Free Markets are Dead! Long Live the Free Markets!!!

Something inside me died today as I saw the news item on the approval of the $700 billion bailout package in the US Senate on TV.

Most of my adult life I have been a strong believer in the power of free markets with minimal regulation. When I was growing up, I lambasted India's socialist inclinations, and the bias towards self-reliance as opposed to doing what we were good at. I argued passionately with the socialists, and sold them the capitalist dreams - often successfully. Intellectually, the capitalist free-market always made sense - the power and magic of the invisible hand was intoxicating. I am not sure anymore. Looks like the market needs some help from the socialists - USA, the beacon of free markets, is taking a path that betrays the very foundations of its economic philosophy.

Someone give me some oxygen, I am suffocating!

The Belligerent Indian

What we had known for a couple of months is now official - the Tatas are moving out of Singur. Ratan Tata was part-statesman, part-boxer in the press conference he had called today to announce the move of the Nano out of the state of West-Bengal. He took the gloves off as he slammed Mamta Bannerjee, the woman who single-handedly managed to drive this landmark project out of the state. Her perspective is that some farmers are being short-changed in the land acquisition process, and that the individual cannot be sacrificed at the altar of the greater-good.

1300 kilometers away, Raj Thackeray and his men are threatening to drive people of north-indian origin out of the state of Maharashtra. They have used several strong arm methods to make their point, and some innocent people have died in the process. Beating up people, vandalizing shops and offices, and destroying public property are common methods used by these folks, while the state apparatus looks on helplessly, lest they should be perceived to be anti-Maharashtrian. The perspective of Raj's men is that people from the North are taking over the state of Maharashtra, while ignoring and insulting Marathi culture and values.

Although you and I may choose to agree or disagree with the perspectives of Mamta and Raj, there is no doubt that what worries most of us is the methods they use. The fact that numerous groups choose to use violence and intimidation at the drop of hat to make their point is extremely unfortunate to say the least. Almost everyday I see a news report that talks about this type of behaviour.

India is shining alright - our economic growth and the nuclear deal are testimony to that. However the belligerent Indian represents one of the dark and dangerous sides of this new India.

Snake Shyam

Earlier today I watched one of the best feel good stories I have ever watched on television. It brought tears to my eyes like no Bollywood tearjerker ever can.

National Geographic was running a feature on Mysore’s “Snake Shyam”. His real name is M. S. Balasubramania and he looks like an actor straight from a south Indian film. Complete with a sun hat, dark sunglasses, a bushy mustache, and a bright red t-shirt, he is an impressive character with rugged good looks.

Snake Shyam has been catching snakes in the city of Mysore and releasing them back into the forests for the better part of three decades. He is a legend in the city of Mysore. Whenever a snake is sighted in a home, lawn, drain, or field, people just pick up the phone and call him to catch the snake. Doesn’t sound like much until you see the sheer magnitude of what this guy has done – an estimated 40,000 snakes, mostly cobras caught alive and released into forests since 1982. That is 30 snakes a week, every single week, for 26 years running!

Add to that the fact that the man does it only for the love of nature and snakes. He does it to prevent the killing of snakes. In his words “Snakes are good animals”. Snake Shyam gets paid nothing from anyone for his efforts. To support his family he ferries school children to and from school on his auto rickshaw. He answers every snake call on his cell phone, and is on call 24X7. Think about it – more than 4 snakes a day for 26 years, at great risk to his life, with nothing but the love of nature and snakes as motivation. Amazing!

Two National Geographic reporters spent 24 hours with Snake Shyam, going on calls with him, and looking at his work and methods. The most touching moment on the show was when Snake Shyam answered a call from a local hospital to help a snake bite victim. Shyam was needed to identify the snake to help the doctors administer the right anti-venom treatment to a little boy. One could feel the tension as Shyam drove to and then walked into the hospital and opened the bag that held the dead snake. The family looked on transfixed as Snake Shyam took one look at the snake and broke out into a big smile – the snake was non-venomous. Sitting in front of the television set I breathed a sigh of relief and saluted this marvelous human being.

A large sign on Snake Shyam's auto rickshaw says "Snakes are not as poisonous as human beings". As I look at the world around me, I can't help but nod in agreement.

