Did He or Didn't He

He was the embodiment of 21st century version of American dream. His battle with near fatal testicular cancer and later unprecedented success in the gruelling Tour de France was the stuff legends were made of. 

Overcoming cancer and then winning (that too seven times) probably the most punishing activity in the modern sporting arena was really something. Participants in Tour have to pedal a distance of 3,497 kilometres covering stretches of Italy and Switzerland, in addition to France. The route passes through mountainous stretches of Pyrenees and Alps. However, its history is badly scarred with drug taint and numerous ex-champs were stripped off their titles after testing positive for some banned substance.

All through Armstrong's post-cancer career, allegations of doping kept following him like a shadow. In 1999 his urine sample showed traces of corticosteroid in an amount that was not in the positive range. A medical certificate showed he used an approved cream for saddle sores which contained the substance. That was probably the closest he came officially to the doping taint. But there were always a legion of sceptics, who believed that he was not clean; in fact, he was too smart to get caught.

But what he did on August 24 took everyone, including his detractors, off guard. He announced that he is not going to contest the doping charges as he felt the US anti-doping agency was indulging in "witch hunt". It drew extreme reactions. While his supporters and cancer organisations felt he should not have thrown in the towel, his detractors felt vindicated.

Though Armstrong is probably the most tested athlete and has never failed in any test, barring the 1999 aberration, his reputation has always been under cloud. It took further beating when fellow US cyclist Floyd Landis, who himself got disqualified in a drug test, said Armstrong used performance enhancing drugs and even taught others how not to get caught.

Unfortunately the world of doping is very complex. While knave dopers like Ben Johnson get caught immediately, there are some who trip after years like Marion Jones. Even Florence Griffith Joyner died amid innuendos of doping. The reason is that drug cheats are always a step ahead of anti-doping agencies. They  take drugs that are not under the lens of these agencies and go scot-free. By the time doping agencies device a test for that particular drug, they move on to new ones. Some even go for blood transfusion to avoid detection.

As a counter measure the doping agencies keep samples for longer periods, so that they can be later tested for newer drugs. And it did succeed in bringing many to book.

All this is not to cast aspersion on Lance Armstrong, but he should have fought on if he were clean. By refusing to do so he has provided a handle to sceptics. He had previously won an indomitable battle against cancer and these allegations are nothing compared to that.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

In Praise of India

For most Indians there is nothing like getting a pat from a Westerner, it is almost akin to schoolboy's euphoria on being praised by a hard-to-please teacher.

The Telegraph opinion piece by Theodore Darlymple will surely be music to their ears. The author’s name did ring a bell and I wondered if he is anyway connected with the famous historian William Darlymple. But a Wikipedia search revealed that Theodore Darlymple is in fact a pen name for Anthony (A.M.) Daniels, writer and retired doctor.

The columnist's main aim seems to be to run down Britain for being caught in its colonial time wrap and refusing to accept the new 'little England' ground realities.

He begins by attacking Britain's policy of extending aid to foreign countries in general and says it only helps the concerned British officials feather their nests with fat salaries and help corrupt governments in donor countries. Citing his own example as aid project official he said, "I bought my first house with money saved from the generous salary an aid project paid me, when I worked in the South Seas."

Then Darlymple comes to British aid to India says it has more to do with "hangover of a colonial superiority complex" and also decries clubbing all poor nations in one category. He also quotes Pranab Mukherjee as saying British aid was 'peanuts'. He lauds India for the scientific and economic progress made by the country in general – and all that without an authoritarian government. He heaps praise on youth of India and their thirst for knowledge and says the country's condition improved because of hard work by its people and not due to any aid.

Surprisingly Darlymple also finds Indians’ command over English language amazing. He gushes, “The best and most beautiful spoken English in the world is now to be heard in India.” Probably the rise of Indian writers in English fiction made him come to such a conclusion.

However, Darlymple at the same time reminds us that he has not lost track of what ails India. He says the country “remains profoundly corrupt and its government is incapable of passing necessary reforms. Rural poverty is deep and persistent.” Still he says it has come a long way from being perceived as a hopeless case with “perpetual epidemic and recurring famine”.

