these challenging times.

But before we start showering the rewards and honors, don't we need to see his "Body of Work". There is no reason to make a rock-star out of him just due to the resentment targeted against his predecessor. We need to give him time to see if he can measure up to our expectations and only then we should judge him. "Yes we can" was a nice campaign slogan, whether it gets converted to "Yes we did" remains to be seen.

The Power of One Vote

India goes in for general elections on April 16th. It is our duty to make sure that each one of us goes to the polling booth and exercise our vote.

In recent times many people in urban India tend to give arguments that all politician are bad and nobody deserves the vote. What we need to realize here is, that they are bad because we chose them so over the years. We ourselves our responsible for them. At some point in time we decided to overlook merit and chose Film stars, Wives & sons, and most of all criminals to represent us. To change this, we consistently need to choose the better candidates in successive elections. We need to choose people who address the real issues of inclusive development. Then maybe in a few years, we would start liking our politicians and they would again become the true representatives.

A vote provides us the power to judge the performance of our representative and the power to choose the correct person, lets not waste it. After all in the words of Spider man's Uncle:

"With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility"

Moral Bankruptcy

Let me begin by saying that I am a big fan of Sanjay dutt and his brand of comedy movies. More recently they have been instrumental in re-introducing the concepts of Gandhian philosophy aptly named Gandhigiri to the masses. How ever this piece is more about Sanjay Dutt the person who recently decided to contest the parliamentary elections, the person who was convicted of possession of illegal firearms procured from his terrorist acquaintances. The same people who were indited in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blast. Now out on bail he is trying to get the supreme court to find a way for him to contest. I wonder if this is the kind of person we would want to be our representative, however great be his artistic credentials.

Another case is that of Mohd. Azharuddin, the former captain of the Indian cricket team , a very elegant batsmen and a well respected fielder. Towards the end of his career he was suspected of being involved in the infamous match fixing scandal. He was accused of colluding with some bookies to throw away the cricket matches for monetary gain. As a result he was banned from playing cricket by the ICC. Now he has also decided to contest elections this April.


Now they are busy these days, making political speeches resolving themselves of all guilt, and feigning ignorance. It is obvious that even after being punished for their crimes by the law , they have not learned anything to make amends.

The question I would like to asking why we as a society are still willing to support their political ambitions. Are we ourselves so morally bankrupt that we are willing to bet our future on these fallen heroes rather than try to find leaders with the highest moral credentials. It is time we should show these two their place.

Their hopes and dreams to "lead the country" should be vehemently and unequivocally crushed.

London Diary

London has its unique charm for someone like me who has always been curious of the various pre-independence artifacts and influences left by the British in India. That why I decided to visit London for a couple of days this winter. Here are some diary entries.

Friday, Dec 5

4:00pm – Landed at Heathrow a while back, immigration went through in a jiffy and changed my 600 dollars to 364 pounds (damn!!). I was distinctively feeling a brit accent now after being so used to the American accent. The signs are a bit unclear since the terminal is new. I had to go to the departures since there’s a pickup point for cars there. Eventually I was able to find my childhood friend Manuj, who had come to pick me up. It is great seeing him after a long time, he hasn’t changed much. We used to go to the same high school using the same bus on and off for 5-6 years.

6:00pm - We are sitting in the Tube (Metro rail) going to Central London/Oxford street. This is the place where every one hangs out on Friday nights. Earlier we checked into a hotel near the airport. Tube is very much like the Delhi metro, though appears a bit older. Our journey time is about an hour.

8:00pm – Oxford Street has so many light and people are walking everywhere. This is much like Delhi with people crossing roads from any where they want to and cars whizzing past them at high speed. Lot of people are lined up to get into the around the place. It is really cold and even drizzling a little, we should find some food.

10:00pm - We walked for a couple of hours around the place searching for an Indian restaurant, however, could not find one. Finally, we got tired and are sitting in a Mc-Donalds. At least they have a veg burger here. It’s getting late now so we will catch the Tube back to the hotel and call it a day.

Saturday, Dec 6

9:00am – I got up early today to make the most of the day time. However, it still took us a while before we could get out of the hotel. Today, first we will go to the Tower of London. We got ourselves a two day London pass which includes some sort of a combo deal for entry tickets to many interesting locations.

12:00pm – We started with the Tower Bridge. This is nice looking bascule suspension bridge that can be opened up in the middle to let the river traffic like ships to pass through the bridge. Many people confuse this with the London BridgeLondon Bridge is falling down”. After this we visited the navy ship HMS Belfast and walked over the actual London Bridge which is further downstream. By now we were very hungry, so we stopped over for tea and sandwiches at a shop “prêt à café”. made famous by the nursery rhyme “

2:00pm – I just saw the Kohinoor diamond in an exhibition at the Tower Castle. It was as big as a lemon. I never thought that they can have diamonds as big as that one. The place was filled with diamonds and jewel of all sizes. There were rocking chairs, beds and fountainheads made of pure gold. Now I am getting a little dizzy seeing so much wealth.