The Curse of Indian Cricket

As I watched the Indian cricket team capitulate to an embarrassing innings defeat to Sri Lanka this afternoon, I felt sorry for Kumble and his team, and happy for Indian cricket. I must be out of my mind to be happy about this abject surrender by my team, right?

I am an Indian, and love my country immensely. I have been following international cricket now since 1973. I don’t just follow cricket, I watch it, play it, read it, analyze it, and talk about it with just about everyone who is willing. Though I am proud of what Indian cricket has achieved in the last 15 years, part of me is sad at how much we underachieve.

My experience tells me that as a nation, we do not fix problems until they come to such a pass, that ignoring them is no longer feasible. I am sure every society is guilty of this, but the difference is in degrees. To illustrate my point, look at the traffic in our country. Anyone who has ever driven in, or visited a developed country will understand what I am talking about. I believe that traffic in our country can be streamlined in less than 5 years with a heavy dose of education, enforcement, and a little bit of the Indian ingenuity we are all familiar with. The penalties collected through enforcement can perhaps pay for all the necessary education. All that is required is some leadership, political will, and execution discipline. However I am not optimistic that we will successfully streamline our traffic even in the next 25 years, unless things come to such a pass, that the alternative is unlivable.

So what does all this have to do with Indian cricket? A lot.

By and large, Indian cricket is run by an administration devoid of any professionalism. We will remain underachievers until we industrialize the way cricket is run, and introduce a solid corporate culture in the organization and running of the sport. The IPL is a step in that direction, but in its current form, IPL is more entertainment than serious competitive cricket that is likely to impact how we as a nation perform in cricket in the international arena. Is there any hope that all our cricket will be professionally run, for example like the National Basketball Association in the USA? The chances are slim to none, unless our cricket plunges to depths where the Bangladeshis salivate at the prospect of playing Team India.

Until then, let us all just experience the mediocrity that is Indian cricket. Enjoy the occasional highs, and curse the frequent lows. Or if you want India to be the undisputed kings of international cricket in the long run, just hope and pray that we lose every game we play for the next few years!

Hey, I got myself a couple of free babysitters!

Deshpande kaka dropped in a few days ago at our home. Deshpande kaka and kaku are a retired couple in their early to mid-sixties. They have two grown up children who are married with two children each, now settled abroad.

The Deshpandes are an active, friendly couple who like to participate in community activities and are good friends with most retired folks at their place of residence. Deshpande kaka is a person with an average build, quite fit-looking with a full head of black and grey hair. Kaku is a very typical Maharashtrian woman, soft spoken and pleasant. They had just returned from a trip abroad after spending more than 6 months there. The conversation inevitably veered around to their experiences in the foreign country. No big prizes for guessing what they were doing in there for 6 months - most people would have guessed correctly that they were playing free baby-sitters disguised as grand-parents.

My wife and I lived in the US from 1993 to 2000. During our stay and afterwards, we became acutely aware of this phenomenon of young Indian couples living abroad using their parents as cheap baby-sitters for their pre-school children. The stated reasons are many - from a crass "baby sitters are too expensive" to a very mature sounding "it is great for the children as well as the grand-parents", they all have some truth in it. However, the root cause in most cases remains the same - an inability and unwillingness to embrace the lifestyle in their country of residence, and a complete and utter disregard for the freedom and convenience of retired parents. I have another term for this behaviour - utter selfishness.

A typical Westerner would look for a good playschool, creche, or babysitter to deal with their own inability to be with the preschooler 24 hours a day. However Indian couples abroad are usually not confortable with these options. They'd rather have their parents play baby sitters because that is more "consistent" with our culture. How convenient!

Obviously, the Deshpandes are not complaining - they are quite proud of what they are doing and never criticize their children. This is typical of all baby-sitting couples in their position. I have met at least 50+ such couples, and have heard about others - seldom have I heard them complain. However you can pick up on little things they say which tell you that they are quite miserable doing this, whatever they may say.

So here is a message to young Indian couples living abroad - grow up, loosen your wallets and show some respect to your old parents who dedicated their lives to bringing you up. At the very least, before you make a decision to have children, ask your parents if they would be willing to spend miserable months abroad to raise them for you, while you live the good life, and build that fat bank balance.

Loosen Up Sachin!

