Subaltern twist!

Upon stumbling on a footnote in Tariq Ali’s Pirates of the Caribbean – Axis of Hope , i came to know about Antonio Arguedas.  As you know Latin American political history, especially of the 60’s and 70’s,  is a confusing fresco of revolutionaries, counter -revolutionaries, dictators, army-generals and so on but this man’s case interested me quite a lot.

Antonio Arguedas was the minister of interior during the 1964–69 military dictatorship of Gen. René Barrientos. (Ok, it is a redundant info when it comes to Latin America.  Britannica says he was drafted in by CIA) . In 1965 Antonio Arguedas was influential in defeating the guerrilla uprisings happening in Bolivia led by Che Guvera, which eventually led to Che’s capture and the execution that followed. 

But by 1968 Antonio Arguedas had taken a different twist altogether. Disenchanted by the dictatorship of Gen. René Barrientos and the Cuban exiles, he arranged the personal diary of Che to be returned to Cuba and there by allowing the Cuban govt to publish the diary.

After sending the Diary to Cuba, he quit his ministry and had to hop around the world in fear of assassination and finally retreated to Cuba.  In 2000 the man was associated with a gang that kidnapped and ransomed wealthy Bolivians and eventually got killed by a bomb which exploded while he was carrying it.

Strange isnt it?

Here is an interesting article by  Richard Gott on Antonio Arguedas

Stupid hacks and India’s bid for 2016 Olympics

I seriously cant weigh up my sense of frustration every other time i watch Sekhar Gupta, Swapandas Gupta, Chandan Mitra and of course maudlin Barkha Dutt and their counterparts appear on screen, giving their opinions on various issues. Off-late, i have felt that these hacks and their visual media counter parts hijack any issue of national interest in their favor and of course a lot people who watch these shows, take them and their opinions for granted.

Mind you, all these buggers have an agenda and they are very committed to their cause.  When i saw Abhinav Bindra, the sole gold medal winner for our country in Olympics and Sekhar Gupta, Chandan Mitra and Abhishek  Singhvi sitting together and debating in NDTV about our supposed Olympics bid for 2016, i was quite interested to see, what these hacks were blathering.  And in no sense they failed to arrest the ever increasing disgust in me towards them. The so called audience for the debate was also pathetic, mostly for all the debates, that is the case of  “audience”.

While Abhinav Bindra , as any other sensible sports person in India made very good sense when he argued that we need to invest those millions which would go in to the construction of  world class stadiums, arenas, fly-overs and airports in to our sports system to better it and create a system which is well-working and raise the standard for our sports from grassroots level.

The sole politician who appeared on the show, went up in arms against him saying that bidding for Olympics and creating a good atmosphere for the promotion of sports is not mutually exclusive.  yeah, not mutually exclusive! But for the past 60 years or so, the sports policy in the nation has not been inclusive at all. Everyone knows that  and how badly we had to play up our sole gold medal winning performance in Olympics to cater to our inflated egos.

The hacks went a bit further in their arguments, they said we should bid for Olympics, you know why?  Yeah, we will have good roads, fly-overs, airports and stadiums that will come up.  I wonder if Olympics is all about sports or about wonderful stadiums, arenas, over head metro railway lines or an airport.

Sekhar Gupta and Chandan Mitra were very lucid about their opinions. It doesn’t matter, if we will be able to get more than a gold medal or not, but the bid should go ahead because it will make way for good “infrastructure”. Yeah, these hacks will be vying couple of adverts from these construction magnets .

Isn’t “infrastructure” a very fond of word for these kinds who appear on TV? Yes, it is important, but are we looking at making over-head railway lines that are made on war-footing negligence that buckle and kill several or are we looking at infrastructure that is part of some sensible development pattern? It is very clear these hacks and their hidden agendas prefer the former way.   They prefer it because, contracts are made with their buddies in the industry who will provide these hacks with adverts which will pump up their profits and of course death due to the negligence/corruption is another opportunity to increase their media share, isn’t it?  To an extent these days,  some of these hacks are terribly subservient to contractors and the filthy rich who after all help their survival.

Anyway, it was very interesting and eye opening to see Sekhar Gupta and Chandan Mitra making their priorities very clear by vying for the contractors. They hardly seem to be bothered about the condition of sports in India. They attributed its pathetic state to the inefficient sporting bodies. Yeah, very easy. It is an easy excuse they make in our country and with that argument they can completely forget about sports and  channel their  interest towards bids for Olympics  and sorts, because they know, if at all Olympics come to India, they can make a meal out of it, even if we win medals or not.

