Thank you Virat!

It was November 2013. The Tendulkar era had come to an end. A nation needs an icon and the search for the heir to the throne vacated by the Master from Mumbai had begun in right earnest. There were contenders and there were pretenders. But it would be fair to say that the search concluded just as soon as it had started. It was clear to all and sundry who the heir apparent was. Virat Kohli.

But acceptance didn’t come easy. The attitude was too flashy, the personality too bold. Tattoos, movie star girlfriends accompanying on foreign tours, oh and the aggression – at times appearing put on, at times seemingly misplaced. After all, for a nation used to traits of the old school – thanks to that individual from Bandra – Virat was a fiery, bold flavor, new to the palate. The strokes were impressive, the run making reassuring but the spunk and persona seemed too cavalier. Was the prince ready or were we taking a leap of faith?

And herein lies the answer to that question: this is the icon of a new India. Here was someone completely at ease wearing his success like a crown and living the high life off the field in full public glare. A star needn’t hide his weaknesses, can flaunt his fame, comfortable with his earned success and yet be an ambassador to the country and carry its sporting aspirations. India is different and so are her sport stars.

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In the Indian batting pantheon, there are five Gods. India as a cricketing unit grew a moustache under Sourav Ganguly – the original aggressor. (Dhoni came along and gave it a twirl.) Sachin was, well, Sachin. And while Dravid and Laxman provided the aesthetic appeal, Sehwag the marauder supplied brute force.

One has to agree that there are elements of all five to be found in Virat. He has aggression – although it could be worn better, in my opinion. His captaincy in India’s previous tour of Australia has provided glimpses of a good future ahead. He has the strokes and sense of occasion that was Sachin’s strengths. Not to mention the ability to rally the troops and provide hope where none existed. Unfortunately, of late, there is that rather unpleasant reminder from the 90s: of standing tall amid the batting ruins. The ability to come out with all guns blazing when the chips are really down reminds me of the escape artist that Laxman was. Especially reserving the best for the Aussies. And in the game against Australia, there was not one scoop, ramp, switch hit or any other gimmicks; just clean cricketing shots. Rahul Dravid anyone? 

And to be lauded as a chase master or a great finisher when batting at three talks to his reliability. Sterner tests lay ahead on a longer time scale, but on the evidence of what we have enjoyed thus far, it only bodes well for the future. And there is no begrudging that this guy is the complete package.

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With the retirement of the famous five, I was mentally prepared to fade into the background as an active cricket fan and instead become the casual follower of the sport. You know, a dispassionate elderly statesman-like fan, showing the same, muted levels of interest for any cricket match independent of whether or not team India played. But who was I kidding? No, seriously, who was I kidding? After this knockout blow dealt to the Aussies, it feels like it is 1998 all over again. Given how this bugger is batting, it is now time to pull out that blue jersey from the box, start waking up at odd hours, yell at the TV and get involved all over again. Sigh.

Japan and whale hunting

A gentle race. A sophisticated people, polite to a fault. The average person in the street more courteous and better behaved than anywhere else I have been to. Hospitality that would sweep even the most hardened traveler off the feet – a bowed person holding a trash can, standing by the exit of every coach of the bullet trains, only because they had sealed the trashcans inside the coach for safety reasons. Discipline in public life and a level of efficiency pervading almost all aspects of life – the boarding of a Boeing 777 at Narita is like a symphony – that they take pride in. I can go on for some time listing out the fine qualities of present day Japan from my personal experience alone. Even allowing for my personal bias – my career literally started in Japan – it is a place that is sure to bring to bear a positive influence on anyone.

And it is for these exact reasons that every time I come across a headline about their brutal whale hunting expeditions, it strikes a particularly jarring note. It is beyond belief that they are capable of such needless cruelty – whale meat consumption is small and falling although they consume sea food voraciously - even in the face of widespread international condemnation. Lying, allowing their otherwise spot free reputation take a beating, disobeying laws are simply uncharacteristic of Japanese.

Whaling is perhaps the only link that connects modern Japan to their scarred history of the not-so-distant past.

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Shameless plug alert. For your reading pleasure, here are links to previous posts on my experiences in Japan.

