Mad boy, Bad boy: I call you what I will, but you, you mind your words, mate

The Aussie v India contest continues, not just on the cricket field, but mostly off it. Indian television, having nothing much else to deliver, went to town yesterday on Hayden’s radio interview, where he likened Harbhajan Singh to an objectionable and undesirable plant.

I still think they’re trying to make it a bigger issue than it needs to be, but, listen to the radio interview. For one thing, it’s pretty clear that it was pretty much a pre-meditated affair rather than impulsive, but again, it’s not the weed comment that really needs to be looked at.

Here’s an excerpt:

Host 1: Were you charging Harbhajan Singh the other day and calling him 'mad boy' as you were batting?
Hayden: No, 'bad boy'. 'You bad boy'.
Host 1: That's offensive apparently in India?
Look, folks. Either we all are mindful of what’s offensive (or heck, even rude) in each other’s country, or we all just choose to let the other say what they want. Operative word being ‘all’. You can’t have it both ways, mate.

Here’s another:

Host 2: We need to get to the root of the problem and see why they are all so sensitive? What's going on in their lives.

Oh, ha ha. Who started the brouhaha in the first place? Who was being sensitive?

And:

Host 1: Does (Ishant) Sharma come from the same school as Bhajji?
Hayden: Well I think he's just young and as I have said to him many times, mate you're 19, just take it easy. He says, but "I'm playing for my country" (mimics Indian accent).

Of course, Mr. Hayden, you mimicked the accent only out of sheer deference towards international relations.

Aussies have been known for sledging for ages. Maybe it’s just a case of opposing teams now pushing back, indicating ‘enough’. And that’s new to the Aussies?

Footnote:

Hayden has since been charged by Cricket Australia (with some prodding from the Indian Board) for indulging in ‘public denigration of other players against whom they have or will play’ and was issued a reprimand. Indian TV channels will probably disagree, but that’s probably a fair result – a reprimand.

The interesting bit, though, is that Hayden is ‘disappointed’ to be found guilty. "I maintain my innocence, my intentions were never to denigrate cricket or anyone," he said. "But in the spirit of cricket I respect and accept the decision." Gee, thanks, meh.

More Gandhigiri for Bangalore Traffic

Recently I ranted about Bangalore traffic and the need to plonk offenders up for public 'applause'.

Apparently there's a group of professionals here who had the same rant, but took a more genuine Gandhigiri-type approach. They've set up Smiling Drivers - focused on trying to avoid road rage and encouraging a more friendly driving discipline.

Have a looksee at their stuff. For now they've only got stickers and an Orkut community lamenting Bangalore traffic, but will be interesting to see if the folks can sustain this through.

The Idiot Box Journal

Today was a busy day for prime time TV. I made it back from a hectic office day literally at the very minute Heroes Season 2 kicked off on Star World.

HEROES :
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I'd enjoyed most of season 1, till the damp squib of the finale, where, rather predictably, Sylar disappeared mysteriously; rather dramatically, the Petrelli brothers zoomed off to a suicidal sacrifice, Hiro Nakamura zoomed off to ancient Japan; and the rest, rather apparently, were left to pick up the pieces and move on. The start of season 2 picked up the stories of Hiro and his Takezo Kensei, Kaito Nakamura and Ando, Matt Parkman, Claire and Noah Bennet, Dr. Mohinder Suresh and the Petrellis (yeah the brothers survived, would you believe it), while introducing three new potential 'heroes'. Doubtless we'll be hearing more about the other characters from season 1, and be introduced to more new ones.
While the WGA strike has affected completion of season 2, this season was apparently anyway broken down into two parts, and they finished the first part before the strike, er... struck. So hopefully we'll get to follow a full story arc.

Brothers & Sisters
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Just two sentences - I can't stand Holly Harper. Calista Flockhart can do a good drunk.

House
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Plot: Take a fistful of diseases, pop them into a young orphaned man, and have his orphaned siblings act all cute and worried. Eh, what's new. Make House's life worse by making him pine for painkillers, and having a mad cop on his tail. Feel sorry for Wilson.

MTV Imported and Non-Stop Hits
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To keep me company while I work on this blog.

And then it was time to sleep.

Lead India, Bollywood

As we celebrated our 60th year of Independence last year, most media channels and papers flouted the great history gone by and other blah. Tsk. Seen that the previous year. And the year before that, and before that....