What I found a bit disconcerting was his justification for India's low tally of medals at the Olympic Games. He says, “Its young people have more important things to do than put the shot or throw the javelin.” Sorry Mr Darlymple, we are a medal starved country and are acutely conscious of it. That is why even bronze medalists here get the kind of reception, which even multiple gold medalists in other countries may not get. One of the main factor for this disquiet is that our neighbour China returns home after every Olympics with a cart load of medals.

I also don’t share his fulsome praise of how things have improved in Calcutta, “they don’t any longer collect dead people from the pavements who have died in the night of starvation.”  Maybe starvation deaths in our cities are no longer happening or not getting recorded, but our metros such as Kolkata or Mumbai are far from presentable. And when I say this I am not even thinking of London or New York, even those who have been to Shanghai or Bangkok rave about their infrastructure, clean streets and polite people. Something sorely lacking in our cities.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Copysutra Unlimited

The fact that noted Indian-American political commentator Fareed Zakaria was caught for plagiarism and suspended from Time and CNN may have caused ripples in US, and Zakaria was oozing with apology, he said he made “a terrible mistake. . . . It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault.”

But at his home country it caused hardly any such stir. Gauging the reaction of people from all walks of the society, it seems that at best it evoked only a casual what’s-the-big-deal shrug. 

An editor who not too long ago was caught for lifting paras from some foreign publication, but still managed to keep his job, said, “Being editor-at-large (Fareed Zakaria is editor at large at CNN) is a tough call. You travel so many places, attend cocktail sessions and read so many things that after a point you don’t remember what is yours and what it somebody else’s.” As an afterthought he said, "I feel he should not have taken paras from a well known journal like New Yorker, but maybe from some provincial publication, whose website frequently gets inaccessible due to lack of bandwidth."

The members of the academic community were more amused than shocked about developments concerning Zakaria. A research scholar, who considers ‘control C+control V’ the greatest invention since wheel, said, "God for copying one para he is doing all this. I know of guys who have lifted whole thesis and are now well placed in life." He then reeled out some names which were indeed very respectable ones.

However, he added that sometimes accidents do happen, as in the case of one of his seniors. He had plagiarized one thesis and unfortunately the invigilator happened to be the guy, whose thesis he had lifted! “Such incidents do happen, but are as rare getting hit by lightning,” he philosophized.

A film director of seventies, who had improvised many Hollywood spaghetti westerns of the 70s into daaku films (also called faluda western) and rode into sunset with good fortune and some popular awards said, “This internet age is proving to be a boon as well as bane. These days it is easy to get film footage and other materials to copy, but it is becoming almost impossible to not get caught by the audience.” 

He recalled nostalgically that during the licence-permit raj days of the 70s, few Indians used to go abroad and English movies were hardly screened in small towns and television was unheard of beyond metros. In such an environment it was easy to get away with lifting almost a whole film and pepper them with song and dance numbers.

For most Bollywood music directors plagiarism is as inherent in their songs, as say words like pyaar or ishq. A Bollywood remix lyricist amid his tight schedule took time off to share few thoughts on the issue. “There is nothing like originality. Everything happens due to inspiration. Even Shakespeare was not original.” Just then he broke into the latest ad jingle for a telecom company ‘jo tera hai, woh mera hai’ to drive home his point.

Disclaimer: A work of pure imagination

Also read: Bangalore Beat 

Mourning Becomes Rajesh Khanna

The end seemed well near. The emaciated frame of yesteryear superstar looked much older than his biological age of 69 in recent TV footages. For those on the wrong side of forty, it evoked a tinge of sweet nostalgia.

But while Kakaji was getting in and out of hospitals, the response among the Bollywood circles was tepid. It was reported that very few people from film fraternity came to visit him. This is not very surprising as the industry has been harsh towards stars past their prime. Its cold disdain and amnesia was even more pronounced in case of Parveen Babi.

The media, however, continued with its coverage off and on, though not at hysterical levels. This somehow sustained interest among the public and once the news of his death came, it evoked a frenzy which no one saw it coming. It looked like a throwback to the 60s and early 70s, when he was the undisputed king of Bollywood.

If those days it was fan mails, kisses on his cars, getting married to his photograph; now it was effusive tweets and Facebook status updates (a mainstay of current day youth). At least for a day the twain did meet between the greying Vividh Bharti generation and the spiky haired, multiplex MTV Roadies generation.

