The Federer Express

So, I am a Federer fan. The Fed has made watching tennis meaningful again. And his stunning display of emotion after winning the 2006 Australian Open only makes him that much more of an endearing champion.

Especially when you have a stark contrast available in Justine Henin-Herdenne. Maybe she really desparately wanted to live up to the characterization of people of her country as portrayed in the comedy Yes Minister. To paraphrase, "...Common Market official ...has the organizing capacity of the Italians, the flexibility of the Germans and the modesty of the French... the imagination of the Belgians, the generosity of the Dutch and the intelligence of the Irish". I can't imagine how she could have even thought of justifying her pull out, and I am sure she did not even imagine how her lack of grace toward the eventual winner will play out. The telling moment was when a concerned Amelie Mauresmo (lets not forget, she was once dissed as being half-a-man) had the class and grace to go and talk to JHH and inquire after her health.

Someone somewhere (probably was Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated) had written that Federer looked uncharacteristically mortal at the Aussie Open, and yet found a way to win. In a way, this elevates the Fed.

Maybe even like how the boring Pistol Pete Sampras suddenly became a crowd favorite after he uncharacteristically broke down in tears during the 1995 Aussie Open quarters.

Apparently the similarties between these two great players are a lot more than meets the eye.

"You think you know who you are?"

...
"You've absolutely no idea" (from the thought-provoking movie Crash)

Have you thought lately on how prejudiced you are or can be? Especially when it concerns the matter of another race of people? Or even when it just concerns the matter of people that "look" differently than you do?

We've made our own lives so complex, so profoundly shallow, so irresponsibly ego-centric, we may have just forgotten what it means to be a person. We can argue about morals, morality, right, righteousness, God, etc till the cows come home. But until that time comes, when fraught with danger and faced with hurdles we stop resorting to racial slurs and epithets against any one or more perceived communities, we maybe all are doing a Jim Crow, albeit to every discriminated race.

And economic progress and how long a country has been free has apparently nothing to do with it either. India has been and still continues to be victim of its own prejudices; Australia, France, Britain, Germany and the US also boast an ignominous record. Yes, statistically the developed nations maybe have a leg up on the rest of the world, but the fact still remains - almost everywhere is a prejudiced society. Many places, we've managed to hide it under a veneer of sophistication that passes off as tolerance and acceptance.

I am not sure where we can start to unlearn the prejudices that we've learnt, but I suppose, by accident or by design, we have begun moving along that path of accepting diversity, because we're atleast acknowledging that there are problems. And the new economic realities also seem to be spurring this acceptance along.

To quote documentary film-maker Bill Brummel's words - "Imagine we are all the same. Imagine we agree about politics, religion and morality. Imagine we like the same types of music, art, food and coffee. Imagine we all look alike. Sound boring? Differences need not divide us. Embrace diversity. Dignity is everyone's human right." (Starbucks' The Way I See It #61)

If you want to run with the big dogs...

...you got to stop pissing with the puppies.

The BBC's Delhi-based South Asia bureau editor Paul Danahar writes this excellent piece on the India - US diplomacy and the new row sparked this week by the US Ambassador to India, David Mulford's remarks to the Press Trust of India.

A fantastic analysis, even-handed in explaining the points as they played out on both sides of the row. Especially considering that both sides are neither right nor wrong. Each is just trying to play the cards to their advantage - the US in getting an all-important vote to get the UN to refer Iran to the Security Countil, India in not upsetting the apple-cart vis-a-vis its special relationship with both Iran and the US.

In George W. Bush's world of black and white, the choices in this issue are mut-ex i.e. mutually exclusive. And in a rarity for me, I completely agree. But unfortunately for Georgie (and me), world politics is never played out in black and white. Rather, the viewer needs binoculars capable of interpreting the billion shades of gray that are possible in this drama.

Cooler heads are bound to prevail in this spat, and after all the posturing on both sides (Condi Rice apparently joined in the chorus, warning that the US Congress might not approve the deal if India voted against the US position, and David Mulford had to do the classic back-pedal "the remarks were taken out of context/I was quoted out of context" charade after getting a dressing-down from the Indian government). But it has queered the pitch for the Indian government...thanks to a moment of tactless lapse by a professional tactician.

I mean, how thick do you have to be, to not get the simple fact - nations do not like being bullied around, especially those that have aspirations of their own.

It is too soon to make a comparison, but if this keeps up, I cannot help think of future India-US relations on the same scale as the current French-American relations - quibbling step-sisters who cannot stop arguing/fighting/spitting at each other, and yet cannot be divorced off each other.

Vive diplomatie...

The Inevitable Overload

Ok. So it is the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Superhawks that are going to play for the Lombardi Trophy this year. The Championship game of the National Football League. Or as affectionately referred to by us aliens, "American Football". Or as affectionately referred to by us natives, the "World Championship" game.

The game I can live with, even manage to watch, especially for the fantastic commercials that are a result of the millions poured in by companies who are presumably dazed/drugged into thinking that these spots were worth that much.

But please, oh please, spare me the hype. Spare me the bull that the NFL is the national pastime. Spare me the marketing blitz that would tell me that if I miss the Superbowl, I am missing a part of life. When it has reached the point that the hype and hoopla surrounding the game is bigger than the game, when the media circus surrounding the game has the audacity to criticize a host city for short-comings for a mere game, when the league has the audacity to hold league cities to a ransom, forcing the citizens to pony up a tax to pay for a stadium that will fund their pockets, count me out.

