Leicester FC: Suddenly Something

Gambling jargons have always gone over my head, as my measly salary and risk-averse nature kept me away from such 'wallet-lightening' pursuits. So when I first came across the news that punters had given '5000-1 against' chance for Leicester City FC winning the English Premier League, it did not ring any bell. Until somewhere I read the nearest possible analogy - Elvis Presley being found alive this year! Maybe in the Indian context Elvis Presley may well be substituted by Subhas Chandra Bose.

Now those minuscule few who were crazy enough to put their money on this club may well be whistling Elvis songs on their way to the bank. In this era of hard as nails professionalism and big money in football, Leicester quite literally rose like a phoenix, as its past credentials were hardly inspiring. The foxes' (as they are called) quietly went about their job of craftily outwitting fancied opponents and it really took a while for many to take notice, amid their smokescreens of scepticism.

After all who would even give chance for a team that had suffered near relegation last season to show any promise this year. The coach, Claudio Ranieri, had trained many biggies like Chelsea, Juventus etc, but failed to make any major splash, and his last assignment with Greece was a disgrace. About the players the lesser said the better. Very few of them had even played first division soccer. Second division players like Frenchman N’Golo Kante, Algerian Riyad Mahrez and Englishman Jamie Richard Vardy failed to invite even a second look from football pundits.

My off and on football antennae too failed to pick up Leicester phenomenon until a friend updated me about two months ago. Till then the only sports figure from Leicester I had heard of was cricketer David Gower, who used to represent Leicestershire in county cricket. But by the time I checked on Leicester FC it had garnered the eyeballs and overtaken all the biggies - the clubs based in Manchester and London. 

The rest they say is history, though I would have loved them to finish off with a victory rather than an equaliser with Manchester United.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Timeless Appeal of Salim Langde Par Mat Ro

The other day I was watching Saeed Akhtar Mirza's Salim Langde Par Mat Ro on YouTube. The movie was released in 1989, but the plot seemed eerily relevant to the present times of chest thumping and polarising debates on nationalism and the overwhelming tendency to wear patriotism on one's sleeve. 

Set in the backdrop of Bhiwandi riots in 1984 (a precursor to much more horrific 1992-93 Mumbai riots) the movie is about the life in a predominantly Muslim mohalla in central Bombay (as it was known then) or the mill districts (which have now gentrified into high street malls and corporate offices).

In the movie some social workers screen a documentary in that mohalla about the horrors of Bhiwandi riots and explain to them the perils to falling prey to the guile of communal forces. It strikes a chord among the local populace and stirs up a debate on communalism.

During one such discussion at a tea shop, owned by one Rahaman bhai (Ajit Vachani), Lala  (Achyut Potdar), a Hindu businessman cum wheeler dealer, says the documentary was all bakwas and misleading propaganda to incite people. He then goes on to blame the British for the Hindu-Muslim divide.

Vilasbhai (Ashok Banthia) a local thug interjects 'the Brits left long ago, but now why this strife'. To which the Lala replies that it is because some people are not patriotic enough. Then he points to the paanwala, sitting in a kiosk next to the tea shop. The bashful paanwala modestly replies that he is too busy making both ends meet to think of deshbhakti.

Just then Rahman bhai asks Lala, 'Are you patriotic?'. 'Of course' replies Lala proudly. Then Rahman bhai asks, "How? By selling smuggled goods, selling essential commodities in black market, pushing gullible women into flesh trade." The Lala dismissively laughs an says, "What Rahaman bhai tum bhi na."

Just then Vilasbhai interjects, "what Rahman Bhai said was correct". Then what follows is his tongue-in-cheek punchline, "Iss mulk mein desh bhakton ki lambi line lagi hai, kaahe to traffic jam karta hai" (In this country there is a long line of people claiming to be patriots, why are you creating a traffic jam!). 

Thus Mirza in this short clip very tellingly exposes the hollowness of the pseudo patriotism practised by Lala and his ilk in the society, which of late seems to be very much on the rise and is very much in your face - right from TV studios to cricket stadiums. It is a pity that he no longer makes such films.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Short And Simple Annals of The Poor

With almost every media house involved in the rat race for advertising revenue and TRP ratings, some publications like Fountain Ink and Caravan buck the trend by venturing into territories where the mainstream media may either fear to tread or think it’s way too ‘down market’, hence not worth the trouble.

Every publication and its editor these days live under the hallucination that their readers are high net worth individuals who drive to work in swanky cars, have high purchasing capacity and spend vacations in exotic locales around the globe.