However, the Twitterati did come up with few howlers, despite Google and Wikipedia at their disposal. Some of them tweeted 'RIP Babu Moshai', though that character was actually played by Amitabh Bachchan and not Rajesh Khanna, who was Anand in the film by same name. It drew some angry responses from others. The fact that the day of his death coincided with Priyanka Chopra's birthday too provided fodder to their imagination. Sample this "Priyanka Chopra's birthday was overshadowed by Rajesh Khanna's death. Somewhere she must be weeping 'Why should boys have all the fun?"'

In Facebook the same old bizarre spectacle happened whenever a celebrity dies. Fans were putting up Rajesh Khanna RIP on their status updates and friends were gleefully clicking the 'like' button. As if they were happy to see him go. Mark Zukerberg should make his engineers work overtime to address this limitation.

Even his professional rivals like Amitabh Bachchan and Javed Akhtar were singing praises of him. It almost seemed as if Kakaji, who had been banished to oblivion after his downfall from superstardom in mid-1970s, has been finally put on a pedestal that was long overdue for him.

Also read: Bangalore Beat

Twilight Of a Superstar

The recent TV images of a frail looking yesteryear's superstar Rajesh Khanna standing at the balcony of his bungalow suddenly brought to me a realisation about the passage of an era (or is it light years). The gaunt figure gave the impression that he did not age gracefully like say Amitabh Bachchan or Dharmendra. He looked much older than 69.

When I was old enough to watch movies in mid 1970s, Rajesh Khanna was losing ground to Amitabh Bachchan. Kakaji's (as he is known) romanticism suddenly went out of fashion and was soon replaced by the Bachchan's angry young man persona and Zanjeer was the trend setter.

Later on Big B's stranglehold over the box office became all encompassing. It soon became cool to be lanky and have hair long enough to cover one's ears. Don't know how exactly that hairstyle originated, but in India it became a rage, thanks to Bachchan. From taxi, auto drivers to engineering and medical students, all were painstakingly growing their tresses long enough to flow over their ears. For all other Indian actors of that era, irrespective of language, it became a basic requirement to appear cool. The clippers, a mandatory tool in the armoury of barbers, soon started losing favour among the younger clientele. It gave way to accessories like hair dryer and roller brushes.

Coming back to Rajesh Khanna, my admiration for him was more of a retrospective one. I began appreciating him only after I grew up and by then Khanna was many years away from his arc lights days. I remember watching Amar Prem as a child and found it 'boring' as there were no 'fights' or 'comedy' scenes! And, of course, I was too small to understand what terms like 'baazari aurat' actually meant! 

However, some of the lilting numbers from his movies, especially Aradhana, Kati Patang appealed to me even then. The moment I used to hear these songs from my neighbour's radio, I too used to switch ours on and try to tune in to the Vividh Bharti or Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, the mainstays of Hindi music back then.

That of course was also the result of a symbiotic relationship Rajesh Khanna shared with Kishore Kumar. Both then were contemporaries and struggling to make their mark.

After the dawn of television era, I got a chance to watch the movies of his heydays on Doordarshan on Sundays and really began to appreciate them. I then realised why movies like Anand, Amar Prem were superhits. And felt his abrupt end to superstardom was quite unfortunate; though critics and film historians bemoan that success had gone into Kakaji's head. He had acquired starry airs and was dismissive of junior artists like Amitabh Bachchan. So, they felt his downfall was some sort of a poetic justice.

He had 15 consecutive solo superhits between 1969 and 1972 under his belt, which was quite unprecedented back then and is still considered a record. And fans (especially female ones) went to insane lengths to adore the country's most eligible bachelor (he married Dimple Kapadia only in 1973).

After that golden era, success at box office became rare and more modest. Among those lean periods I remember watching Thodi si Bewafai and later Avataar (that was ages before James Cameron's 3D offering), which were fairly successful at the box office. On the personal front too he had a rough ride. He got estranged with his wife Dimple and later on had a relationship with  Tina Munim, with whom he paired up for moderately successful Souten. She later went on to marry Reliance scion Anil Ambani.