4:00pm – We took the cruise boat on River Thames from the Tower of London to the London Eye and have just reached the Big Ben besides the London Parliament. While my friend who seems to need a tea every two hours is getting some, I am watching the hoards of protesters gathered here protesting about something or the other they feel deeply about. This seem to be a routine affair with some people protesting about the war in Iraq or global warming, while others promoting veganism etc. There is also a troupe from the Hare Krishna Hare Rama sect promoting peace and soliciting donations.

6:00pm - Finally after waiting in line for about an hour we are now taking a ride on the London Eye. This is a giant wheel along the banks of River Thames which is higher than any other building in London. From the topmost point the night time view of the London skyline is totally breathtaking.

8:00pm - We have been walking along the London Eye, Big Ben, Downing Street and Trafalgar Square for some time and now I am totally tired. I think its time to call it a day and go back to the hotel.

10:00pm – BTW, the metro broke down on the way back. Instead of the one train to the hotel, we had to change five trains before we could reach the destination. Phew!

Sunday, Dec 7

9:00am – We started the day by visiting the Arch of Wellington. India Gate in Delhi has been modeled on this monument. It is situated in the Buckingham Palace grounds. While there, we saw a contingent of guards on horses patrolling the grounds.

10:00am – There was a large crowd in front of the Buckingham Palace. This is the home the Queen of England. We visited the Queen’s art gallery inside the palace. It had some very beautiful Flemish painting made by famous painters collected over centuries by the monarchy. This is the first time when I have seen some authentic paintings and I can say they were absolutely beautiful. One can spend a long time admiring the detail and blend of colors present in each one of them.

12:00pm – Feeling a bit hungry, we went to a coffee shop at Trafalgar Square having our daily dose of tea and sandwiches. This is a fairly busy place with lots of bronze sculptures where tourist are getting their pictures clicked.

2:00pm - Being a Sherlock Holmes fan since childhood, the trip can not be complete without a visit to 221B Baker Street, the fictional residence of the famous detective. It was a nice place where they also had a museum containing statues and props depicted in various stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle.

4:00pm –After spending some time walking around Downing Street we were headed to the Royal Albert Hall to look at some fine buildings around the university area at Imperial College London. Then we spent some time the science museum.

6:00pm – This bring us to the end of the day, Manuj had to leave early before nightfall to go back to his home so I bid him good bye. I will also call it a day now as I need to catch a flight back home tomorrow. In all it was an amazing trip and I am glad I decided to stop over at London. Hopefully this will not be the last visit….

Monday, Dec 8

12:00pm - Catching the flight back to India. Yayyay !!

Tales of Passion

This a a great clip I stole from a friend's(KM) profile. This is part of the proceedings of an yearly conference regarding socially relevant issues. It is amazing how effortlessly the speaker uses humor to shed light on some very important issues. check it out !!

Taare Zameen Par

Last week I got chance to watch Aamir Khan's Taare Zameen Pe. It is an amazing movie which deals with the sensitive subject of dyslexia. The child actor, Darsheel Safary has given a stupendous performance as a childhood dreamer who is unable to concentrate on his studies due to dyslexia. Its a subject which many of us can identify with while bringing us closer to the carefree days of childhood. Shankar Ehsaan Loy have delivered another brilliant score handling the fast paced and slow numbers with equal ease. Especially the heartfelt rendition of the song "Maa" which was pictured when parents send their son to the boarding school. Verdict: A must watch for all ages.

Movie Review: Guru

Last Night I got a chance to watch Mani Ratnam's latest film "Guru". One can discount the fact that the storyline loosely based on Dhirubhai Ambani's life may not have provided much space for entertainment. Still, the movie is not even a patch on the expectations from the director who is known for his master pieces like Roja, Bombay and Dil Se.

A.R. Rahman disappoints with his soulless music, and could not provide any humable tunes to take home. As far as the lyrics are concerned, probably Gulzar forgot to write any, since all I remember is "Gurubhai Gurubhai aala re ...". The dialogs or the lack of it also did not help much for the cause.

The movie sometimes appeared to be too fast in its narration where many characters were left underdeveloped. If Mallika Sheravat had one item number, Aishwarya Rai had a couple more. There wasn’t any thing much for her to do in the film other than dancing or washing clothes. I specially could not understand her abrupt introductory scene where she was doing a disco on top of a rock in the middle of the river bed. I had better expectations from the director who introduced Madhu with "chhoti si aasha ..". The camera was strangely handled by some nincompoop who appeared to be dancing along with the girls in most of the songs, leading to a very unstable song picturization.

The film was solely riding on Abhishek Bachchan's shoulders who, has finally matured into a good actor. With his boyish charm he appeared to be comfortable sharing screen space with other characters in the film. Mithun and Madhavan provided strong performances to support the film. Vidya Balan brings breath of fresh air to the otherwise confrontational scenes. Her character however, wasn't very much etched out and could have been given something more to do.

Unlike the Ratnam's previous ventures the film carried a weak message, that bribery and bending the law is acceptable if done for overall progress. The ending was abrupt and weak where the hero could turn the judicial opinion with a small sermon. All said, Amitabh Bachchan can safely hang his working boots now that he has a new bread winner in the family in form of Abhishek who can now take over from him. As far is this Mani Ratnam-A.R Rehman film is concerned, I do not think I am going to remember much about this in a year from now.