Coronation on Clay

Very often in modern sport superlative words of praise are loosely thrown about to describe flashes of brilliance. Roger Federer, even before his monumental achievement on Sunday, richly deserved every single adjective of praise ever attributed to him. But with this long overdue and much deserved French Open victory Federer has firmly put himself in the category of “greatest ever.” And for anyone who follows tennis seriously that’s a rather exclusive category.

But first, the facts. Numbers cannot do justice to the man’s achievement. But this is his 14^th Grand Slam, tying him with Pete Sampras; even more significantly the French Open was the only slam he needed to win to complete his career slam, a feat that makes him only the 6^th man ever to win all 4 Majors and puts his 14 titles ahead of Sampras’. But the most astounding statistic is the number 20; in the last 20 Grand Slams Roger Federer has made the semifinals or better every single time. That’s the kind of consistency even Tiger Woods hasn’t managed. But to put that achievement into perspective, Nadal who was beginning a streak of his own, was stopped in his tracks at 5 consecutive semifinals and that too at the clay of Roland Garros, easily his favourite surface. Federer has taken on all comers and found the mental and physical reserves required to keep winning even when he hasn’t played his best. After Nadal’s shocking and unexpected exit, the pressure on Federer to win was unbelievable. This was his tournament to lose. And he made sure he brought his A-game against Soderling. This victory at Roland Garros would’ve been that much more sweeter if it had come against Nadal. And it can always be argued that Federer might not even have won if Nadal was on the other side of the net. But the fact remains that at the end of 2 weeks of gruelling play both Nadal and Federer were expected to reach the finals and only one man made it. For all his abundant talent and never say die spirit, Nadal still has some way to go before he can be compared to Federer.

Its always a tricky thing, to compare players of different eras. And the arguments for or against any player as greatest of all time are always contentious. As things stand today, there’s really only one name that can compare with Federer; Rod Laver. But even the Rocket will concede that when he played the schedule was nowhere near as hectic or the competition as gruelling as it is today and he didnt play on 4 different surfaces. In terms of an all round game, consistency, adaptability, sportsmanship and professionalism Roger Federer is peerless. And tennis is richer for it and tennis fans who follow his journey know that each time he steps on court they are watching a master who’s creating his own script that will be the stuff of legend. 

Much to look forward to...

Now that the dust has finally settled on the election season and we know for sure that this government will in all likelyhood last the full 5-year term, the nation can breathe a collective sigh of relief. The Indian voter has spoken and spoken decisively. We've said no to the politics of religious fundamentalism, caste based divisiveness, no to the regional parochialism of the Yadavs and the Mayawatis and no to the blind dogmatism of the Left. And as the results from Bihar show we've said yes to good governance. It seems the Indian voter has finally wisened up, and its about time.

The Congress have been handed a mandate, and a decisive one at that, with a very obvious message. Deliver on the promises, clamp down on  corruption and remove the tired old faces and replace them with the young energetic MPs voted in in such large numbers for the first time since Independence. With 200+ seats in the Lok Sabha there is no risk of the Congress being held to blackmail like the last time. This is an opportunity the likes of which the Congress will probably never get again especially if they fail to make the most of it. Only time will tell if they will flatter to deceive.

But if Rahul Gandhi continues to surprise as he has done in this election with the Congress' performance in UP, the Congress will definitely have sunny days to look forward to. He has displayed a sense of purpose and self-discipline not seen before in an Indian politician. He has been underestimated by almost everyone outside the Congress but this election and especially the results from UP are a vindication of Rahul Gandhi's political acumen. His stress on changing the quality of political leadership in India comes as music to my ears and if he continues in the same vein he may even make a convert of me. But for that he has to bring to fruition his lofty aims of internal democracy in the Congress and merit over everything else. 

Either way the journey of Rahul Gandhi is something to look forward to. Here's hoping he stays the course. God knows our country needs many more politicians who sing the same tune. On a personal note, the victory of Shashi Tharoor from Thiruvananthapuram is particularly gladdening. I've been a fan for a long time and his victory is a sign that all is not lost in Indian democracy.