But the Times of India did manage to come up with a new one - the Lead India initiative. Lead India played on the prevailing sentiment of the urban educated populace that ‘‘Good people don’t want to join politics" and set out to look for the one potential leader who could act as a change agent. The winner would get a lump sum amount of cash to be able to implement their dream project, as also widespread promotion across the newspaper and TV that would act as a springboard to public life.

They received a lot of applications. Initial public reception was also promising. After various interviews, discussions, debates, they came up with 8 city-level winners, who would then slog it out on national television. These eight came from various fields - lawyers, ex-venture capitalists, ex-CEO, civil services, etc., all who have been working towards some form of social or infrastructural upliftment. You'd think it would require more intellectual folks to be able to grill these contestants to find the winner.

Yeah, the Times of India found the intellectual, intelligent jury members to put the contestants to test. They found them in Bollywood.

Yes, India's favourite mind-numbing profession provides majority of the judges. It's generally belittling the whole point of it, but more importantly, my heart goes out to the contestants who are made to answer to these folks!

A sampling of the questions contestants have been quizzed on can be found in these excerpts from the Lead India site:

"...The jury was in its element in the ‘bluff round’. Each finalist picked a judge, from whom Kher asked a question. The judge would provide an answer, after which the finalist had to guess whether it was correct or a bluff. Abha Singh thought she had a sitter when Kher asked Javed Akhtar what was the only category for which Sholay won a Filmfare award. “Best dialogue,” he replied. Singh agreed. It turned out the answer was Best Editing! “We (Salim-Javed) did win Best Dialogue that year, but for Deewar,” explained Akhtar..."

"...The audio-visual round was next. One of the visual clips was from the popular Sanjay-Dutt Hrithik Roshan starrer Mission Kashmir. “I suppose you think I’ll ask you the name of the movie,” chortled Kher to Delhi’s Sanjiv Kaura. “But tell me, who played Sanjay Dutt’s wife in the movie?” “I didn’t even know the name of the movie,” admitted Kaura..."

These were from the 'first competitive episode'. Great way to start - we can't have folks who know squat about Bollywood running our country!

Talk about poor finishing.

The attack of the shop-person

So, how familiar is this scenario:

You walk into a deparment store, hoping to browse through all their stuff, leisurely try out the various stuff they have on display, find that one thing that really gets your fancy, and walk out having made that perfect purchase.

But, what's this? Suddenly you find yourself hurrying just that little bit, suddenly you feel something boring into the back of your head. Suddenly you feel pressure.

And then you realise, there's a shop person on your tail. Trailing you every step you take. Literally.

GRRR!

Am sure there are some guidelines somewhere on the right etiquette for shop-persons. Tailing prospective customers within less than an arm's length is just not cricket.

The zen of tenpin bowling

I participated in my first competition of the year today. As happens every time, it's been a long break, I've gained weight, and I'm out of touch.

It took a call from an enthusiastic collegiate girl to shake me out of my laziness (and specifically, window-shopping) and at least start some practice, the last weekend. There wasn't much to expect from me in terms of performance, but, it's always amazing how the game grips you once you start off.

I reached late and I missed the practice frames, but started off with a strike. Hm, not too bad. Ooh, the right side spares work too. But oh, the hook ball ain't getting off the hand so well. 133, and then a 169 and you would say, things are getting better for a first competition. Sure they did - a fantastic 98 followed. Bah!

Right, so things follow up on:
- Find and make time to play
- Increase right wrist and finger strength so as to be able to hold the ball
- Bend!
- Follow through!
- Get rid of the dropping sound!

The zany words Doctor Who added to my lexicon

1. Raxacoricofallapatorious
2. Bingle-bongle dingle-dangle yikkidee-do yikkidee-da ping-pong lipi-tapi-tuta (Although, I should really attribute that to David Tennant, not the Doctor)
3. Allons-y! (Hence the alias, Allons-y!)
4. Timey-Wimey! (Hence the... oh, you know!)
   
5. Dalekanium (not Dalek, Dalekanium)
6. The Mighty Jagrafess of the blah-bluh-tongue-twisted-blah
7. Pash-Pash
8. Ontological paradox (While the Doctor never really used that term, he nearly always creates an Ontological Paradox! What's an Ontological Paradox? Read about it here)
   

Do add!