Rumi Nations

I put in a rather long comment on this article in Livemint. So, obviously I have to paste that comment on my blog and make a blog post out of it! 1) Who's that Duncan Fletcher guy pictured with Dhoni? Anyway, neither do I know nor do  I wish to know. I just wish people of India would stop making Gods out of silly young men that cricketers are. Even compared to the cricket that I grew up with, the days of Srikanth, Amarnath, Vengsarkar, Azhar, Sachin, Ganguly, Laxman, and Dravid, now the game is all too commercialized. Too much cricket, too much money, too many crores (and girls) dangling in front of talent-less young men. 2) What a fall when you consider that we started with "Yug-purush" such as Nehru to today's "half-purush" such as Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. Why did the people of India elect these jokers in 2004? And re-elect in 2009? But then again, what is the alternative before the billion poor of this country? No, Modi is certainly not who...

October 15: We inch towards (or gallop towards -> depending on how you feel about this year) the closing of 2012. I don't know if the present month of October has been more frenetic than the rest of the months. But it feels to me as if it has been. So I am inclined to do a running summary of the month as a diary entry for future reference. Among the many October surprises have been the *win* attributed to Romney in the first Presidential debate as we approach the quadrennial presidential election in the U.S. Felix Baumgartner jumped from 40 kms up in the atmosphere and thanks to the magic of TV, perhaps billions of human beings -- sitting in their drawing rooms, waiting at the airport lounge, drinking beer in the bar or elsewhere -- were witness to the successful accomplishment of this feat of superhuman dare-devilry. There are not many records to be made left to make - this was one of the last for the forseeable future and the door is now closed on this one as well. U...

The Office of the President of India is not a reward bestowed upon an eminent person for a lifetime of services rendered to the nation or for any other factors. It’s a serious constitutional office, the highest office of the land. I wish to submit that by withdrawing himself as a candidate in the elections to this office in this turbulent climate, Dr. Kalam has done a disservice to the nation. He would have been a serious challenger to the canny politician Pranab Mukherjee and by his action, he becomes an accomplice to the smooth and dangerous ascendancy of Mr. Mukherjee to this key office. The country is surely bigger than Dr. Kalam. Not a Routine Matter No serious observer of politics in India will look upon the choice of Pranab Mukherjee as its candidate by the Congress Party as anything but a cynical and calculated as well as canny move by the party to position its man in the key role of President in advance of the likely fractured mandate of 2014. Never before in...

I am thinking of Ambika Soni having some fun at L. K. Advani's expense by wondering that she thought that he was retired. I am wondering who is Ambika's boss??? Who does she answer to? Who is the superboss of everyone in her party including as it happens the babbling, mumbling prime minister of India? It is a sad fact of Indian politics that someone like Deve Gowda has been a prime minister. It's also sad that at various times other politicians including Mulayam Yadav , Laloo Yadav , Mayawati , Chandrababu Naidu , and many others have been possible prime ministerial candidates. L. K. Advani's suitability to be prime minister may be open to debate. But surely, no one has less locus standi to be the prime minister than Sonia Gandhi. I wonder how these people can sleep well at night. After all, one can lie all one wants to the world at large but you can't lie to yourself.