Abhinav Bindra is not a very assertive person, he along with another journalist made their point, that we need to pep up our system so that we can have a decent show if at all we are to hold such an event.  ( Or he couldn’t be assertive with the likes of  Sekhar Gupta and Chandan Mitra, who are conditioned “debate masters” around) He looked like, he wantedto scoot from there as soon as possible.

These hacks who continually appear on our prime time television is the biggest hazard to our integrity and sane opinions that we carry around . They are able to form opinions that is being rallied around by idiotic masses who follow them. They are able to neatly spin our sensibilities so that it conform their hidden agenda, as in this case, Sekhar Gupta and Chandan Mitra tried to bat for the contractors and infrastructure industry.

The audience seemed to have completely immersed in the idea of Olympics happening in their city, their dreams of 8-lane roads in which their cars might zoom without incurring dents and scratches, snazzy airports and some even went up to the extent of asking, if we will be making a lion’s den as China made bird’s nest. Ha, i don’t think i need to say anything more.

We sadly forget the plight of innumerable youngsters who take to sports out of their willingness and some out of necessity (It can earn them a govt job!) We as a nation needs more respect towards these youngsters who are trying to cut a career in streams that are not at all lucrative in our nation. If we have that respect, what we should do is to cater to their interest, help them to achieve more, an Olympic bid is not the right way.

Kalavimarsham – 25 years on!

through my google reader feeds i stumbled upon this article, which talks about an article written by famous writer in Malayalam – N.S. Madhavan , who remembers an iconic book that appeared in Malayalam and the people who were influential in bringing out the book, especially late Dr.T.K. Ramachandran.

It is interesting to see the kind of interest that is being generated by this book – Kalavimarsham – oru Marxist manadhandam, which is still lying in one corner of my father’s book racks.

It is indeed with much pride that i can claim that my father is also mentioned in this article and he was very  much involved in bringing out this book.  and a few minutes back, i shared this news with my father and he noted that they were planning to republish the same with some more additions.

anyway i am not the right person to make any observations about the book because i have not read it but i have all the right to get enthused about my father who was also part of this venture.

N.S . Madhavan says,

what Kalavimarsham – oru Marxist manadhandam did was to get inspired by the thoughts of Marx, Lenin, Luckas, Althusser , Frankfurt school of thought and analyze the cultural life of a malayali. And that was one of an analysis as it covered almost everything that came across its path. Spirituality to strip cartoons to movies to poems to novels.

Okay, that was a terrible gist i could write about the article. If you are good at Malayalam, you can read the N.S . Madhavan article here.

oh. ho, before winding up the Ravindran that has been mentioned in the article is my maternal uncle.  more reason to get enthused!!

Due courtesy to M Mercutio and Bashaposhini weekly.

man-city aftermath.

before i start off, let me explain. Every season i go in with lot of optimism but  i try to keep myself grounded always. When i say grounded, i mean i never expected us to win the league in any of the past 3 seasons. The same was for this season too. neither do i bleat about not winning anything for such a long while now. i am a content arsenal supporter, i would say.  I always felt, wenger managed the best with what is at his disposal and i still feel the same.

but the agony that strikes you as an immediate aftermath of the match, this time around after the man-city match i felt a bit too uneasy. you know why? i felt it was a very easily given up match and which exposed our lack of quality in certain positions. We went about playing the first 20 mins so light and easy and i did not see that urge and seriousness with which we should have gone in to this kind of a much hyped-up match with our so called 4-th position contenders. before the match there was enough taunt from Adebayor to get inspired from, whereas i found nothing of that solidarity or urge with the team to give adebayor and in general team’s critics a footballistic answer.

instead we went in to the match easy and nice, conceded the first goal, looked as puzzled as ever with that and then went on to concede a few more. Great!

Almunia was terrible at his attempt (or no attempt) to save the first goal and i think that seriously made the difference. I have never been all-through critic of any arsenal player as of now, but this time i felt utterly disgusted seeing that piece of goal keeping. then comes clichy with his errors, it is so funny to see one of the best defenders in the league switching himself off during a vital match and playing as if he has never played competitive footy in his life. Yes, one off day, the 1st match where he did not get his boot right, everything all right, but 3 costly errors and 3 goals? that is terribly dismal for player of his caliber. c’mon  gael, you can do better.

there is nothing much to talk about this match, the only positive i see from the match is the return of rosicky who took some deft touches, passes and scored a well taken goal too. stay fit mate, you are badly needed. Diaby et al needs no mention here so i am not going to take pain and type something about them with my rickety key-board.

late night football is back!

No, dont get confused by the title.

I am not all enthused about the fact that i need to catch football matches in the wee hours of night. Then again, some times it is worth the wait, it is worth the lack of sleep and on the other side,  some times it is terribly depressing that you find it difficult to grab some sleep after a defeat. ( That Arsenal – Liverpool Champ League Semi comes in to my mind!)

