Dil Se

As the Government blows hot then cold on including the lower bureaucracy into the Lokpal Bill’s ambit, my widowed maid bringing up a family of six on an anorexic single income, has been running from pillar to post to get her son a Government job in compensation for her husband’s death on duty. It has taken her 14 years, yes that’s equal to a life term, to get the DDA to finally send her the letter of appointment in her son’s name. Many in queue after her got similar jobs in the department by allegedly paying off the officials a sum she could never gather due to her hand-to-mouth existence. When the letter came after 14 long years of her husband’s death, she was overjoyed enough to burst into tears of joy — only to realise sometime later that these would soon turn into tears of sorrow yet again. Besides, of course, the fact that the official at Vikas Sadan made her run for papers (when she would give one, he would ask for another and so on, not giving her the full list of the

So Wal Mart and the like are finally coming to India. What  does that mean for me? Personally, as a consumer, I dread the days when I would be driving some kilometers out of the city to shop at Wal Mart, possibly on a weekend. Here's why: First, I will be spending many more litres of petrol, the price tag of which is already asphyxiating my small little pocket. Second, I will have to beat the traffic which will only grow beyond nightmarish; next, the roads will be potholed and if I am lucky I will be able to pay my shopping bill at the counter before the day, or the night, is over.  Other than all that hassle, the problem is, I associate shopping with a lot of crazy factors none of which qualify for need-based buying. If I am depressed, I go shopping; if I have nothing better to do, I go shopping; If I am happy, I go shopping; if I am hungry, I go shopping; if I am on a friends' day out, I go shopping; and, if I see an attractive packaging to a product I totally don&

When some family members flew in from a neighbouring country, the first question was about the gifts that needed to greet them. The suggestions that came by reflected the fast changing economic and social situation in India, a matter of concern to many like us. One of the relatives suggested we should buy them some atta packs , others said pulses would be a good idea. Some others felt a kg of Shimla mirch  would be cool considering their high price tag. But whatever happened to gift items like almonds, cashew nuts and the like, wondered the sane section. Well, the argument was, if a kg of garlic can cost as much as a kg of almonds why not go for something that the visiting family would use more? It sounded outrageous at first but come to think of it, why not? Considering that prices have touched an all-time high, and traditional items like gold jewellery has become almost like gifting property in a metro, grocery is good enough for the wrapping paper. The comparison is stunning

Bollywood is on its way to moulding its next superstar now that the Khans have become vintage. With Shah Rukh, Salman and Amir Khan having hopped out of the college time textbook romance boys, the pedestal had been lying empty for a long time. While a whole lot of boys, both from star families and otherwise (Prateik Babbar and Ranvir Singh to name a few) have been trying their luck on the silver screen, but only to moderate success, Ranbir Kapoor’s   Rockstar   performance has undoubtedly given him a quantum leap into actual stardom — something that has leapfrogged him from being merely regarded as the silver spoon actor of a starry bloodline. In fact, if one were to look at Ranbir’s amazing career trajectory in Bollywood, one would say two things: He is either plain lucky or is fiercely talented. Seeing him perform in   Rajneeti , as Rocket Singh and now   Rockstar , I would safely go for the latter option. It is Ranbir’s cache of diverse histrionics that has scripted his a

T he stiff, unprecedented verdict by the English judge in the spot-fixing saga may be punctuated by moving stories of personal tragedy — Salman Butt becoming father just minutes before he is jailed for over two years and 18-year-old Mohamed Amir, the very gifted bowler from a poverty-stricken background, being “misled” all the way to a juvenile home in London — but fact remains that this ruling is appropriate, long in the coming and a huge tool for deterrence. However, that unfortunately does not mean that the roughly estimated $50 billion illegal betting ring around cricket will die, or that the dark agents of money around the game will become less insistent in making moolah through young players. The sad fact about cricket is that it has essentially become a wantonly commercial baby, vulnerable to corruption from external agents who have been allowed to get a deep penetration into the insides of the sport. The very fact that the illegal purveyors of dirty money have access

Covering the first ever Formula One race in India is quite a novel experience,  not to mention an uphill task. Uphill, because no one really has any clue about this sport except for having seen it on TV, enjoying the champagne baths the winning drivers like Sebastian Vettel regularly take right after victory. However, the sport itself is nothing less than an intense, mostly unfathomable, research and development project which might compete well with NASA. It is head and shoulders above aeronautics and takes a whole lot of technical aids from medical instruments. So, you have ultrasound machines to check the fitness of cars and endoscopy camera-mounted tubes to get into the otherwise unreachable recesses of, say, a fuel tank. Not many may know but a whole lot of car manufacturers would die to have their spare parts tested on F1 cars, and many of them actually do, like Mercedes for one. In that context, to get into the insides of this highly skilled and mechanically mind-bogg

We suddenly hear and see that India has become a global sporting de stination. And it is not at all about cricket. It is about all kinds of games which were never anticipated to debut in India, sports like the Formula 1 Grand Prix for which tickets are selling for as high as Rs 30,000 (the lowest being for Rs  2,500 which incidentally are sold out) to international football friendlies like the one which just took Kolkata by storm — the one between two times World Cup champions Argentina and fast coming up the ladder football nation Venezuela. Who would’ve thought a global delight of Lionel Messi’s unmatched stature would troop into Kolkata in the wee hours straight after a 5-0 FC Barcelona win and play his first international match as Argentine skipper in a country which does not even figure in the football map of the world? Who would have thought that a South American football clash would happen, that too as a friendly, on a land which lies on the other side of the world from La