Beeped Out

While watching Gangs of Wasseypur, I came across one of those rare comical scenes in an otherwise gritty marathon of a movie (in two parts) soaked in blood and gore, set in the badlands of Bihar/Jharkhand. The hero Nawazuddin Siddiqui flaunts a pager in a mofussil tapori fashion to impress his lady love Huma Qureshi.

I am sure many of the present day smartphone wielding hipsters may not have even heard about pagers. And many who saw the movie were seeing that matchbox like device for the first (and probably the last) time.

It was one of those electronic gadgets which died a premature death, thanks to the technologically superior mobile phone and a free fall in call and text message charges. The fact that one could  only receive messages and one had to call up the pager operator to send a message were major handicaps.

Back in the mid-1990s, it enjoyed a pride of place among the yuppies, almost on par with what an i-pad commands now. Company bigwigs and executives were doled out Motorola's pager sets (it had a monopoly in India) and it gave them a kick to wield them tucked to their belts. At public places a beep from a pager often used to draw admiring glances, often laced with envy.

However little did these executives realise that they were, in fact, falling prey to the first version of 'electronic handcuff' being applied on them by the corporates to ruin their free time and holidays. Later on that role was taken up by mobile phones, laptops, blackberries and i-pads. Remember Hrithik Roshan in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara?

The  introduction of mobile phones in the country did sound a alarm for pager operators, but the prohibitively high mobile phone call charges and handset costs was a cause of some comfort for them. Mobile phone initially was described as a rich man's toy and almost no communication expert back then saw it as a gamechanger in India as it later turned out to be.

The subsequent reduction in cell phone handset prices and call charges soon pushed down pagers to downmarket status. Pager beeps at public places started inviting scorn and derision.

I remember a pager dealer commenting in some magazine (don't recall which one) that earlier his clients used to be doctors, engineers, high class lawyers, but now he has plumbers, carpenters and automobile mechanics sign up as subscribers. I also recall a friend of mine saying, "If you have mobile phone, cool; if you do not have one, no problem; but if you have a pager, people will look down upon you."

Pager's death knell came when incoming calls on cell phones became free. After that it was a swift and steep slide to the e-waste bin of history.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Dad @ 96! Hrmph

At a time when Indian media's view finders remained glued to Arvind Kejriwal and his targets, I happened to come across a news item on India in a British tabloid The Sun, which of course is a telling commentary on why we seem to be always losing the battle against population explosion.

Ramjeet Raghav, a 96-year-old farmer from Sonepat became a father recently! Billed as world's oldest dad, he only bettered his own world record when he became a father two years back. In a country where life expectancy of men barely top 60, it is indeed an unthinkable feat.

In his photograph he has snow white beard and forehead ridden with lines. But surprisingly he seems to be  standing erect without any walking stick.

Sun in its typical tabloidese describes him as 'Randy' Ramjeet and 'oldest swinger in town'. What is more, his wife is 60 years old!

Ramjeet, a former wrestler, said a diet of milk, butter and almonds (thankfully no  chowmein) keeps him young and claimed he was even capable of having more babies! However, thankfully, he now wants his wife to get sterilised, as they now have two children and that too both sons! What more can one ask for in a patriarchal society?

The mainstream media in India seems to have given this story a miss. Even the nosey and chatty TV channels have decided to ignore it. A Google search on Ramjeet only throws up foreign sites such as Huffington Post, Daily Mirror.

Daily Mirror said he admits that his neighbours are more than jealous of his sex drive, saying: “I do it three or four times a night.” And can shame even 25 year olds in lovemaking. In case you thought it was an empty boast, his wife seconds it: “He doesn’t seem old to me, he can make love like any 25-year-old man, even better because he can go on all night, and he makes a wonderful father.” 

The comments section ranged from sassy (someone suggested he should have a relationship with Madonna) to anger over the plight of kids.

A country that is struggling to rein in its burgeoning population, this is certainly no flattering news.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Sweet Tooth For Barfi

Barfi is the new flavour of this festival season with film critics and YouTube enthusiasts having developed a sweet tooth for the movie by same name. They seem to be chomping on it with the same gusto as anchors of foodie shows on TV.