It is another matter that this particular class, whom they are too eager to court, are too busy and don’t care to read anything other than what appears on their smartphone screens! Moreover if they want to buy a car or an expensive gadget, poring newspapers and magazines would be the last thing that would come to their minds.

The recent cover story in Caravan about an ayah who, without her knowledge, became a millionaire on paper and was used as a cover by her employer to hide his financial chicanery is something no mainstream publication would suffer the toil of touching even with a barge pole, let alone follow it up.

As part of Post 9/11 investigations the US investigators stumbled upon the infamous insider trading scandal involving Raj Rajarathnam, CEO of hedge fund company Galleon and Rajat Gupta former global head of McKinsey. As Rajat Gupta was the darling of corporate India, it did evoke some interest in the country’s pink press and his later incarceration was mourned by many in the India Inc.

The above said maid, Manju Das, was listed as an investor in Galleon, with “Anil Kumar” (a McKinsey employee) as her contact person.

After a prolonged investigation into the case, the arrests happened in 2009. Though Rajarathnam and Gupta had to undergo jail terms, Kumar got off lightly, because he had ‘cooperated’ and helped the authorities unearth crucial details. He had to undergo a probation period of two years and forfeit the $2.26 million that was calculated to be his illicit gain.

It was found that the illegal payments Kumar got from Rajarathnam were fraudulently hidden from his employers and the government, and routed to tax havens in South America (resident or non-resident Indian, money laundering runs in our blood!). To carry out this embezzlement Kumar hijacked Manju Das’s identity, while she was working as a live-in maid with the family in California. However, after Kumar’s arrest her employment was terminated and she was sent back to India.

Under the shadow of this high profile case, this particular sub-plot involving exploitation of an underclass woman got totally eclipsed. Moreover Das was paid a measly salary, way below the US minimum wages and many other norms for US maids were violated.

Ironically the US prosecutor for hedge fund scam happened to the Preet Behrara, who later took on Indian diplomat Devyani Khobargade for not paying minimum wages to her maid. Somehow he too failed to smell the rat in this case.

After Das reached India, Kumar saw to it that her passport and other travel papers were taken away by his assistant. When pointed out to her that it was a criminal offence for anyone to hold on to her passport, she wryly said she no longer needed it. For her the daily grind for rozi roti and old age itself was too daunting to worry about such legal trifles. 

As I said earlier no other publication picked up the story. Maybe the nation does not want an answer to such unsettling questions!!

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Haves and Have-nots

Rohith Vemula's suicide is turning out to be the Rajeev Goswami moment for the Dalit students. The analogy may sound sacrilegious as Rohith and Rajeev espoused diametrically opposite causes, however, they have one thing in common. They both ceased being mere statistic and found their way to the viewfinder of national media and had long shelf lives in public discourse.

For the sake of post-Mandal generation a quick recap. The graphic picture of Rajeev Goswami, a Delhi University student, committing self immolation during an anti-Mandal rally in Delhi in 1990 made him the face of anti-quota agitation.

Back in 1990s the mass media mainly consisted of newspapers and magazines; 24/7 news channels was still few years away, and internet, video platforms like Youtube were still in the realm of science fiction.

Barring some niche publications such as Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) and Mainstream all the popular newspapers and magazines came down heavily against Mandal Commission findings, which advocated reservation for Other Backward Communities, and the then prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh.

The mainstream media, led by India Today and Indian Express (under Arun Shourie), converged to the singular narrative that reservations kill efficiency in government departments and drain nation's precious resources. Moreover, they argued it was being cornered by a select section among the beneficiaries. Anyone with a differing view had no platform to express - websites, blog posts were still eons away. Their only solace were the niche publications, whose reach was very limited.

Now with Vemula's death the pendulum has swung to the opposite direction. His death has become a rallying cry to highlight the plight of Dalit students in particular and treatment of Dalits by our society in general. Many other instances of suicides by Dalit students, following harassment by classmates and professors at prestigious institutes like IIT Rorkee and AIIMS have come to light. For some Dalits it has now become a 'coming out' moment by revealing their caste, something they had kept tightly under wraps for years.  

Thankfully this time the mainstream media's bias was not as pronounced as in 1990, there is much more diversity and heterogeneity over the issue. Views favouring quota for Dalits and other backward classes are appearing in popular publications, though sometimes with a disclaimer (the views expressed are personal and not that of the publication) and there are many bloggers and independent writers concerned about the plight of Dalits.

