A Commie in Coma

Harkishan Singh Surjeet is back home from the hospital recovering from the coma he had been in and I'm sort of thankful. Its not that I'm a fan of his or the ideology he espouses, but it is because I consider him as a relic and want him to live to see the end of communism in India even if he enters the Guinness Book of records as the world’s longest living man.

He isn't a relic just because he is a nonagerian. He is one because he is a living example of the oxymoron that his communist principles stand for. He was the only example my late dad used whenever he wanted to take a dig at the communists. "Look at him." my dad used to say, "He belongs to a party whose primary tenet is that God doesn't exist and he wears the turban, and has the beard. Thats what the communists are, Hypocrites." The logic my dad used was irrefutable. I've wondered often if Harkishan Singh Surjeet ever recognised that he is everything that is wrong with the communists everywhere. I find communism to be a wonderful ideal (though impractical), but my right-leaning dad had his grouses against it especially its principle of - From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. “An IAS officer having two children will earn less than a peon having four children because his need is less” my father rationalized as he explained the basic communist principle to me one fine day, ingraining in me much of the abhorrence he had for the communists.

As I grew up, my interest in communism grew as immensely as my loathing of the Indian communists. Just as the Ideal Gas in chemistry or the Ideal Transformer in physics do not exist , Communism is an ideal that cannot exist and the so-called communism as practised by the present day communists is a really big sham. Jyoti Basu was the greatest marxist-leaning leader of the Indian Communist party but inspite of him preaching state-owned property and common wealth, his own son is one of the biggest businessmen of his state while the state Jyoti Basu ruled for decades is still one of the poorest in India. After the collapse of communism in Soviet Union and my dad had a perrenial "I told you so" look and with any luck, Jyoti Basu & Harkishen Singh Surjeet might live to see the same collapse happening in India

My I.P.L Blues

The Indian Premier League may debatably be the best thing to happen to cricket in general and Indian cricket in particular, but there are lots of things about it that irks me.

The first aggravation was the composition of the team that represents my home town, the Bangalore Royal Challengers. Currently languishing at the bottom of the points table, they've caused more embarrassment to the franchise owner than to me because I had almost given up on the Royal Challengers as soon as I saw the makeup of the team. Compared to the youth & talent of the other teams, the Royal Challengers seemed a bunch of geriatrics. Unfortunately, the team I was banking on, the Deccan Chargers of Hyderabad also proved to be damp squibs inspite of a formidable batting line-up. A week into the tournament, I shifted my loyalty to the Rajasthan Royals because being a Bangalorean it would be nothing less than sedition for me to support the other city teams.

The performance of the entire "Extra Innings" team on Set Max is more pathetic than that of the Royal Challengers. With such an exotic name as Lekha Washington, I was expecting a brainless bimbo and I wasn't disappointed. Shonali Nagrani is worse. She has the woodiness about her that one would expect from a model.. The only purpose of Shiv Pandit seems to be to embarrass himself and his guests and so far, he has been quite efficient at that, whether it is talking to Mpumelelo Mbangwa in Hindi, or using Indianisms in his English. Also, I'm not sure if Shiv Pandit is technically sound in his knowledge of the game as I've never seen him talk anything even remotely technical. I hope someone at Set Max sees some sense & kicks him out. Ajay Jadeja isn't in the same league as a Boycott or a Harsha Bhogle & therefore isn't capable of carrying the show on his own. Sivaramakrishnan & Greg Chappell are about the only hosts doing a reasonable job.

Finally watching the telecast of the matches is nothing less than a pain in the posterior. There is a limit to how many times you can see the pug lick the stamps. After a dozen or so times, it ceases to be cute and starts to be tiresome and the frizzly-haired woman going Sanju, Sanju makes me want to whack her right across the face. There is supposed to be a music played whenever the batsmen make their way to the crease. I’ve never heard it. Set Max squeezes in enough advertisements that I get to see who the batsman is only after he has played a ball. The telecast of the entire post-match presentation of the match between Rajasthan Royals and Kolkata Knight Riders was skipped to fit in a mindless conversation between Jadeja and some guests. The ads keep coming in the middle of the over too, drowning out the commentators. Surely, the channel can raise the cost of ads and reduce their time so that the viewer is not left disgruntled. It is time that the BCCI makes the telecasters accountable for the quality of their telecasts but since it is the BCCI, they wouldn’t care about some cricket-loving person sitting in his sofa, watching the TV.