The movie whetted their appetites after it got selected to represent the country at Oscars. The movie makers in their pursuit for 'inspiration' have not even spared Korean and Japanese movies and quite unknowingly ended up providing a 'globalised' spot-the-original-scene contest for critics.

Plagiarism in Hindi and for those matter movies of any Indian language is as old as hills. Movie makers had no qualms in lifting themes, songs and their chances of getting caught was always as remote as noose around Ajmal Kasab.

Within India also this link is incestuous. A Tamil filmmaker may lift a story from Hindi movie, or a Malayalam film maker may lift it from Tamil.

However film makers over the years have become craftier about plagiarism. Gone are the days of lifting themes from just one film. Thus we had a movie like 1970s hit Love Story, based on Eric Segal's novel having 'inspired' many in India. The result was Ankhiyon ke jarokhon se in Hindi and Madanolsavam in Malayalam, which was also dubbed in Tamil as Paruva Mazhai. Now thanks to internet and satellite television, they copy scenes from dozens of films and that too not just from Hollywood.

But little do these filmmakers know that internet can be a double edged sword, as it has also made the viewers more savvy and hence their chances of not getting caught has come down drastically. During licence-permit raj days, very few could manage to travel abroad and even Hollywood films were hardly screened beyond metro cities. Hence they could get away with this daylight robbery on gullible film goers and those foreign filmmakers, whose themes were lifted, somehow were either unaware or thought it was not worth the trouble fighting legal battles amid India's heat and dust.

Lastly, the country's choice for Oscar entry for the Best Foreign Language category always ranged from intriguing to downright silly. So far, barring Tamil movie Jeans, only Hindi films have been chosen for that honour. Most often the chosen films have more to do with star appeal and marketing potential than quality of acting or theme.

Make Hay While Flags Burn

The marauding Chinese economic juggernaut is showing signs of slowing down, but one sector seems to be quite literally keeping the flag flying. These are units located in many of China's small towns and metro outskirts. They manufacture flags and now seem to be a beehive of activity with even round the clock shifts not being able to cope with the huge demand. Right now in China, only factories manufacturing fake i-Phone 5 have such schedules.

Chen Qiang, who used to be a Communist party official during the Deng Xiao Peng era now runs one such unit. He started off with making flags for Chinese Communist party, but has now acquired a global footprint. He said, "Nowadays the demand is mainly from overseas - countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt and some Arab countries, whose names I don't remember."

Though the spurt in demand has made Qiang happy, there is a sense of disquiet. He said with a knitted brow, "The strange part is that the orders are not for flags of their own countries; but for US flags. I am really surprised by this new found love for peddlers of junk food, colas and recession."

According to Qiang the demand last week was so high that they even approached the local prison to get the work done. "The prisoners did a major goof up in the flag design - instead of 50 stars in the US flag some had only 45. We decided to hold payment and were worried that we may face outright rejection and loss of face. But our customers took the delivery and hardly noticed the error. Though relieved, I had a niggling worry that they may find it later," he said.

"Though in business I strictly follow comrade Deng's principle - 'the colour of the cat doesn’t matter as long as it can catch mice'. But still, curiosity got better of me," Qiang said with resignation.

The other day when he met his old client Shanawaz Ali from Pakistan, he decided to broach the issue of obsession with US flag. After all he had been a frequent visitor and was instrumental in bringing other Arab clients to Qiang.

Ali, who stays in a Pakistani town close to Chinese border, said, "I keep getting phone calls from Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar about US flags. Looks like there are some anti-US protests going on and people are burning flags. Some Amreekan guy had made a film insulting our beloved Prophet and people are livid about it."

A visibly relieved Qiang said, "Oh, so all these flags were meant to be burnt", and secretly thanked his luck that the '45-star glitch' was of no consequence.

Ali then asked, "Do you have the design of French flag." "No", replied Qiang. "Try to get one, we may soon require that also," Ali said and took leave.