1. A hard-earned meal where my musical abilities or the lack thereof are unexpectedly exposed on a rainy night.

2. Drama on ice where a day of skiing results in a nearly broken knee, traumatized parents and a hearty Indian dinner

3. The Shinjuku incident an afternoon of adventure in Tokyo in search of an, what else, Indian restaurant

4. My casual observations on Japan

Vignettes from a trip to Seoul

What better way to squeeze out yet another post than cough up dregs from another business trip? If I can post something exercising only my fingers, I'm a happy camper. Without further adieu, here are my jottings from a recent trip to Korea - the peaceful one of the two. I have had far more interesting trips to that region in the past but when you are returning there after a long gap on a week-long trip, I'll happily settle for uneventful.

Incheon and the obsession with A

I have observed this on my first trip to Seoul way back when. A display proudly proclaiming Incheon as “A world best airport.” And it is still there today. I’m amused by this board every time I catch a glimpse of it on my way. Reminds me of the “Chainese” restaurant signs in Chennai.  They must have spent a fortune to build the airport and run it as a world class facility. And yet, this board with its message in bad English has survived the years. Please tell me they just picked the lowest bidding English copywriter and it is not because of numerology. In fact, I don’t find such funny English at too many places across town.

World number 2? You don’t say.

The (A?) Incheon airport, located about 40 kms west of Seoul city is a swanky place, done up really well and takes its place, by right, I must add, among the top three (Ranked #2 in 2015) airports in the world. Millions of passengers pass through its terminals and the place runs smoothly – a world best airport indeed. But by having used it a number of times, I have a few minor issues with the airport that I would like to document here. First, any airport that makes a passenger getting off an 11-hour, economy class flight to hop on a train to even clear immigration is screaming “bad design” loudly from the top of the control tower. Yes, it is a less-than-2-minute train ride. Yes, the trains run frequently. But a train ride to even get to immigration? This easily adds about 15 minutes to the usual airport routine. By comparison, I have cleared immigration, picked up my bags and have been on a taxi in less than 20 minutes from touchdown at Changi when Singapore used to be our home. Speaking of taxis, taxi drivers are teeming in the arrivals area, offering cheap rides into the city which they should not be doing. But I know why: fantastic and economical bus rides to all hotels in the city wait just outside the terminal doors and these guys want to hijack you ahead of that.  I don’t see Changi losing its first rank anytime soon.

The desi looks

Singapore Airlines flights SQ15/16 is preferred by the Indian diaspora living on the US west coast for their travel needs to the old country for obvious reasons: great service, fantastic Indian food options and for the able bodied and the adventure minded, a quick trip into Singapore without visa hassles. You will know where that extra money for the tickets went as soon as you place that warm towel on your face and sit back even before take off. This flight was no exception and had its quota of Indians - particularly aged parents - returning home. Most of them assume - quite reasonably - that I'm headed to India also and in the course of conversations, raise an eyebrow or even do a double take when I let them know that I'm actually headed to Korea. Seoul, to many Indians in that age group, is a two-hour layover to stretch the limbs, jump through the security hoops, perhaps get a hot beverage before heading back into the plane for the next leg of the tiring journey to or from the US. Not a destination. 

More than meets the eye

Dynamic Korea is a phrase that hits you at many places, starting from the immigration area. If Korea is dynamic, Seoul is truly its nerve center. The city is pulsating. The Han River bisects the city into two: the older, history and culture-rich North and the business, residential South (including the now (in)famous Gangnam) with hills all around. The cityscape is filled with extravagant skyscrapers with ornately done facades. Some tasteful, some less so but all of them wasteful. The city is served by a fantastic metro system working in tandem with a complementing bus service. But there is more to Seoul than meets the eye and much of it lies under. The underground shopping complexes, sometimes up to 3 floors deep, throb with teeming shoppers and are an experience by itself. What also hits the visitor is the density of population. Seoul houses a big chunk of the nation’s population and honeycomb-like multi-storeyed (and expensive) apartment matrices stretch out in all directions.

Churches-r-us

I had been surprised during my first few visits by the sheer number of churches dotting the cityscape. Churches of all sizes, shapes and denominations, I’m sure. They are there all the time but become more prominent once night falls with well-lit crosses identifying them, especially if you have a 25^th storey vantage point. Blame it on watching too many martial arts movies as a kid, but when I was a first time visitor, I was expecting to see “local” shrines or temples, incense sticks, prayer wheels, beads, you know, anything but churches. But I was simply blown away by the extent of the spread and reach of this faith. In fact, seated in the flight to Seoul, I could see many people crossing themselves as the aircraft took off at SFO. I had to check my boarding pass to ensure that I wasn't on a flight to Rome. Amen! Or is it Hallelujah?