Am I enraged? Of course I am enraged. Especially when I am paying a tax to pay for the new stadium for the backbone-less franchise helmed by the leech named Bill Bidwill just so they can put spineless spiritless teams on the field and wallow in mediocrity, while those fat cows fatten themselves even more.

In a sense, the next two weeks will mean a lot more time for myself - what with all the time I will save from not having to watch ESPN drum the Super-hype-bown in to my head...

Thank God for small mercies...

Pongal O' Pongal

(image from the Pongal restaurant web-page at pongal dot org)

Pongal - literally translates to "boiling over" as in boiling over in thankfullness, joy, celebration, a joie-de-vivre if you will. It is a celebration of the harvest, and also of the elements of nature that helped sustain the harvest, and the farm animals that helped sow the fields. Simply, it is an elegant, charming celebration of nature and our part in it. January 14 of the Gregorian calendar marked this year's celebration of the harvest in Tamil Nadu in southern India.

The first day of the month of "Thai" (rhymes with why) marks the transit of the Sun from the sign of Saggitarius to the sign of Capricorn. In southern India, it coincides with the withdrawal of the monsoons, and the ripening and eventual harvest of the fields. Plus, this also marks the end of the (brief) chilly period that is heralded by the previous month of Margazhi. Ergo, it also means a favourable disposition from the Sun. What better way to celebrate all of the above, than to indulge in it?
Traditionally the festival spreads over three days.

The first day of the festival is actually the last day of the previous month (Margazhi). Bhogi (or bhogi pongal) is the day that heralds the ushering out of the old. Its the day the house is cleaned out, and items discarded into a bonfire. If the harvest has not yet been collected, this day also marks the finishing of reaping. Kolams (or Rangolis) adorn the fronts of homes, adding to the colourful nature of the festival.

Day 2 (also the first day of the new month of Thai) is the day of offering to the Sun and the elements. This is what makes the festival of Pongal a naturally charming festival - celebrating the Sun and Earth for their bounty in the crop, the elements for their cooperation in helping create and sustain the bounty they've just harvested. Naturally, this festival is an outdoor festival. Feasts are prepared in open wood-flame stoves in earthen pots with ingredients that are the traditional part of the harvest of the season - rice, lentils and sugarcane, along with spices like turmeric and ginger, and other crops. These earthen pots are colorfully adorned too, in keeping with the spirit of the season. (See image at top).

Finally, no traditional farmer was complete without his/her own cattle to drive the ploughs. And no farmer can celebrate their harvest without celebrating their farm animals (most notably the cattle that did and still do drive the ploughs of the farmers). This marks Day 3 or Maattu Pongal. The cattle get a well-deserved cleaning, and are decorated up and paraded around the village square. For the women in the households, this also marks what is referred to as Kaanum Pongal - food is offered as rolled balls to the birds and smaller animals of the farm - each of which in their own way contributed to the success of the harvest. This is a day of revelry, fun and frolic. And this also overflows in the following day, and in many places this is considered as the fourth day of Pongal, though in all actuality, the only thing about this day is the farmers get to spend it on their own with their families.

Bawarchi has a fantastic write-up on Pongal, (including excellent material on the antecedants of the various traditions). That article is also a source for part of the material authored above. Another good source is the "About" write up on the festival.

May the bounty of Pongal smile into the hearts, minds and homes of every man, woman and child. May the blessings of the Sun smile its way into and warm every home and hearth of this Earth.

Madras of the 1890's

The Library of Congress' World's Transportation Commission photography collection has come rather interesting snap-shots of the World as it was in the mid-1890's. The entire itinerary that the commission followed is available here.

Below are two snapshots of my native city - Chennai (formerly Madras) in South India.

Madras High Court 1890s


Madras Central 1890s

Africa in America

Experienced part of Africa' Safari and Serengeti...atleast a percent of it...here in the backwoods of Arizona...at Camp Verde. Out of Africa Park. The Serengeti simulation is nice...I wonder if the fencing could be more discreet, but thats nitpicking, especially when an actual trip to Tanzania/Kenya is not on the anvil... Still can't forget the Ostrich picking on my camera and the Giraffe slobbering all over my hand and face! Or better yet..getting charged by a white tiger...albeit from behind a fence.

Dissing Intellectuals

In these times of unprecedented assault on intellectuals (dissing them as liberals, for instance), it is always fun to give the right-wing off-their-rocker types more ammo to diss us with...

One, from a comic, who said whats on his mind and got dissed by his own people...Bill Cosby...in his sensational DVD Bill Cosby: Himself

"Intellectuals go to class to study what others do naturally."

Another from a sixteenth-century French essayist Michel de Montaigne via the Quotations Page

"I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly."

New Zealand

Travel Channel had a fantastic feature on New Zealand in late December 2005. And if the JRR Tolkien-written Peter Jackson-anchored "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy wasn't enough of an advert for the country, this one hour documentary, with no less than the Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark serving as the tour guide, I guess you could call it the final push over the top...


I have fallen in love with the country.

And how could you not, when the Prime Minister of the country is as down to earth and normal as can be. She hikes, climbs mountains (she reportedly climbed the Mt. Kilimanjaro recently), abseiling down 350 feet into an underground cave.

And the NZ has been a nuclear-free zone since 1984. And they seem to be more in the forefront of environmental protection, while still pursuing free trade.

I am sure there is something in it for our blustering conservative politicians, but I have been beaten dumb by our venerated Fox News and CNN...but let that not distract from the beauty of "Middle Earth"...New Zealand. (Images courtesy the Internet, source links provided as hyperlinks on images)