The King's men- In his image

IPL2, despite all the initial hiccups, has finally taken off and even though it may not be attracting as many eyeballs as the previous edition given the ongoing elections, the speed and efficiency with which the show has been put up is definitely worth commending.
The same however cannot be said of the performance put up so far by the Kolkota Knight Riders. Easily the most hyped team in the IPL and atleast on paper just as competitive as any other team on display, team KKR have displayed an amazing ability to lose the plot often from a position of certain victory as was evident in the match against the Rajasthan Royals. But the team has been plagued by controversy even before the a ball had been bowled. Coach Buchanan's 4 captain theory, the decision to strip Ganguly of his captaincy, Shahrukh's arrogant response to Sunil Gavaskar's sane counsel all added to the drama off the field. Unfortunately none of that has helped the team on the field. As a team KKR looks completely deflated and rudderless. Captain McCullum, going through a lean patch with the bat, has not been able to inspire the team. They look and play like they are just waiting to pack their bags and go home.
So what is it that plagues this team, that boasts the likes of Ganguly, Gayle, McCullum and Ishant Sharma in its roster?
To answer that we need look no further than team owner Shahrukh Khan. For a man who's based his entire career on a hyped up star appeal, and has promoted that "Badshah" image at the cost of any acting prowess he displayed at the early stages of his career, its only natural that his team is the best outfitted, most hyped and has the most high profile fan base regardless of whether they actually play well enough to merit all that hype. KKR is the only team with a partner news channel, the respected NDTV! An inspired move one would have thought, but the channel has now been reduced to dissecting everything that has gone wrong this season for its team. Even the Bangalore Royal Challengers, owned by megalomaniac Vijay Mallya, has focussed on the players in their TV ads. But for team KKR, Shahrukh is front and centre everywhere, be it in the ads, the team anthem or the press conferences. Even the front page of the website has only SRK. One begins to suspect that this entire enterprise is just another one of the man's never-ending attempts at self-promotion. A very costly one. But as SRK himself said, he has spent the money and he can chose to do with the team as he sees fit. But any cricket team that goes by the name of Kolkota has to have Sourav Ganguly at its heart.
By the end of this edition KKR will have provided some of the best entertainment the IPL2 had to offer; the funniest ads, the coolest tean anthem video and the very entertaining, juicy and mysterious fakeiplplayer blog. Sadly not much of this entertainment will come from performances on the field. Much like Shahrukh Khan, this is a team that is more hype than substance.

Starved for Choice

At a time when another hung parliament is very much in the offing and the need for the hour is for the two major parties to display their national credentials and appeal, both the Congress and the BJP have gone and shot themselves in the foot.
The fact is that, despite its completely sycophant culture and dynastic obsession, the Congress is still the most acceptable national party. But time and again it fails to behave like one. The decision by the Law Ministry to recommend to the CBI to withdraw the Red Corner Notice against Ottavio Quattrocchi is the latest in a series of calculated moves by successive Congress governments to bury the Bofors case once and for all. But the timing couldn't be worse. It has brought the Bofors scandal, which was a complete non-issue at the beginning of this election season, front and centre. Various Congress spokepersons have been running from televised debates to press briefings, crying themselves hoarse that this latest decision has nothing to do with the Congress party or Madam Sonia and that various non-Congress governments have also not been able to bring the Bofors case to any sort of conclusion. But the fact remains that every single step taken to free Mr Quattrocchi from the clutches of Indian law has been taken during Congress rule, be it the defreezing of his London accounts or his much delayed and bungled up appeal for extradition in Argentina. And given that Mr Quattrocchi's connection with India is based entirely on his ties with Sonia Gandhi, its obvious where the pressure on the CBI comes from, whatever Abhishek Singhvi may say.
The BJP claim to be the only viable alternative to the Congress with pan national appeal. But the recent directive by the Supreme Court to probe Narendra Modi's role in the Gujarat riots is a slap in the face of those nationalistic ambitions. As long as the BJP believes they can get away with their rabid Hindutva politics as symbolized by Mr Modi they will have absolutely no chance of ever coming to power on their own. Obviously there is a need and space for a right wing conservative party in India's political spectrum. But not for one that denies basic fundamental rights to a section of our citizenry based on their religion. And definitely not for one that seeks to promote as a future Prime ministerial candidate, a man who failed to provide law and order during the worst genocide in Indian history; however much he may have worked for development thereafter.
Thus both these parties, have by their actions, opened the doors for the most lumpen elements of Indian politics to have a shot at power at the Centre. And given the current global scenario and India's slow but steady rise to a position of eminence in international affairs, a Third or Fourth front government ruled by the likes of Ms Mayawati or Mr Laloo Prasad is the last thing India needs.