Asian hospitality

Hotels, airports, airlines…when it comes to quality of service, in my personal opinion, the buck stops in the nicer side of the Pacific Rim. Granted, no matter where, the service industry is just that – an industry – peopled by professionals incentivized for being nice and hospitable. Yet, the Asians appear to be inherently better at it than “the West”. The pampering (compared to United) that one receives on board a Singapore Airlines flight, the quality of service at the hotels and restaurants is clearly a notch or two above what one would expect at comparable places in the US. I have little experience in Europe or elsewhere to make a statement. The difference, to take a cynical view, is simple: even if both of them – US and Asia – are secretly wishing someone to go to hell, the Asians do a much better job of masking it. 

My thoughts on the rumble in the JNU-gle

Just like most citizens of India, I have also been troubled by the happenings at the JNU campus. Both by what happened on Feb 9^th and also what it kicked off subsequently nationwide. I come from a typical middle class family where the emphasis was on the pursuit of good education which was, by virtue of plenty of examples, shown as a successful model for betterment in life on three fronts – intellectual, social and economic. Academic excellence was the top priority of a student, we were told in no unclear terms, and everything else was extra-curricular. And I am an engineer by qualification and thus my educational experience didn’t allow too much room for questioning (apart from clarifying questions) and debating. Raging, passionate and polarizing arguments on arcane concepts were largely absent through the years of my schooling. 

As mentioned earlier, I am from the archetypal urban, middle class family. Our parents were never impacted by a mill lockout, the vagaries of monsoon didn’t impact our fortunes dramatically nor were we (severely) persecuted for our beliefs – religious, political or others. And, blame it on this upbringing, there was no big or immediate need to challenge or change the ways of society. If anything, excellence in education was the mechanism to fight any injustice or societal challenges. The road to success was paved with degrees.

The reason for the preceding self-righteous paragraphs is to provide some background on my cultural conditioning and how I’m likely to approach the JNU situation. And mind you education is an ongoing process, much of which happens in the University of Life where new classes begin pretty much every minute. This impacts the evolution of my mind, constantly changing my views with passing time, which I hope only improves me as a person.

With that out of the way, I realize that people are different and that there are sections of people that, quite rightfully, feel the need to change or fight certain societal constructs and norms that have and can truly hold them back from coming up in life. In a country like India, there is never a shortage of such issues to espouse and champion. And educational institutions are often the first places where the oppressed can voice their opinions and bring attention to their causes. And why not? After all, universities should be seats of learning and the ultimate proving grounds for creative ideas, bold thoughts and dynamic leaders. The confluence of young minds from all levels of society, differing viewpoints and plurality of opinions, glued together by a common purpose should remain an exciting place to be a part of.

I’m also aware that there is a world outside of technical/engineering education with concepts and theories which are characterized by shades of grey rather than black and white interpretations. Interpretation is left to the individual and no one is either wrong or right. And debates and arguments are critical learning tools. And I seriously subscribe to the view that challenging existing, accepted practices and philosophies – as an academic exercise – should be actively encouraged.

In this milieu what happened at JNU (and I’m relying on reading up on a non-trivial sample of mainstream media articles) somehow doesn’t go down well with my sense of right and wrong. I believe that on the 9^th of February, a line was crossed. A line that separated earnest learning, pushing academic boundaries and genuine curiosity from and I hate to use these words, mischief, malice and misguided activism. And I'm going to avoid raising questions like how do these "students" find the time for such activism? Or why do the JNU students seem to take such a long time to wrap up their studies and move on? They are for some other day. 

I don’t know what nationalism is. I’m not intellectually honed enough to even attempt a definition. As a concept, it is abstract, vague and prone to individual interpretation(s).  But I suppose it has something to do with that feeling that takes shape in the chest whenever the national anthem is played. Or with that lump in the throat when a widow turns up to collect a posthumous award for her husband’s bravery in a far away battlefield. Something also about the belief that the land that we call home will protect and in turn, will be protected. It has something to do with that invisible yet tangible feeling that glues together India with all its warts. From paying the taxes to casting our votes to a belief in our (slow and sometimes flawed) systems and everything they encompass. A general instinct, honed on human evolution that can discern what is good to the land from what is not.

