gavin's blog

Harold Pinter's extraordinarily bold criticism of the U.S. at his Nobel Prize acceptance speech is all over the net, but if you haven't seen or read it, you can do so here. Read the whole thing, it's worth it, but if you prefer excerpts, check out the NY Times story. My favorite part:

 
I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love.

Last evening NDTV managed to get two of the biggest boys in the world, Bill Gates, and Narayana Murthy together for a chat moderated by Prannoy Roy (PR) with hundreds of top corporate honchos in attendance. 90 minutes flew by as TV came into its own.

Some observations I had during the show:

1. When asked for the defining moments in his life, Bill chose his first exposure to a computer at 13 and his learning of Moore’s law at 16. Only when goaded on by PR did Bill add his leaving Harvard to start Microsoft. And PR said ‘so you’re recommending that students quit school to start business?’ BG immediately clarified that he wasn’t, while I cringed thinking ‘this man did something that seemed right FOR HIM AT THAT POINT OF TIME. How it that supposed to be an universal injunction for success?’ Sheesh. Bad point if it was serious. Bad joke, even if it was meant in jest.
2. When PR talked of how both BG and NM were philanthropists, BG simply spoke of the necessity of using his wealth, considering he wasn’t leaving it to his family. Simple, unassuming and matter of fact. NM on the other hand spoke of doing ‘small’ things with his wife, emphasizing the word small two or three times. False modesty, I thought.
3. NM kept starting his answers with ‘As Bill said’ or ‘Like Bill said’, referencing his answers with Bill’s own, whether he agreed with them or otherwise. Bill rarely if ever did. NM’s referring to Bills response was very similar to what I’ve noticed on several Indian reality TV shows – that each judge in commenting, always references other judges’ comments – unlike what I’ve seen on ‘foreign’ reality shows. Why are we Indians so conscious of company?
4. PR asked BG about America’s loss of stature/respect in the world and ‘recent foreign policy mistakes’ to much excitement in the room. BG did not agree, argued cogently and admirably in a room full of people who evidently did not share his opinion, even as he admitted there was much concern in the US regarding whether the ‘very high threshold’ of factors necessary to justify recent actions (okay we are talking about Iraq) was met. NM made an unwarranted dig at him for not being ‘open’ about criticizing his country, like he was in being critical of India, to much applause, which made BG clearly uncomfortable as he went ‘What was that?’ in his head. Just like I was doing. NM’s comment was just not on.

Amitabh wasn’t feeling well yesterday, and wasn’t looking at all good, though it wasn’t serious. There’s been an outpouring of sympathy for the man, who India loves like no other.

Why do we love the Big B so much? Today, I’d like to share why I think we do. Mainly, I think, because in so many ways, he represents the very best of us, as humans, and as Indians, and we sense that deep within our hearts, and cherish this irreplaceable icon of our national identity and cultural and spiritual heritage.

Amitabh Bachchan is Indian in the most quintessential sense possible. Born in the heart of India, Amitabh grew up in a privileged household, the son of a cultural icon, a man who imparted to him the values of inner strength, self-esteem, grace and humility that makes of such men leaders and sometimes even saints. Even with this legacy, Amitabh did not have it easy.

Among the many, many tests that Amitabh had to weather in his life, two stand out. The first is at the start of his career, when he came to Bombay to become an actor, with virtually nothing going for him, unsightly physique and gait and baritone voice. From the ultimate underdog, he became the greatest superstar we ever knew, an entire industry and people’s entertainment calendar were punctuated by his performances for over a decade. The second of these was much later in life when his corporate initiative tanked, saddling him with almost a hundred crores in debt, a sum so frightening even his enormous stature sagged under its weight (given that his financial viability in the changed scenario was nothing like what it once was). I do not count among his greatest tests, his return from near death (for that did not challenge his spirit as much as his body) or his political difficulties, though these made of his life anything but a bed of roses.

Amitabh Bachchan, through the handling of these two tests demonstrated at the very deepest level what strength of character is. Especially his return from debt. Caused in great part by the gross miscalculation and incompetence in the entertainment domain and intellectual hubris of green-behind-the-ear professional managers, he rarely blamed others for the situation he found himself in. Nor did he lean on his family for emotional support, ever the rock, even a hundred crores down! Owning up to his situation, his return to mainstream pre-eminence as India’s biggest star (today he is considered in the same category as Shah Rukh Khan as entertainment icon, and bigger by some accounts), and repayment of the entire debt has been a story that would make a fairy tale proud for stretching credulity and demonstrating strength of spirit.