His entry to politics virtually put an end to his film career. While going through a Wikipedia entry on him I was surprised to know that he had even acted in a couple of TV serials. Anyhow since I am not much of a serial guy, so totally missed out on all that.

Nearly a month back I saw him figure in a TV ad for Havells fan, where he points to a roomful ceiling and table fans and says these 'fans' will be with him forever. It made me cringe and wondered how Rajesh Khanna could agree for such an inane advertisement. What left me even more stunned was the fact that the ad was done by famous film maker and ad personality R Balki, who made movies like Cheeni Kum.

However coming back to the recent TV grab, it was heartening to see some young people had gathered before his house on hearing that he was indisposed. Probably DVDs, YouTube videos are keeping the movies of his heydays alive in memory of his fans. And Kakaji, please be assured that you needn't count upon lifeless ceiling and table fans for support!

Kolkata Blues

An imaginary conversation at Writer's Building in Kolkata.
West Bengal Govt official: Congrats Mr Roy for painting your house blue. As per new rules you are eligible for tax exemption. Kindly fill this form and submit your paint expenses bill and we will mail the tax exemption certificate to your house.
Roy: Thank you sir.
Half a hour later Roy meets his old friend Chatterjee outside Writer's Building.
Chatterjee: Hello Mr Roy, I knew you were an ardent football fan, but did not know you took so much interest in politics. Just passed by your house and saw it was painted all blue - the colour of Trinamool Congress. 
Roy: (in sotto voce) Chatterjee da, just between you and me. I am no way interested in politics-bolitics.
Chatterjee (with raised eyebrows): Then.
Roy: I painted my house blue to celebrate the victory of my favourite club Chelsea in UEFA Champions League! Nothing to do with Mamata Didi and her first anniversary in office. Luckily both the events coincided and I am making the best of it. 

Satyamev Jayate: Some Home Truths

Keeping a date with TV programmes is beyond me. Often when I come across the announcements on TV, I think 'Hey I must see it', but in nine out of ten instances I end up missing them.

The same thing happened when Aamir Khan's much-hyped TV foray Satyamev Jayate went on air on May 6. Totally forgot about it - and even if I had remembered, locating channels like Star Plus or Doodarshan on my set top box would have been a problem. Haven't viewed Doordarshan for ages and have never been a serial-antakshari-game-show-crazy person to keep track on what goes on in Star Plus.

I was only reminded of it when I saw some effusive praises on Facebook, when I signed in on the same night. I checked out on Google and did come across a web link for the programme. I had no idea whether it was a soap opera, talk show or even a game show. Was curious to know what the programme was all about. A couple of reviews gave me a rough idea that the programme's first episode was about vanishing girl child.

The topic has been discussed ad nauseum in TV, newspapers and magazines, but the problem is such that no amount of coverage can be termed as overkill. Every census report throws up alarming drop in sex ratio and this triggers a rash of articles on newspapers and magazines, debates on TV, but the next census throws up even more shocking figures.

Aamir Khan approaches the problem in his classic understated way and keeps repeating the he does not intend to pillory anyone. Nothing new has been said in the programme, but still some instances like the plight of Parveen Khan, from Morena, Madhya Pradesh, will unsettle even the most hardened couch potatoes inured to grisliest form of violence.

The programme debunks the myth that it happens in remote villages and the role of doctors as willing conspirators. Also the consequences of female foeticide, namely villages without girls and the way women are treated in these villages. It somehow desists from broaching the topic of situational homosexuality - quite likely fallout in such skewed societies. Maybe a too taboo a topic for prime time TV.

The programme, however, misses out on one of the most important motivation for preference for sons in our society - the problem of dowry.

Though Aamir Khan’s star appeal may bring in the MTV-driven, Page 3 obsessed generation to think beyond Hrithik Roshan's nickname and Sunny Leone's bust size, but how effective is sending SMS 'Y' to some number or emails is open to debate. This will only give rise to clicktivism - send SMS or email and then forget about the issue - over to next Roadies episode.

The solution lies in giving exemplary punishment to doctors who assist in such operations, as rightly pointed out by an activist in the programme. And, of course a change in the society's well entrenched mindset of treating sons as 'budape ka sahara' (caregivers during old age). There is some change in the cities, but will take long time to percolate to villages.