(A work of off-the-tangent imagination)

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Silly Season

Looks like politicians want to now usurp the roles of stand up comedians. They are now out to provide comic relief and other forms of light distractions in the face of faltering economy, rising prices, starvation deaths, rotting food grains, drought and flood woes.
 
First it was Beni Prasad Verma. Somehow Congress party never gave him his due, probably because he was a turncoat from Samajwadi Party. However his remarks on inflation had the party's ace foot-in-mouth practitioners feel hot under their collar. 

He said that rising prices actually helped farmers! Probably long innings in Delhi's corridors of power has made him incapable to differentiate between farmer and middleman. Since he may be interacting more with the latter for election funding and other money matters, he may have thought they got a really good thing going. Now that government has increased diesel prices, hope he does not feel that the boys who dispense fuel at petrol pumps are going to book Mercs.
 
Some days later it was the turn of opposition BJP. And that too none other than loh purush Narendra Modi - normally known for combative rabble rousing statements.

He told a US newspaper that malnutrition in Gujarat was due to vegetarianism and middle class girls’ size zero obsession.  Surprisingly his remarks on vegetarianism went unchallenged and mercifully there were no Peta protests. It was surprising that no veggie pressure group took umbrage to his statement. Or probably they failed to make it to media's radar. 

But his comment on middle class girls more than made up for that shortcoming. While organisations associated with child rights and women brandished statistics to show how worse off  girls are in Gujarat; he became a favourite muse for cartoonists and satirists.

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi too joined the fray by coming up with a jaw-droppingly ludicrous statement on rising Muslim population in his state. To cover up Congress government's lapses in curbing Bangladeshi infiltration, Gogoi ended tying himself up in knots.

At a TV interview to Karan Thapar he shocked everyone by saying that the rise in population among Muslims was due to illiteracy. Thapar first thought it was a slip of tongue and asked him repeatedly, but he came out with same reply. His party high command was left red faced and tongue tied. And for Muslims it was a rude awakening, as it came from the mouth a leader belonging to a secular party.

Meanwhile amidst all this foot-in-mouth orgy, the apple of every cartoonists' eye Digvijay Singh was conspicuous by his absence.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Scaling Mighty Obstacles

While cricket pundits were splitting their hairs over why Sachin Tendulkar's footwork is no longer what it used to be, an Indian athlete with a congenital disability in left foot had his leap-of-faith moment at London paralympics.
 
Girisha Hosanagara Nagarajegowda, a 24-year-old from Karnataka did the country proud by winning its first ever silver medal and that too in a physically demanding event like high jump. Paralympic games are a regular feature and happens after the conclusion of every olympics. But the event comes nowhere near the viewfinder of the country's media or its collective conscious. The reasons are not far to seek. Firstly the country's sports culture is nothing much to write home about and secondly the society's attitude towards disability oscillates from callous disregard to downright patronizing.
 
Somehow this year, after the country's best ever showing at Olympics, the TV cameras lingered on in London. Quite predictably controvesies soon followed and got greater visibility. An Indian power lifter Farman Basha had complained that he was not provided with an escort and even his coach was not allowed to stay with him.
 
But nobody in their wildest dreams thought India would open its account at the games. In fact few people were even aware that the country had sent a contingent for paralympics.
 
Now that Girisha has won a medal government and other agencies are doling cash awards and other trappings that come with sporting achievements. But I am sure it will be far too modest compared with other Olympic medal winners and microscopic when compared with IPL pampered cricketers.
 
Reading about his life one gets a snapshot of how miserable it is to be born poor and handicapped in our country. Most notably how these sections of population can no way access medicare. Girisha was born with a defect, which was curable. But his parents could not afford the surgery required to rectify it.
 
In our counry to be hadicapped and be able to lead a semblance of normal life is in itself a major struggle. Hence to take part in a sport like high jump is asking for the moon. Hence no adjective in the dictionary would be apt enough to describe Girisha's achievement.

Saina Nehwal's kind gesture
The badminton ace was so touched by Girisha's feat that she decided to gift him Rs 2 lakh. Hope our Ferrari/BMW driving sports stars (read cricketers) take cue from it.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

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