Anyway, the first late-night football adventure of this season, did not prove to be a catastrophic one. Arsenal played Celtic in Parkhead and a bum-goal and and own goal helped the team to be in a decent situation in the Champions League qualifiers. It will be a daunting task for Celtic to come to Emirates and outclass us there.

Some point to be mentioned.

I am not so happy about our supposed 4-3-3 formation.

Now it looks like i have to agree with Myles Palmer on this. The service that our forwards received was minimal, Neither Van Persie or Arshavin could make themselves count in this formation. Bendtner was an exception as he had a decent match, i thought.  But if this gives us a stable and effcient run with us scoring more from the midfield than playing all the way up to the opposition goal, i suppose we could move on with it.

Song and the new boy Vermaelen deserves a special mention here. Song has become more of a terrier, upped his ante, pace and positioning, nothing much has to be said about his strength.  At times in the 1st half i felt nothing gets past Song, he was there like a rock!

Vermaelen (still not sure of the correct spelling!) is turning out to be a good signing. Yeah, it is only 2 matches, very early in to the season to make an affirmative statement but his look, his eagerness, his reading of the game and that heart to throw in a strong challenge is what we missed in our defense last season. He defnitely has fallen in place in to the Arsenal back line.

So are we all ready to challenge the title? I think we still can have some 1 or 2 signings. We can really get a good defender and a holding midfielder, i suppose but that decision is up to the manager. Obviously there has been a change from our perspective this time around. We are taking more and more chances from outside the box than passing it all the way to the opposition goal. Some what a quest for efficiency is over powering our style, that is a good sign indeed.

Hoping that we tread on till the end of season like this.

back with a bang…

for my footballing sense, things cant get any better, Arsenal banging in 6 goals at Goodison Park is no small feat.

Hope the team has new found a sense of cohesion and belief and they move on to win something.

I was a bit loud everytime the team scored goals but then again it is always like that when bottled spirits combine with football spirit..

a woo-hoo weekend which whistled passsed… as usual.

Status Update – July 09!

The Arjuna and Khel Ratna Awards have been announced and there is a not-s0-new absence of footballers in the list. It doesn’t matter if they have won AFC challenge Cup last year. I suppose nothing matters in India if it is football.

Mind you we have a Sports Minister who likes to belt speeches about the game of the masses that is football and what not.  He did not spare an opportunity the last time around to take a dig at our footballers too.

It seems only our former India captain Syed Nayeemuddin spoke in favor of the footballers in the committee that decided the awards. The rest  i suppose didnt even know that football is being played in India.

How will golf playing bureaucrats know about footballers? I have not yet picked the number of golfers in the awards list. I am sure there will be couple of them there and how many in India play golf and how many play football?

Oh.. that is it about the neglect and what not about football in India.  Nonetheless because of Bob-Houghton’s obstinacy the team is training their asses off in Camp Nou. Let us have some hope and belief that, upon returning they will give us some jaw-dropping results.

The other news is that Adebayooor has been signed by Manchester City.  The lure of money is much more than what i expected it to be. There was no big clubs lining up behind him this summer. I think Man City was the only option before him.  Anyway he is gone. I was a closet Adebayoor fan. There is no point thinking about him anymore.

Now it looks like, after the black-hole that is Real Madrid in La Liga,  The Abu Dhabi powered Man City is turning out to be the one in Premier League.  They seem to be sucking in everything that comes by. Hmpf!

Monsieur Wenger has re-iterated his share of cynicism that football will soon be hit by recession.  If my memory is precise, he uttered the same concern last time around when the team went for pre-season at Barnet. May be all those not-so-plush surroundings at barnet gives the manager a reality jolt. Then again, it is an “ok” way to placate the ever grumbling Arsenal fans.

Pundits and cynics have already made up their mind that Man City will be skinning Arsenal to steal a place in the top 4. With all due respect to the players who have signed for them, i really dont think they will pose a threat to the top 4. If at all someone challenges the top 4 spot it will be the hard working Everton and Aston Villa. Villa doesnt have the adequate  squad to pose a sustained challenge, although i have not paid any attention towards their recruits, this summer. Have they recruited anyone? I wonder.  I presume a big disaster is awaiting Mark Hughes and that will be an imploding Man City. Let the show begin!

Update : Samir Nasri is out of action for 3 months as he breaks his leg during training.

So thats it for now!

Why CPIM lost in Kerala?

