Didn’t vote? Don’t complain!

We complain about the problems in our city but head for the hills to enjoy an extended weekend when its time to vote. We crib the year round about being f*****d over by our elected representatives but when the time comes for us to elect a better person we disappear. That is the story of the Indian voter. So they don’t really have the right to complain about the sorry state of affairs they encounter every day. They deserve it.

Look at the polling percentage in the Pune Municipal Corporation elections – just around 51 per cent. That means out of a supposedly eligible vote bank of 25.58 lakhs just a little over 13 lakhs voted. Were were the rest?

There was so much of anger and frustration that was being aimed at the civic authorities in the recent months that one would have expected the public to give a fitting reply to the corporators who were busy looting the tax-payers’ money. But unfortunately, what we have witnessed is a appalling indifference by the citizens towards the problems in the city – despite the best efforts of the NGOs who actively encouraged people to come out of their homes and exercise their franchise.

The apathy of the voter towards the civic polls also speaks volumes for the quality of those who are contesting the elections and the feeling that people’s voices are anyway not heard after the elections, so why bother.

Logistically speaking the civic elections in Pune this time have been a mess. I met voters who told me they found their names in wards they hadn’t stayed in for over a decade instead of their present residence. A gentleman who lived in a huge bungalow found his name in some slum far away! My wife’s name was missing and my aunt’s name was mentioned incorrectly, but my late mother who expired in 2003 was on the list. I wonder where and how she would have cast her vote.

What is strange was that I found my name among voters in Salunke Vihar, when I had moved out of there in 1998! What is surprising is that in the last two elections for the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, our names were correctly listed, so what happened this time? Did the PMC pick up some defunct list from the early 1990s to use?

It is also shocking that for a civic body that carried out a census of the city’s population two years ago going door-to-door getting details of each family, it never bothered to use those updated records. They made government school teachers undertake this task and spent so much money on such a pointless useless exercise? These are some of the questions that we need to ask our newly elected representatives.

Unfortunately, once the elections are over and a new bunch of corporators take over the reins of the civic body, these uncomfortable questions are conveniently brushed under the carpet – till the next time.

Then look at Mumbai. Those guys make we want to laugh. They hold candle-light vigils and swear “Enough is Enough” every time there is a terrorist strike there and the twitterati, glitterati and the dumboratis all get on TV to rave and rant about being screwed by the political class. Come the big day and their best chance to get back at the political class, is squandered.

That’s one reason why I have very little sympathy for the people in Mumbai who complain about the problems in their city. Let’s see whether the 53 per cent in Pune and the 48 per cent in Mumbai that voted, can make it a better, more liveable city for everyone, including those who didn’t bother.

Terror revisited…

Reading about the German bakery blasts and the terror attack in New Delhi on Monday, brought back a few memories. Some time in early 1986 when I was just a year into journalism, we were sitting around after putting the paper to bed when three clean-shaved young men walked into the then Maharashtra Herald office on Thimayya Road better known as East Street.

They said they wanted to check out some affordable, rented accommodation and asked if they could go through the classified pages of the newspaper, which then was the only local newspaper in Pune, worth its name.

So as they flipped through the pages we asked them what kind of place they were looking for. They said they were looking for something quiet and nondescript, where the rents would be low as they were all college students and couldn’t really afford steep rents.

Salunke Vihar, the AWHO society was still relatively unknown but since I had a friend who stayed there I got to know that rents were affordable and being an Army colony, and still a little secluded there was some semblance of security. We too had decided to move there once my aunt retired from her job at Hindustan Antibiotics in 1987, because it was just a few kilometres from the MH office and would be more convenient for me.

I, being the ‘ever-helpful’ type (!), piped in, “Why don’t you try Salunke Vihar, the rents are affordable and three of you could easily afford to stay there?”

These polite young men chatted with us a little more, thanked us and left. By the next day we had forgotten about them and our life went back to its mundane existence of deadlines, leads and headlines!
Then in August 1986, Gen Arunkumar Vaidya was shot in Pune and like I had mentioned in an earlier blog, our editor S.D. Wagh had also got a threatening letter, so our office was chock-a-block with securitymen.

A few days later, we were standing outside the office in the evening, doing a little ‘bird-watching’ when two youths on a motorcycle slowed down as they passed our office and looked inside. A colleague rudely gestured at them questioningly, asking what they were looking at. The motorcyclists sped away.