To hang or not to hang?

In all the media circus surrounding the elections one event not given its due was the farce of the Ajmal Amir Kasab's trial. Advocate Anjali Waghmare, assigned to the case after much drama and hoopla provided by the Shiv Sena, was replaced due to a conflict of interest. She hadn't informed the court about her role as counsel for one of the victim's of 26/11. Now none of the media coverage of this incident asked the most pertinent question, namely, how come a lawyer deemed by the Government to be competent enough to represent the accused of such a high profile case could display such ineptitude. The whole incident smelt of a cop out by Advocate Waghmare; a trick played on the general public to find an honourable way out. Instead of focussing on her incompetence, the media somehow seemed to be taking her view of situation as not just feasible but reasonable.

The truth of the matter is that Kasab needs to be tried as soon as possible and as fairly as possible. This trial is a test for our democracy and our society as a whole. A section of our leaders and society are saying the man was caught red-handed. Why do we need this long prolonged drama of a trial? We should simply hang him. But that would be a big mistake. India is a tinpot dictatorship. We are the world's largest democarcy and the only functioning one in our neighbourhood. There is enough evidence against Kasab; images of him firing away with that automatic gun are still fresh in the mind. But to deny him a fair and public trial, would put our judicial system and our society on the same barbaric level as Kasab and his ilk. It would be a rallying call for more misguided young men across the border.

But now Advocate Abbas Qazmi has been appointed as Kasab's new lawyer and already he has filed a petition claiming lack of jurisdiction because Kasab is underaged!! Ridiculous twaddle of course, but atleast he's being afforded competent legal representation, in our finest tradition. Let Advocate Qazmi bring it on; the prosecution must be ready with an air-tight case. Only then will justice prevail and only then will the victims and martyrs of 26/11 get closure. Our reputation as a democratic society is on the line and the world is watching.

Prime Minister who?

The past month has witnessed a curious new trend in Indian politics. The BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate L K Advani has challenged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to an American style televised Presidential debate. Obviously the Congress isn't biting. Their argument being of course that India's parliamentary style democracy has no place for presidential style theatrics and that the Government is run by a cabinet of ministers owing allegiance to the party in power and the Prime Minister is only the first among equals. Now coming from the Congress this is Hypocrisy with a capital H. Since Independence the party has tried to project its leader as the person with the greatest public stature and moral fibre. The Congress party today is simply a shell of the party it once was and requires the Gandhi surname at the helm to keep itself from imploding. Hence the large posters with Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Madam Sonia, little Rahul and for some odd reason Mahatma Gandhi. I'm guessing the party thinktank believes enough people might think the Mahatma is also related. Funnily the Congress persistently ignores the one Congress PM who did show some spine and had considerable political stature, the late P V Narasimha Rao. But then he doesnt count as a family loyalist. 

All of this leads to the question what role does the PM play in a parliamentary system? After much dillydallying the Congress has finally announced Manmohan Singh as its PM candidate. It is a curious situation to have a man who refuses to contest the Lok Sabha elections as your top guy. But atleast we know that if the Congress manages to return to power it'll be Dr Singh who'll jump around to the strings pulled by Madam Sonia. And for all his political shortcomings Mnamohan Singh is a world renowned expert in his field and a gentleman. The same is the case for the BJP. L K Advani is there for all to see, all 82 years of him, with the Ayodhya warts and all. But still a man of some principles, his stand in the Hawala scam being a case in point. 