Last Sunday I watched Sachin Tendulkar play a masterful innings to lead India to victory over Australia in the first final of the CB tri-series at the SCG. It was a precisely crafted innings, bringing into play all his experience and shot making skills. While his first few years in the one day format were defined by the thundering lofted drives over the straight field, the last few years have been characterized by his innovations in boundary hitting in the reverse "V". The paddle "swat" to fine leg has been on view for some time now, but in this game the deft lobs over the slips were the most exhilirating shots. When a man was placed at fine third man, he swatted the ball over square third man with a lofted swat. The innings was the work of a master craftsman.

In spite of the wonderful innings, and the fantastic result it produced for India, I walked away from the post game show with an uncomfortable feeling. Sachin is one of the all time greats of the game, and he is without doubt a wonderful person who cares deeply about his team and country. However he is not perfect, and his comments about his critics after the game left me with a hollow feeling.

Sanjay Manjarekar is probably the most cerebral Indian cricket commentator on TV. The channels currently covering Indian cricket games do not seem to favour him, so we have not seen much of him lately on TV. Sanjay's commentary is insightful, direct, and very interesting for the purists among the cricket fans. He does not have the polish of a Shastri, or the aura of a Gavaskar, or even the incredibly stupid wit of a Sidhu. He seldom practices the "art of the obvious" as most Indian commentators do. However, he makes up for it with insights into the game that no other Indian commentator can match.

Sanjay is also a good thinker of the game who is not afraid to speak his mind even about the icons of the game - which brings us to Tendulkar. A couple of days before the CB tri-series finals, Manjarekar wrote a newspaper column describing Sachin's record in run chases in ODI's and it did indeed look very ordinary. He also questioned Sachin's contribution in the current series in Australia, which was a fair criticism, given Sachin's performances before the finals.

Sachin's post-match comments were along the lines of "they criticize because they have not been able to do certain things themselves...". Hello??? Does he discount all the good things Harsha Bhogle says about him just because Harsha has not done all the great things himself? This is a ludicrous argument. Sanjay Manjarekar's comments are fully justified as a journalist - unlike some others, he frequently uses statistics to make his case.

Loosen up Sachin! Don't take it so personal! The journalists - even the ex-cricketers among them - are doing their jobs. You need to focus on yours. This type of outburst tends to diminish rather than enhance your reputation.

Harbhajan - The unsung hero in India's Commonwealth Bank series win

I took the day off from work and watched the Indian cricket team play a wonderful game to win the Commonwealth Bank tri-series in Australia. While I watched all the hoopla around Tendulkar, Dhoni and Praveen Kumar, I could not help getting goose bumps as I watched my hero Harbhajan Singh give a hug to all his teammates and continue his uninhibited celebration.

Sure, Harbhajan was not the team's best performer through the series in terms of his statistics. Other than getting his best friends - Haydos and Symmo - out in both the finals, he did not do much on the field to invite much adulation. Why then, you ask, is he my hero?

The Aussies have been the bullies of international cricket for close to two decades now. They mow down their opposition as much with their abuse and sledging as with their skills and desire to win. To win against Australia, being a skilled team is necessary but not sufficient. You have to be fearless and arrogant first. Even though a bully hates to lose, he will tolerate the occassional loss. However a bully will not tolerate being challenged and stood up to. Do not forget that the Australians not only want to win, they also want to be loved as ambassadors of the game! Their bullying is supposed to be within the laws of the game! Michael Slater and Glenn McGrath will no doubt tell Dravid and Sarwan respectively that their behaviour never crosses the line. They play tough but fair.

What a bloody joke! The moment Harbhajan stood up to these bullies, they started whining. Their transformation into cry-babies would have been funny had it not been so pitiful. Two 6 foot 4 hunks decided to run straight to the officials and the media when they couldn't deal with a fiesty sardar who would not wilt. The Aussie media, match referees, spectators and the Aussie team orchestrated a masterful campaign against Harbhajan that is paralleled only by what Doug Jardine had to go through as a result of the bodyline series.

Harbhajan is my hero because he stood up to all this, and did his job for the team without batting an eyelid. His dignity and sense of humour through the Aussie on and off field onslaught was simply outstanding. The team rallied around the fearless sardar because he stood up to the bullies and still delivered the knockout punches.

I don't care how many wickets and runs were accumulated in this series. For me the defining moment of the series was the young Ishant Sharma showing Symmo where to go after his dismissal at the SCG. Don't for a moment forget that the inspiration came from Bhajji standing up to the bullies! The 15% match fee was well spent after all!