The Amitabh we loved in the seventies and eighties is not the Amitabh we love today. The first Amitabh is a completely different one – an entertainment vehicle for our dreams, where we hung on his every move, as he donned a variety of forms, as the Gambler and the Don and the Sharaabi and the Coolie and so on, each of these an excuse for us to partake of the brilliance of conviction of a man, who could make of everything absurd that he did (because of the fledgling industry he worked in), a reality utterly convincing and a joy to participate in. The second Amitabh is a man who has come back from the dead, who has come back from the debt, and who shows us what it is to be human, to be Indian, from the best place that we can be both.

And these two Amitabhs mirror in a sense two different Indias. The first Amitabh played to an India that was angry, disenchanted, victimized, and which wished it could lash out at a system that had let it down in so many ways, fantasizing its own hero-ness. The second Amitabh mirrored an India that had matured, had made peace with its own and others’ mistakes, and was willing to face its challenges head on. The second Amitabh is the real hero, the one who has lived out what he once only acted out.

About this second Amitabh, a recent article in the Bombay Times commented on the spate of commercials featuring him with children. An insightful comment by one of the makers on why these commercials were so effective to make and to sell was how comfortable Amitabh was with the children. That was only half the story. The other half, I think, was that the contrast of a man so masculine with a person so tender, made the stories of the commercials so appealing. It is this combination of his personal power along with his incredible humility that makes him so compelling to watch, and which makes KBC so vital as an experience.

I can go on and on, on a man I love and revere so much, and that a billion other Indians (cynics, count yourselves out) feel the same way about. I love both Amitabhs, the one I grew up on fantasizing about, and the one whose real life that I now look up to.

Get well soon, Big B! We love you!

'Sebastian Barry's novels and plays have drawn on his family's past and on the complexities of Irish history. His latest work has earned him a place on the Booker shortlist.

If Sebastian Barry's parents had been told, when he was a child, that he would one day be shortlisted for the Booker prize, they would have been astonished. Unable to master reading or writing until he was nine, his gifts, at that stage, did not appear to be literary. None the less, his mind was developing in ways that would later inform the artistic vision which has made him, at 50, one of Ireland's foremost playwrights and novelists.' (my bold italics)

was next (a rerun of the Sept 16th episode), and I couldn't stop myself from admiring this remarkable man and his work right now. I hated Clinton once (was that subconscious prudery or lascivious envy?) for reinventing the Presidential Chambers as the Oral Office, but his current committment to using his public image to rev the global philanthropy machine is amazing, and all is now forgiven.

What struck me most was his argument that drastically reducing world poverty was in the first world's interest - not just morally required, which he argued at length based on cross-religious injunction, but also 'in our interest'. How? By uplifting them they become an economy that can partner in mutual development and among other benefits there will be less disease and terrorism. Touche, Mr. Clinton!

There is much cynicism at his activism in the world, it is said that his work is part of a vast left-wing conspiracy to put Hillary in the White House, that he is practicing philanthropic imperialism by 'taking over' Africa, and so on and so forth. Do we have to make such a virtue of our cynicism, folks?

entitled 'Daughter of the Killing Fields' was the subject of Hard Talk on BBC today (one of my favorite TV programs). Such an articulate and sensitive woman who had such a horrifying childhood, has now added her voice to the growing memoir literature about human atrocity in the 20th century.

May our collective witnessing purge us of the beast within.

which you can read about in this story.

Those of you who know me know of my love for this dude, to the extent of using his Vitruvian man drawing as my yahoo messenger image, so you know how happy this story makes me feel!

 
Way to go, Da Vinci!

Can you believe a 3 year old who can run a marathon? The print version of TOI reported Monday that Budhia, 4, completed the 58 km run from the Jagannath Temple, Puri to Bhubaneshwar in 7 hrs! Strange thing here is that as per the online version, on 13th September Budhia was 3 1/2, and in the second update, the print version of 19th September, he is 4! This is sure one fast kid. It happens only in India :-)

Anyway, why blame the kid for some stupid typo? I'm sure he really is fast. Wow.

"Oprah gets it right
in New Orleans"

You go, girl!

is an even bigger idiot
than he, it seems.