Afzal Guru, if one were to conduct a snap poll across the living rooms of homes in India, I suspect, would be overwhelmingly characterized as a terrorist with a clean conscience. Ditto Ajmal Kasab and Yakoob Memon. One could be the intellectual equivalent of Lenin, Mao and Che Guevara rolled into one. But that ceases to matter once they start blowing up people. So questioning their execution, please don’t call it judicial killing or some such shit, when done under the garb of liberalism or whatever-it-is-ism doesn’t quite ring as an academic exercise. An evening of calling for the nation’s destruction – the very nation that is bankrolling the university – masquerading as a poetry reading event is bound to stir passions and leave a nation stewing in righteous anger. I will call for the country’s destruction on the one hand and will still enjoy an education that is subsidized by its tax payers is, quite simply, hypocrisy. One doesn’t even have to invoke the “US university, Osama BL support” analogy here to come to this conclusion. And for dessert, a classic round of illogical Hindu-God-bashing in the name of liberal thinking to top off your education; knowing pretty well that no hands will be chopped nor people hacked to death or police stations set aflame for “blasphemy.” When it is Hinduism, alternate interpretations, misrepresentation and willful slander is fair game. I won’t resort to the “Let them go to Pakistan” solution. But honestly, if they nurse such mistrust and hatred towards the nation and Hinduism, perhaps, in their interest, India isn’t where they should be.

One has got to agree with what has been rightly pointed out in many places: thoughts cannot be policed nor can everyone be forced to follow a particular definition of nationalism or patriotism. But in the same breath, there is no denying that words bridge thoughts and actions. I don’t for a moment believe that any of the students involved in this fracas are anywhere close to kicking off a revolution or can manage to break up India in this age of better awareness and access to multiple narratives. But there is no denying that such activities could potentially lead to persistent, low intensity type nuisance and may create many rebels with no worthwhile cause. And that is a strain that the already beleaguered system funded by productive, law abiding, tax payers can do without.

I must hasten to add that I don’t have a problem with the humanities stream at large or JNU as an institution. What bothers me is any education infused with leftist ideals and leftist ideals only and with a dusting of Marx’s beard trimmings. When such education tinged with failed thoughts begins to bias your thinking, trouble begins to brew. The study of communism, I wish I’m proven wrong, is not unlike waltzing with a corpse. Humans take what suits them and leave out what doesn’t. In that sense, it is a dead philosophy based on the number of “truly communist” states around today. So exhuming it from the depths, embracing its ancient successes – few and far apart, forgetting its massive failures and celebrating its non-existent relevance is an exercise in futility. If you were an investor, would you sink your money in a fresh “the-earth-is-flat” project knowing what we know today? Communism and its cousins should be treated as relics from the past that humans have managed to evolve out of. Any study of the dead, left philosophies should thus be tempered with the emphasis on vowing to not allow the mistakes to happen again. And while I’m at it, I wish a stint at JNU or elsewhere will also impart the lesson to the sloganeers that “anti-establishment” activism is useless unless it throws up a workable alternative or corrective measures. If every idiot with a grudge against India felt that separatism is the way out, we would be a million different states.

This rant wouldn’t be complete without doffing the hat, first at the media and at our politicians. Journalism is meant to hold up a mirror and not a placard. It is such a shame when journalists start playing jurors, judges and executioners. In India, opposition has morphed into the opposites and their members into ambulance chasing, professional fasters-for-hire. A certain government hangs the terrorist Afzal Guru, a group of students then oppose it today and the representatives of that same government show solidarity with them. If the journos were busy making left turns, the opposition politicians were busy making U-turns. And one of them, the ex-Home Minister no less, goes so far as to raise doubts on the validity of the judgment to hang Afzal. What is walking all over oneself if it means a few more votes? I have one comment for this bunch of intellectuals: your throats will be the first ones to be slit if the Afzals and Ajmals have a free run.

What really churned my stomach while all this was happening was the stark contrast provided by the avalanche in Siachen that claimed the lives of ten soldiers who were guarding the nation against the likes of Afzal Gurus, Ajmal Kasabs and Yakoob Memons. They walked the talk of being ready to lay down their lives only so that we can have enough freedom to question the very foundations of our country. I’m sure they had their own grudges, disappointments and issues with the idea of India but we should be glad that they never let that come in the way of duty to the nation. At the end of the day, this is not about student activism, earning degrees or playing dirty politics. This is about us, as a nation, looking Mahadevi in the eye and assuring her that her husband Hanumanthappa’s death was not in vain.