The third front is where the real action is. Between Ms Mayawati, Ms Jayalalitha and even H D Deve Gowda there are way too many egotistic heavyweights vying for the top job. And this does not even take into consideration that other coterie of Lalu Prasad Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan and Mulayam Singh Yadav. Between these names we have every single one of the worst traits in Indian politics. And the scary part is that, given the current scenario, they have a very real shot at the kursi. Of the lot Mayawati is being talked of as the prime contendor, not least because if things go her way, UP alone will ensure she has considerable bargaining clout. And the Left have already indicated that they dont have any issues with her Prime Ministerial aspirations. But I shudder to imagine an India where the prime aim of Government is to rename everything possible Dr Ambedkar this or that, and spend tax payers money on huge public parks housing statues of Dr Ambedkar, Kanshi Ram and rather prematurely, Mayawati herself. The PM is the face we present to the outside world and the very idea of a summit level meeting with President Obama and Mayawati or her fellow aspirants in the Third Front induces waves of nausea. A billion people and is this the best we can find? 

The truth is this. For all the hype and hoopla about the power of democracy and the importance of voting, in India we vote for the party not for our choice. The names on the ballots are foisted upon us by the party apparatus. Maybe its time we change over to a Presidential system. Then out votes will really count.

Down and dirty.

Its still early days and this election season has thrown so much filth already. Beginning with Varun Gnadhi's vitriolic campaign speech to Lalu Prasad Yadav's reply to the same, its been a never ending spectacle of the depths our public discourse has plumbed to. All discussion so far has been about complete non-issues. No major political party has come out with a manifesto where issues of any significance has been dealt with. Instead we've had the BJP and Congress vying for top honours with regards to blatant populism. All thats left is for the third front to announce free rice for everyone below the poverty line.

But to begin at the beginning, whats sad about Varun Gandhi's speech is not that he said those things but that he said it. This is a young, articulate and educated man, one of the GenNext of Indian politics, with blood ties to Jawaharlal Nehru. For him to have said these things just shows how deplorable things have become. And the BJP did itself no favours among the voters, with the way the party tried to spin what is obviously a condemnable statement. Ofcourse, Varun Gandhi's immaturity has given every bit player in every other party to make hay while the sun shines. All manner of narrow minded, opportunistic politicians have jumped onto the bandwagon to protect the minority community from the communal saffron brigade as represented by Varun Gandhi. All this means that we will not have any meaningful debate in the near future about the definition of secularism or communalism as it is practised in our politics and by our Government. There would be no takers for the extreme right wing politics of the RSS/VHP if there had not been the kind of shallow appeasement and myopic vote bank politics displayed by the Congress vis a vis the Shah Bano case.

Meanwhile, the Congress has taken opportunism to new levels. Not only did they buy the rights to Rahman's Oscar winning song Jai ho (a legitimate election device some would argue), but they have also got the child stars from the slums campaigning for Madam Sonia after they were promised flats and other goodies. To complete this picture of complete chaos, we had the Samajwadi Party parade Sanjay Dutt as a possible candidate from Lucknow. Thankfuly the Supreme Court put that idea to rest. Now Sanjay Dutt is no hardened criminal and there are definitely far worse than him already in the corridors of power in our country. But for someone whose conviction is of such a high profile and for a crime associated with an event as terrible as the '93 Mumbai blasts, to become a legible candidate for the Lok Sabha will only open the doors for every underworls don with enough clout and money. Thankfully that has been averted for now.

But there a few silver linings in this dark cloud. The candidature of Shashi Tharoor from Trivandrum and Mallika Sarabhai from Ahmedabad along with many other upright individuals from society who are not stained by the muck that is Indian politics today is something to cheer about. More power to them and others like them.