However internet trolls against reservation quota, who were quite active in various social media forums, are now working overtime. Even before this issue broke out there was always a steady supply of jokes and memes lampooning reservations and making it appear that those who got college admission or jobs due to quota were dunces and free loaders. After Vemula's death they are now busy digging 'facts' to cast aspersions on his caste. Since his father belongs to an OBC caste and his mother an SC, they have got a toehold to play on. However the fact that Vemula got admission based on merit has taken a lot of wind out of their sails.

But surprisingly the political section that got the most exposed and discredited out of this controversy was not the right wing casteists (their regressive views were quite well known), but the Left parties whose claims of being inclusive rung hollow. Vemula was himself a SFI activist and got disillusioned and joined Ambedkar Students Association (ASA). He had wryly claimed the Leftists may have discarded religion, but not caste!!

While the Vemula struggle was hogging national headlines, Chitralekha a Dalit woman auto driver from Kannur in Kerala was waging a low profile battle by going on an indefinite strike in front of the state secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram. She has been waging a lonely battle for a decade against the alleged caste and gender 'intolerance' of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) workers in Kannur. The CPM-affiliated Centre for Indian Trade Union (CITU) workers had prevented her from plying her autorickshaw and even burnt down her vehicle.

Hence it is no wonder that Dalits feel cold shouldered by most mainstream parties, even those professing to be progressive, and float Dalit specific outfits like ASA to fight for their causes.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Train of Hope

A heartwarming story of a train stopping at a nondescript railway station in Japan just to help a girl passenger reach her school has become a social media sensation. The train stops at Kami-Shirataki railway station located near the girl’s house once in morning and in evening to help her commute to school. She is the lone passenger from that station to commute in that train.

It is reported that the train will not stop at the station, located in hinterlands of the Hokkaido island, after March, once she finishes her schooling. But there are some skeptics who have dismissed it as a PR gimmick and pointed out that the plan to take off stoppage at Kami-Shirataki has more to do with the ending of fiscal year in March, than the girl’s academic year.

However, the very fact that a government could ensure that a train stops at a station just to provide last mile connectivity to a student, is something that sounds too good to be true in these parts, where mai baap syndrome reigns supreme and railway ministries always took the cake. Raiilway ministers, irrespective of the government in power, have always been ardent practitioners of this art, with the order of priority being self interest followed by electoral arithmetic.

Railway budgets have always been used as a platform to dole out new trains, railway lines to keep their own constituency or the state in good humour, with little regard to feasibility, overall health of the railways or needs and aspirations of people residing in other parts of the country. Moreover sundry MPs and MLAs too have wielded the levers of power to introduce new train stops or divert the route mainly to fulfil their own pet agendas. 

A very glaring perversion of the above Japanese story happened in the early nineties in our country, when Jaffer Sharief was the Railway Minister. He introduced Lalbagh Express from Bangalore to Chennai with just one stop at Katpadi. The train timings were such that it helped a student commute daily from Bangalore to Christian Medical College at Vellore near Katpadi. And that student happened to be none other than the minister's own daughter!

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Unreserved Chaos

The other day I had to rough it out in the ‘cattle class’ (general compartment) of a superfast train for a three-and-half-hour long journey, for want of an alternative. As it was around 6.30 pm and the train was nearly criss-crossing the country from Ernakulam to Delhi, I did not even take a chance to try my luck in a sleeper class compartment.

Earlier while buying the ticket at Koyilandi (a mofussil station near Kozhikode) for Mangalore I had enquired if it was any way possible to upgrade it. The woman at the ticket counter replied in the negative and warned that as it was already dusk I might risk getting fined if I travelled sleeper class with an ordinary ticket!

Having travelled many times in the reserved sleeper class for long trips (lasting 2-3 days) I was all too familiar with the inconvenience caused by those without reservation. Hence I decided not to be a cause of their misery and braced myself for the din, bustle and stench of the general compartment.

They are generally the first or last compartment of the rake and are the most unkempt ones. The train arrived about 20 minutes late and I made a dash to the last compartment, which looked already full with little foot space left. 

I did make it to the passage of the train and moved further into the aisles aiming to get a seat. A couple of years of commuting 'sardine class' in Mumbai’s suburban trains have taught me that getting into the aisle was the best way to ease suffocation, prevent achy shoulders and even get a seat in the bargain. 

About two stations later lady luck smiled, though the seat I got was hardly comfortable. Nearly six passengers were squeezed into a row seat, which was actually meant for 3-4 people.

The passengers were a mix of locals who were going on short haul journeys lasting a couple of hours and the migrant workers, who were in for a long haul to their home towns in the country’s cow belt. This under-class also happens to be the mainstay in general compartments of almost all the trains that chug along the Indian Railway’s expansive network. 