Reading up a lot of tosh about that “devilish laugh” our very own Achu Mama sported after the election debacle of left in Kerala. Blogdom is awash with articles which accuse him of being a traitor and sort.  In his political career  there would have been instances in which the CM adjusted himself to safeguard his position, there is not much of debate about this. The kind of allegations that are hurled at him are juvenile and cornering him as the sole reason for the election debacle shows left’s incapability  in understanding the ground reality.

I would like to make a simple point here. The CPIM leadership which mostly have leaders from Kannur were bound to undergo a paradigm shift in their tendencies when absolute power came in to their hands. Crucial is to know; how all these leaders from Kannur grew up to take over the mantle from their  much respected predecessors. Most of them simply don’t have a history of leading mass struggles or any agitations, neither are they shrewd tacticians, they grew up countering the violent tendencies of RSS in Kannur. They played  a tit-for-tat game in Kannur against BJP/RSS and at times against NDF, congress and sorts, engaging in a very violent form of political struggle. This was definitely a challenge and i am not trying to belittle the effort of this violent struggle. I consider it as a struggle against virulent fundamentalism which often took vicious and violent forms.

What they engaged was not in mass struggles, agitations or shrewd politics but they involved in some sort of a brazen mafiosi style politics and now the Mafiosi nature have subsumed CPIM with these leaders at the helm.  The sheer arrogance in which they deal in public and the kind of alliances they forge are above the top of a common man. The local leadership also have undergone a massive transformation, local leaders being brazenly corrupt and sorts. With the “old timers” fading out, i would say there was not enough corrective force inside the party  and that is proving very dangerous.

With absolute power this Mafiosi culture have eaten up in to their values and  the ways of working.  The party-entertainment channel was a good enough platform for these new breeds to roll their dice. In doing  so they co-habited with rich nefarious elements, seeking help to raise and  rear the channel.  That was ambitious but for the party it was  fatal.  It was inevitable to accomodate the interests of these elements  and no-sooner was the party in the midst of all contoversies. Allegations have quite often cropped up in the state against indulgence of relatives of various ministers in nefarious activities during this CPIM tenure.

A very bad tendency for a Marxist-Leninist party and while all these issues are still overlooked, there is a bunch who are beating around the bush trying to corner Achuthanathan,  trying to deduce  the meaning of his “devilish laugh”.

So what are these malayali bloggers saying? that Achuthanathan should not have expressed his apprehension about the SNC-Lavalin corruption case?  Whatever are the figures propagated to ascertain their stance is complete ly tosh. If CPIM  got drubbed this time around, it was because of their way of functioning and absolute disregard to the people who voted them to power last time around with absolute majority.  People have been constantly watching the diligence with which party machinery has been torpedoing every efforts of  CM who is an outsider in  this mafiosi gang.

To square it all, check this interview with Abdur Rezzak Mollah a CPIM cabinet minister in Bengal. He puts it quite straight-forward, if CPIM is to gain the ground back they have to transform and change it attitude. Though it might be difficult to draw parallels between Bengal and Kerala dues to the obvious differences that exist, the interview make it quite clear – there needs to be a change in the attitude of CPIM, simple.

More over it will be very nice if the leadership Kerala understands that everything is not a conspiracy by CIA!

Status Update – June 09

I havent had much time these days to blog.

It is sad when i look back, i found that i was mired in understanding all the conspiracy theories – Death of Prabhakaran and then the buying of 26/11 – Mumbai Attacked caused a re-churning of all those 26/11 conspiracy theories.

The football season is over, so i expected a break from the compulsive sports watching on TV but  that is not working out at all. First it was IPL ,now comes the T-20 world cup and the Rolland Garros is going on. I am trying my best to avoid this mental assault caused by the overdose of cricket.

Closely trying to keep up with all the football transfers, thankfully i dont have to watch tv to know about this.

Elections and the aftermath!

I am happy with the verdict in Kerala.  The reasons are as follows….

• CPIM has been off track for a while in Kerala.  They were haughty and is totally alienated from the ground realities.
• The central leadership expected to pull off a Houdini act by flaunting something called a 3rd front, which crumbled badly after the elections.

If i am to list, there is quite a lot to. So it is better that i dont.

Though i am happy with a verdict which almost threw BJP in to the dust bins, there is a fair share of apprehension that i have with UPA and that becomes very true with rumors of Montek Singh taking up the finance ministry.

In a short span we will see  SBI, LIC  and sorts being “reformed” and our pension funds being listed on the stock market. It is a wonderful prospect to await for ,because on a fine morning,  it is possible that we will hear someone resigning with huge bonuses in kitty, somewhere on earth. Before we realise our savings and funds would have gone completely astray!

Let us hope “reforming” SBI which has more customers than the population of Australia will pitchfork a world reeling out of recession; at our expense !