Quite a few months later, we were in office when he heard that they had been a shootout in Pimpri, on the national highway and two men had been arrested and the cops announced that had cracked the assassination of Gen Vaidya and Congress leader Lalit Maken.

A few days had passed when, (I think it was) Taher Shaikh who was covering the case, brought pictures of the three suspects to office, before and after they had been arrested. One set had them heavily bearded and in the other set of pictures they were shaved. I had no recollection of ever seeing these ‘terrorists’, but it was one of my colleagues who exclaimed, “You remember these guys? They had come to our office one night, wanting to go through our classifieds!”

Then another said that these were the same guys on the motorcycle who were looking into our office, that day when we were standing outside. Again, I had no recollection since I had more interesting stuff to watch on East Street than two weirdos on a bike!

Later, of course, I was horrified and a little flattered, because I mistakenly (and pompously) believed that if these were the same three guys, they had actually taken my advice and moved into Salunke Vihar – bang opposite the home of Gen Vaidya. He, of course, soon moved out of there into a bungalow in Koregaon Park, but they obviously kept tabs on his whereabouts even after that, till they finally killed him. Someone suggested in jest that I should go to the cops. When I didn’t even remember their faces I would hardly make a credible eyewitness!

I was then a fresher and too cocky trying to be a ‘journalist’. Now, I might think twice if someone asked something, even if its not remotely suscpicious, like the time! That’s what journalism does to people! But bizarre as it may seem, the faces of terror are just like yours and mine, aren’t they? How do you know that the person who asks you for information in the middle of a busy street is not a helpless citizen but a trigger-happy nut-case?

Gautam Sathe a friend who died some months ago had once described to me how he had escaped certain death thrice on the same night when Pakistani terrorists hit Mumbai in 2008. He added rather philosophically, “I really don’t know when I leave home in the morning, whether I’ll be back home alive in the evening.“

That’s the price the ordinary citizen has to pay, for the follies of the political class.

Why Sachin should call it a day…

My son and a few others think my comments against Sachin Tendulkar are ill-timed and smack of ignorance. Every time I say Sachin should now thinking of retiring, at least from Tests there is a storm of protest from home and from some of my students. He seems to have become the latest ‘holy cow’ and no one can speak a word against him. It’s like he should be allowed to play on undisturbed as long as he wants, even if the other ten are sacked and even if the team slips from one defeat to another! It’s almost as if cricket is not a team game but something invented for one man! I do wish our cricket fans would grow up.

Heck, I admire Tendulkar just as much as the next cricket fanatic and unlike a lot of youngsters who have only seen him play in the last decade or so, I’ve been following his game since he was 14, when he made his debut in school cricket and I avidly followed the natural progression of his game when he stood up to Imran Khan, Wasim Akram and Abdul Qadir in his first series against Pakistan in 1989.

As I watched the cherubic faced kid taking guard my heart was in my mouth and my fingers were crossed. He had to succeed, I kept saying to myself, because, even then I believed, as a 16-year-old he was God’s gift to Indian cricket. Never has a player been born with such class, charisma, talent, at least not in my lifetime. Yes, there was Sunil Gavaskar, who I sometimes considered a notch above Tendulkar, if only for his phenomenal concentration. Maybe I am biased because Sunny Gavaskar’s exploits were a part of my life, as I grew up, and Sachin came along when I was already four years into my profession.

And, like every any other Indian, I too celebrated every time Sachin scored a century. That’s all I ever wanted him to do, because for me, that’s what he was best at. I watched him roll off ton after ton from his ‘Big Bertha’(Clive Lloyd had given his bat that name and people believed Sachin’s bat was as heavy, if not heavier than Lloyd’s).

In 1994, I got up at 4 am to watch him open the innings for the first time in a one-day match at Auckland, and play an innings what I and a million others, who were lucky enough to watch, believe was one of the finest one-day innings ever played. Tendulkar scored 82 off 49 balls with 15 fours and 2 sixes. Commentators said it was a chilly, blustery morning, with the wind swirling around and the ball swinging dangerously, but this kid played an innings that quite simply took everyone’s breath away.

Those who partnered him that day at Auckland – Jadeja, Kambli, Azharuddin and Manjrekar – were mere spectators as the fireworks from his bat sent a message to bowlers around the world. Here was a batsman, after Bradman, Sobers and Richards they had to fear and respect. I remember reading about some of the Australian players who were watching the match from home who said they had NEVER seen an innings like that played in a one-day match. It was acknowledgment from the best of one already a genius at 21.

I also remember his innings of 119* in England in 1990, a few years earlier as he took India to an honourable draw at Leeds. “Schoolboy defies England” screamed the British newspapers. It was pure magic, and the snooty British press that normally drips acid against anything that isn’t as English as them, waxed eloquent about the 17-year-old schoolboy. He was everybody’s darling.

I also watched him on television scoring back-to-back hundreds against Australia in Sharjah in 1998, that experts believed were two of the greatest one-day knocks played. There too a sandstorm threatened to blow the match away and the Australian bowlers were looking to do the same to the Indian batsmen – until they ran into Tendulkar. Suddenly the Aussies had lost their swagger. For India it was a do-or-die effort and a millions hearts must have stopped beating that day when Sachin took guard. He bludgeoned his way to 143 and 124 in successive matches and won the Cup for India. The Australians were left shell-shocked. They acknowledged that they had been beaten by a champion batsman and not by a team. And there were so many such innings like that, each a masterpiece in its own way, which only Tendulkar could play.

Cut to the present. I see him struggling to get his hundredth hundred, struggling against newcomers, struggling to make scores that he would have virtually made in his sleep. Those bowlers who would have been in awe of him, had they bowled against him a decade ago, were actually talking about getting him out now and quite openly saying they could.

So now when I say he should leave now, and I hear, “Why should he quit, when he’s scoring?” I want to tell these people that this is not the Tendulkar I want to remember. I don’t know what you think but watching the great man in the last year has, except for the occasional flourish, been a painful experience. I watch him struggling to get his feet moving or out of the way against bowlers who actually believe they can get him out. They seem to have figured out his weaknesses and are quick to exploit them. It’s ok to score double centuries at home on wickets which are made to order, but it’s another story on wickets abroad.

I want to remember Sachin as the greatest batsman alive. Sure, he can still get his 70s and 80s. If he can still do that it is proof of his greatness, that he is still a cut above the rest. But is that how we want to remember him? Just another batsman who is happy pulling his weight and adding to his tally of runs?

Maybe you do, but I don’t.

JS – ‘Why should you bother to read this book?’

I’ve just finished reading ‘JS and The Times of my life’ by journalist Jug Suraiya. Coming close on the heels of Vinod Mehta’s ‘Lucknow Boy’ I expected a lot of interesting stuff about how the world’s largest media group functions and a lot of other insider stories. There is but not that much. As he says, “Those who seek hiss-and-tell stories, scandals and secrets exposes, skeletons in closets, should look elsewhere.”

He also says, right in the beginning, that he isn’t too sure about dates and places. How can one write one’s memoirs which are basically footnotes through one’s life and career and be foggy about dates and places? He himself says he’s never managed anything in his life so he doesn’t know what to do when he becomes editor of the Sunday Times of India. Anyway, ToI has always prided itself on the fact that it could run without an editor, so Suraiya didn’t have too many worries!

Apart from that, his account of the way Junior Statesman was born, run and abruptly shut down is touching and steeped in nostalgia. JS was a part of the Wonder Years and when it suddenly went the way it did, it left a vacuum. There hasn’t been another magazine like that in India since. Suraiya’s experiences while dealing with the owners and editors he worked with is insightful.

However, the feeling I was left with after reading the book is that he is basically someone who’s forever looking for a free ride. From a cigarette holder to a Scotch bottle, to an all expenses paid trip to get an award which he knew wasn’t worth it, to a company car – anything is welcome as long as he isn’t paying for it. Journalistic ethics are not really a high priority. I know the popular belief about journalists is that they’ll go anywhere where there is free booze and food, but to speak about it like it’s a major achievement, doesn’t say much for the profession itself or for the editor of the largest selling newspaper in the country.

A lot of people might call that being refreshingly honest, but to wrangle a ticket for his wife as well wherever he goes and be at parties because where, hopefully, Scotch is served? And this, while working for an organisation that makes a lot of noise about employees not accepting gifts – not even a box of sweets from PR guys during festivals!

Suraiya is a wonderfully humane and witty writer and his columns too are fun to read, and I’m sure all those who know him rather than know of him, think of him as the life of the party. Since I don’t know him, I have only his memoirs to go by. As he asks in the opening chapter Statutory Warning, “Why should you bother to read this book? I haven’t the faintest idea.”

I am asking myself the same question.

Rediscovering books

I don’t know if I am qualified to write on the subject, but in the past four or five months I’ve suddenly rediscovered my love for books. For someone who never managed to start one, leave alone finish it in the past ten years, except for books on journalism from where I got information from my power point presentation to show in my classes, and an occasional book on Osama bin Laden or by Kushwant Singh, I’ve just finished reading six books in the past four months! Yup, it must be some sort of record!

I’ve read three books on Jim Corbett’s adventures in the jungle and his love-hate relationship with the big cats. They belonged to my son and since they were lying around the house gathering dust, I thought of carrying them to the loo, one by one, and reading them there! Fascinating tales of Corbett’s travails in the jungles of Uttar Pradesh and now Uttarakhand, I wonder how many law suits he would have been hit with from wildlife protection groups and self serving environmentalists, had he lived today! I read ‘The Maneaters of Kumaon’ as a school kid and thought I had had my fill of Corbett’s tales, until I came upon other books on him recently.

Okay so these were man-eaters he shot down, to protect the villagers who were terrorised by them, but still, it tells us a lot about the lives and times in British India. It also gave me an insight into the mind of a man who simply loved the big cat but had no hesitation in shooting down one, if the situation required it. There was little remorse or doubt when he aimed his rifle at a man-eater. How many people today, who claim to love animals, would be able to do what Corbett did?

I then actually went and bought the ‘Maruti Story’ by R.C. Bhargava. I was working for an automobile magazine until recently and thought it only right to read up about India’s largest automobile manufacturer. Again, it was an absolutely engrossing book on the way the Maruti was born. Sanjay Gandhi’s passion for cars, a mother’s love for her errant, spoilt son and the sycophants who hovered around the then prime minister and her son, ready to do anything they asked. Strangely enough, Maruti never became a success story during Mrs Indira Gandhi’s lifetime, but after her, when her other and far more sensible son Rajiv was prime minister.

Having been associated with Maruti almost since its inception, Bhargava gives a pretty detailed account of the way bureaucrats, ministers and MPs, tried to scuttle the project even when they knew who was backing it. For a journalist, it is a shocking and revealing story of the kind of venal, petty and vicious politics that has made and destroyed the dreams of a million small industrialists and businessmen, who believed they could be a part of the India success story from the 1980s. All credit to the Japanese and a group of Indians who believed in Maruti and realised that it could be a harbinger of change. Only the Japanese with their zen-like fortitude could have succeeded, in the face of the crap being doled by self serving bureaucrats and corrupt politicians with a single agenda, that of stopping Maruti at all costs. Industry captains, who today talk of leaving India because they are fed up of the read-tapism and corruption, should take a lesson from the officials of the Suzuki Motor Company.

Maruti Suzuki may have its critics but let’s face it the automobile industry will always be divided in two eras, BM and AM – Before Maruti and After Maruti. Environmentalists may not like what it has done – brought in more cars and more pollution and more spending, but tell that to the thousands of people who got employment because of Maruti and subsequently in other auto firms, who came, saw and grabbed the opportunity. There were also those small businessmen and entrepreneurs who started out in small tin sheds and went on to become multi-millionaires only because they chose to be a part of the Maruti story. It’s a pretty fascinating account of MSL.

The other book was Vinod Mehta’s ‘Lucknow Boy’ which I thought just rambled on and on till it got to the ‘juicy’ part about his life as an editor, starting from Debonair and ending at Outlook. I liked the book because Mehta, one will admit, can tell a wonderful story in very simple language, just like another journalist who was caught on the Radia tapes!

And finally, I read ‘Jim Morrison’, a gritty, no holds barred account of the singer- poet, his drug and alcohol addiction, his turbulent relationship with his mother and Pamela Courson his girl friend (or ‘concubine’ as the French police refer to her since she was the next of kin, on Morrison’s death certificate), his numerous one-night stands and mistresses; and how through all that he still managed to get up on stage and perform. When I started the book I thought Morrison was completely psychotic.

By the time I completed the book, I was convinced he was a little unhinged, but a brilliant musician, poet and singer. It’s tragic when you realise that he probably tried to make sense of his life through the haze of alcohol and drug addiction, but in the end failed and ended up dead in his bathtub, choking on his own blood and vomit. In the end, one might well ask whether Morrison would have made a better performer had he remained sober and drug-free. We’ll never know, will we?