As for Kerala these migrant labourers provide the much-needed brawn to its acute shortage of manual labour, thanks to the upward mobility of its natives, who prefer white collar jobs or migrate to Gulf countries. After months of back breaking work at construction sites and other places that require hard labour, they were on their way to meet their near and dear ones. 

From the snatches of conversations I overheard I could gather that some were going to attend marriages, some to fix the roof or flooring of their houses and some even to reclaim their dues from recalcitrant and shifty borrowers.

In Loop With Wireless World

Though the way they live or travel may not have changed from their predecessors (could see the same old padlocked antique looking trunk boxes and cloth bags stocked under the seats), there was one tangible difference.

The new generation migrant workers have definitely got a toe hold into the wireless digital world, all thanks to low call rates and the entry of cheap mobile phones in the market. The presence of large number of smartphones (mostly of the Chinese and Indian make) in the compartment came as quite a revelation to me.

These labourers may be light years away from following the Mahesh Murthy-Mark Zukerberg free basics vs net neutrality debate and the ad blitzkrieg by Facebook, but they appeared quite savvy and nimble fingered while handling the devices they had in hand. Almost everybody was busy playing games, listening to music and watching downloaded movies to sustain them for the long journey. Some were even WhatsApping.

A couple of them were on the lookout for sockets to plug in their phone chargers. I am sure some of those ancient trunk boxes may even have power banks stocked in them!

A couple of years ago there was a news item stating that India has more mobile phones than toilets, a finding that was not so flattering and pointed to the skewed priorities of our countrymen. Now the day is not far when we may hear that the country has more smartphones than toilets!!

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Sink-ara Chennai

The second spell of heavy rains have made floods in Chennai reach frightening proportions, with aerial photos and videos of arterial roads turning into rivulets with flyovers acting as markers, stranded people being herded out of their homes by whatever means possible. Things had reached the tipping point during the first wet spell, which lasted nearly two weeks, but the current one brought the city face to face with catastrophe, with even the airport being shut down.

Ironically the city was once synonymous with perennially hot climate, scanty rains, water shortages with long queues and high decibel quarrels before hand-pumps dotting street corners in the older parts of the city. Weathermen used to rationalize the city's aridity by claiming that Chennai happened to be in a rain shadow area.

Even when it rained it used to be more like dew drops and those driving cars had to first switch on wind shield washers to make it wet enough for the wipers to clear the blurry wind shield. Heavy showers were very rare and those carrying umbrellas were dismissed as being sissy. 

A perceptible change occurred after the region was rocked by Asian tsunami in 2004. As the north east monsoon hit Chennai in 2005 the raindrops were far bigger and lethal, the showers were of much longer duration. That was the year hurricane Katrina struck US and Chennai too had its own 'cyclone season', some of which brought heavy rains that crippled the city.

I happened to be there in 2005 floods and it used to be quite an eerie feeling while crossing the Chintadripet bridge on my bike with a swollen Cooum in full flow. The water levels were just 2-3 feet shy of overflowing the bridge and the river's current was quite intimidating.

Another factor that puts Chennai at a disadvantage vis-a-vis floods is its soil composition. It has a heavy clay content and the absorption of water is poor. Hence inundated areas remain waterlogged for long, due to low percolation. They soon turn into a haunt for cattle, mosquitoes and flies, thereby posing a health hazard to nearby residents.

Like all Indian cities Chennai too has its own share of encroachments on the banks of waterways, lakes and tanks, all thanks to the usual suspects - corrupt political class and bureaucracy, unscrupulous real estate barons and a huge demand for housing.

Moreover, whatever was left of these water bodies was allowed to accumulate silt and indiscriminate dumping of waste, both by factories and households. Hence apart from pollution and stench, the carrying capacity major waterways of the city such as Adyar, Buckingham Canal, Cooum got severely depleted, leaving excess waters to flood low lying areas.

Many trot out the argument that if any city gets a month's rain in a day, it won't be able to cope, however well planned it may be. But this no way absolves the authorities, rapacious builders and factory owners from their guilt in bringing Chennai to such a pass. If the waterways were free from silt, garbage and encroachments then the magnitude of floods would have been much less and the excess water would have drained off to the sea at much faster rate.

After the first wet spell when a cab aggregator came up with the service to supply boats to the distressed people, it invited incredulous smirks and many dismissed it as nothing more than a publicity stunt. But with the second spell the reality, quite literally, sank in. Boats and dinghies became a lifeline to rescue the marooned.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat