Monday, January 28, 2013

Flight- A review

Flight (2012)
Cast: Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, Bruce Greenwood, John Goodman, Melissa Leo
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Robert Zemeckis has made us wait long for his first live action feature film since Cast Away (2000) and this wait has well been worth it. This gripping drama takes hold of your attention from the minute it starts.
Captain William “Whip” Whitaker (Denzel Washington) awakens in an Orlando hotel room after a booze and sex filled night with very little sleep with flight attendant Katerina Marquez (Nadine Velasquez), arguing on the phone to his now divorced wife who is demanding more maintenance for his estranged son’s higher education. He uses cocaine to be jolted awake, as he is due to fly SouthJet Flight 227 to Atalanta. The weather is overcast but Whip, being a skilled pilot takes off the plane through turbulence and then turns it over to his co pilot Ken Evans (Brian Geraghty). He then discreetly drinks vodka mixed with orange juice and falls asleep. He is awakened by Evans just before the flight’s descent and as he takes the controls, the plane goes into a steep dive due to a malfunction, rapidly falling apart piece by piece. With no other choice, he flips the plane upside down to stop the dive, maneuvers the plane right side up, and then glides it away far from residential areas, crashlanding it in a field. He loses consciousness on impact.
Whip awakes in an Atalanta hospital with minor injuries, to be greeted by his old friend from the Air Force Charlie Anderson (Bruce Greenwood), now representing the airline’s pilot union. He tells Whip that his heroic skill saved 96 out of the 102 lives on board. An NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) official then briefs him that Katerina was among the ones killed and that Evans is severly injured and put in a coma. Whip meets Nicole (Kelly Reilly), a recovering drug addict in the hospital and promises to visit her when he is discharged. He is sneaked out of the hospital ward the following morning by his drug dealer friend Harling Mays (John Goodman), who tells him that he has become a media celebrity. Whip drives away to his late father’s farm to avoid the media, decides to quit drinking, destroying his stash of alcohol. Unfortunately, he relapses soon. He is called by Charlie and Attorney Hugh Lang (Don Cheadle), the latter informing him that  his blood test was performed while he was unconscious revealing a high alcohol content, which could get him a life in prison for both drug and manslaughter.He storms off angily and  visits Nicole, finding her getting  evicted and asks her to move in with him, beginning a relationship with her. His alcoholism gets worse while Nicole on the other hand is getting rehabilitated. She leaves him seeing no improvement in him. Whip also visits Evans, finding that he has a very little chance of walking again ,who chides him for being drunk that day but accepting that the plane was at fault.Whip is soon discovered by the media in his farmhouse making him flee from there in an intoxicated state to his estranged family, from where he is evicted as well. Hugh informs Whip that he has trashed his toxicology report proving the incompetence of the testing equipment, and now he just has to stay sober till the hearing, led by NTSB investigator Ellen Block (Melissa Leo), which if all goes well will allow Whip to walk away a hero.
Whip is put in a guarded hotel room with no access to alcohol a day before the hearing, but he somehow finds a way to the adjoining room, discovering alcohol in its refrigerator. Hugh and Charlie find Whip passed out the following morning, barely an hour before the hearing is to begin. Harling is called to revive him and he uses cocaine to revive him. A rejuvenated Whip goes for facing the hearing which is to decide his fate.
Will he lie in his usual manner to walk away free to continue his decadent ways or will his conscience finally make him choose the painful but right path? These answers will be best found onscreen.
Denzel Washington is one of the best actors to grace the screen and can emote more in one glance than the likes of Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt can with pages of dialogues. His portrayal of a successful person who is suicidally and stupidly dissolving his career, life and happiness in alcohol and drugs is painfully realistic. As a person who shamelessly lies, runs from the truth to the one who finally realizes that he has been going wrong since a long time or  as a pilot who remains calm even in the face of an impending deadly crash, his performance is a class act. This is certainly his best role in a decade since Training Day and certainly marks his comeback after a string of forgettable films.
John Goodman gives the best cameo that you can remember and totally steals the show for the hardly ten minutes that he is on screen. Don Cheadle and Bruce Greenwood are left to play second fiddle to Denzel Washington, but they are nevertheless very effective in the thankless roles the script has for them. Kelly Reilly is effective in her supporting part as well.
Robert Zemeckis does a brilliant job here, and this film is no less than his earlier classics like Forrest Gump and Cast Away. He keeps the story line taut and pacy, avoiding being preachy about drug or alcohol abuse or portraying the protagonist Whip Whitaker in any sympathetic light. The dialogues are crisp and so is the storyline. The technical aspects are well researched and nothing is overdone. The most important question asked by the film is whether a “hero” is pardonable for his other bad deeds ? Should he be allowed to get away for an act of his which would have also endangered the lives of the very people he saved in the first place, just because all ended well?
Come aboard ,folks. This one is a memorable ride.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Communal verses and Secular vices




Till a few days ago, Inspector Sujata Patil was just another name in the over 40000 strong Mumbai Police force. Today she is in the centre of a storm and an eyesore for all bleeding hearts. Because she has made the communal folly of writing a poem against destruction caused by a congregation of about 3000 peaceful people sponsored by Raza Academy, who, after their meeting in Azad maidan on 11th Aug 2012 through a peacefully planned motive wreaked havoc near the CST, secularly damaging and torching vehicles including that of the police and the media, virtuously beating up the constables and manhandling women. Fortunately they could not kill anyone as a token of their activism. The reason of all the ruckus was the alleged atrocities on Muslims in Myanmar and Assam (most of the photos of which turned out to be fake later). To cause mayhem in Mumbai due to some supposed injustice in Myanmar is perfectly peaceful and secular logic. But the most beautiful display of patriotism was given by this peaceful mob when Amar Jyoti, a memorial to the Indian soldiers who have laid down their lives for the country, was smashed completely. The damage to property caused can be estimated in a few crores, a seemingly small sum to ensure the communal harmony in the country.

Inspite of all the mayhem caused, the secular state government decided to wait till Ramzan was over to apprehend the miscreants, including the ones who had destroyed the Amar Jyoti. Another sickening spectacle added to the countless others before it and countless others which will undoubtedly follow it , in an inept society which is cowardice, convenience and stupidity personified, aptly ruled by their chosen political class  for whom minority appeasement is more important than national interest and appeasement is more important than justice, whose vision does not extend beyond the next election around the corner. We have no reason to complain as a failed society like us for which words like nation, honour and self respect are just punchlines and not codes to live by can only produce sub human leadership. Here, it is not the best who comes to the forefront, but the one who shouts the most and the one who has the most number of hired goons to thrash his opponents. The only value that matters is nuisance value.

Police forces in all states without exception in our great nation are more rotten to the core and can make a putrefied corpse teeming with maggots look hale and hearty in comparison. The number of honest people in it are helpless to do anything and spend their careers in frustration. One cannot expect any good thoughts to survive in such an environment, but they do in significant numbers.

Inspector Sujata Patil made the folly of not forgiving magnanimously the secular violence on azad maidan and penned a poem in a Mumbai Police magazine, expressing her anguish at the total helplessness of the law , that the hands of the traitors who desecrated the martyr’s memorial should have been chopped off, that it was an attack on the people which should have been replied with bullets. That we are nurturing snakes in the name of brotherhood.

All hell broke loose, because in a media dominated by the left and armchair intellectuals who preach nothing but inertia and self hatred, any sign of patriotism or pride is blasphemy and crime. A prominent film director known for his filthy thoughts and his equally filthy drivel passing off as  films asked that she be sent to a psychiatrist to see where her hatred comes from. The writer suggests that he and the likes of him should be sent for a psychiatric evaluation to determine where his shamelessness comes from and what exactly flows in his veins, which makes him hire Pakistanis by the truckload in all of his loathsome projects and condemn and demean his own people at the drop of a hat. A few humane creatures are even considering filing a case in the high court against her. The Mumbai Police tendered apology for the poem, without pondering over the fact that has any apology been issued from Raza Academy for manhandling police constables?

Where were these activists when the rioters were destroying public  property with impunity? Why are all leftists considered as defacto intellectuals? Why does the so called educated section of the society even give the scantiest attention to these so called intellegensia  who have no qualms in calling our troops as rapists, terrorists as freedom fighters, nationalism as fascism and who never lose an opportunity to demean anything in which people take pride in? Why didn’t the sold out media condemn this incident inspite of the fact that many journalists were beaten up and press vehicles torched? 

Targetting a particular religion as the reason of terrorism and crime is wrong, but then isn’t terming the demand for action against the perpetrators of violence as an attack on that religion wrong as well?

The situation has become so sickening that it doesn’t matter whether the elected leader is corrupt or a criminal as long as he is secular. The biggest crimes and the biggest blunders are erased as long as the person in question proves his secular credentials. It doesn’t matter that caste based politics thrives in the country only due to these secular leaders who have meticulously made it certain through the conditioning of their voter base that elections in India should be nothing more than covert caste wars and that democracy should be infact a mobocracy where 51% trample on the rights of the remaining 49% . Any voice of sanity from someone who calls himself a nationalist or who is perceived to be “saffron” is drowned out in the cacophony of cries of injustice and the demands for an undeserved entitlement. Since the last decade, the biggest scams which have cost the country enough to stall its progress for another decade are forgotten by the intellectuals and the media, because its the secular leaders who are the reason for them. That is why Gujarat riots are being harped about again and again, but not the exodus and ethnic cleansing of the Kashmiri Hindus who after a quarter century remain refugees in their own country but no one cares because they aren’t a vote bank.  Nor the killing of more than 4000 sikhs in 1984 because secular people were in power. Because secularism means getting Bangladeshis inside India and giving them citizenship to ensure one’s victory in elections

We have blurred all lines between use and abuse, secularism and appeasement, tolerance and cowardice. Because we are so selfish, that for a bottle of booze and a few sops we make conmen our leaders. And for the so called educated among us, the person’s worth of leadership remains limited to how many degrees from foreign universities he holds and how much of an orator he is in eloquent English, regardless of whether it makes logic or not. Hence exists the frightening cowardice, apathy and silence in face of any attack on the very existence of law and order in the society.

Or for that matter, silence even in face of the accusations on someone like Sujata Patil who dares to speak up.










Self Respect

What would the reactions of our imminent personalities and institutions on the mutilation and decapitation of Lance Naik Hemraj and Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh during an ambush by Pakistani forces? The writer’s view:-
Manmohan Singh: We condemn this dastardly attack on the sovereignty of the nation and urge our neighbouring country to look into the matter to see that these kind of incidents are not repeated. We also appeal to the citizens of the country to maintain peace. Theek hai.
Sonia Gandhi: We condemn this inhuman and barbaric act and warn that such incident will not be tolerated. We will raise these concerns with Pakistan at a suitable time.
Salman Khurshid: We demand an apology from the Pakistan MEA. Such irresponsible acts will hurt the peace talks and confidence building measures. We can raise this issue in UN.We will send a strong worded letter to the Pakistani authorities for this ghastly ……….….
AK Antony: Pakistan should be given one week to explain this, failing which it should be given two weeks, failing which……
Rahul Gandhi: This attack is certainly alarming but still, we must not forget that the biggest challenge we face is Saffron terror.
Sushilkumar Shinde: Atleast we are certain that this attack wasn’t carried out by Shri Hafeez Saeed.
Digvijay Singh: Looks like an RSS conspiracy to malign our friendly neighbours.
Nitish Kumar: We must not react in a hasty way which can threaten the secular fabric of the country or which could spoil the goodwill built by my Pakistan trip.
RR Patil: Badi badi sarhadon par chhoti chhoti hatyaen hoti rehti hain.
Arvind Kejariwal: As this is not related to Janlokpal or anti corruption movement, it will not be wise to comment on the issue.
Anna Hazare: I promise to go on a hunger strike for two days to condemn this when my current hunger strike obligations are over.
Prashant Bhushan: Didn’t I tell you that AFSPA was to blame for all this?
Laloo Yadav: We must not let the communal forces to take advantage of this incident.
Mayawati: Were the soldiers Manuvadis or from the Bahujan Samaj?
Sheila Dixit: Atleast Delhi is much safer than the LoC.
Mulayam Singh: Whatever happens, the relations between the two countries should not affect the communal harmony in the country.
Mamata Banerjee: This would not have happened if Defence Ministry were handled by our party.
Shivanand Tiwari: India and Pakistan are two sides of the same coin.
Markandey Katju: We must remember that India and Pakistan are enemies only because of the British. They made us forget our composite culture . We have so much in common, even 90% of Pakistanis are idiots.
Arundhati Roy: This is a positive assertion of the Pakistani proletariat fighters against the Indian bourgeoise forces.
N Srinivasan: Does this mean that Indian cricket team’s tour to Pakistan is cancelled? Are we to skip bidding for Pakistan players in this season’s IPL as well?
NDTV: This is a huge setback to bilateral relations between the two countries. People to People contact has to be increased to diffuse the tension.
India TV: Kya Bhatatiya sena kee grah disha bigad gayi hai?
Mahesh Bhatt: India must apologise to Pakistan for straying so close to the border. To make up for this folly, my next project will exclusively feature Pakistani artistes.
LK Advani: The government must convince US to declare Pakistan as a terrorist state.
Candle light activists: We can protest only against real issues that affect us all, like publicity hogging when an unfortunate girl gets brutalized or for the youth right to night life (or when we are funded by the likes of Ford foundation). Doesn’t the army have weapons to protect itself? We certainly feel that this issue is not that important for us.
Dreamers: It is the death of the rebel and the poet that shakes us from within, we are far away from the violent geopolitics.
Common Man: When even the soldier is not safe, how can I be?
Those who forget history are condemned to relive it- George Santayana
A nation that makes  a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools- Thucydides.
Civilizations die from suicide, not murder-Alfred Toynbee
A nation that forgets is defenders will itself be forgotten- Calvin Coolidge
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history-George Bernard Shaw.
Cry, my beloved country.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Tata's "Jewel"



The most prestigious name in Indian business scenario has called it a day. Ratan Naval Tata passed on the command of the Bombay House to Cyrus Mistry as he decided , at the age of 75.
He had retired a decade back in 2002, at age 65, when the company decided to make him a non executive chairman of the Tata Group, thereby rendering him eligible to continue for five more years. When that time elapsed, the retirement age was again extended for five more years. Ratan, the jewel for the Tata group was indispensable, undoubtedly.
Educated at Cornell, he would have stayed back in USA as he had an offer from IBM. But JRD Tata’s nephew and group chairman Naval Tata’s son was destined to be a part of the family business. He joined the family business in 1962, as one of the several thousand shopfloor employees at Tata Steel in Jamshedpur.
It would be nearly a decade when he would get something ,as he was put incharge of the troubled Nelco (National Radio and Electronics) in 1971 which had shown losses as high as 40%. Unfortunately for him, when he had just turned around the scenario, emergency was declared, and with labour issues, Nelco was back to square one. His next assignment was to help revive the sick Empress mills. He had that, but was refused the Rs 50 lakh necessary for its revival. The mill finally closed down in 1986.
Ratan Tata’s criticism’s grew, and his baiters led by Russi Modi blamed Nelco’s  and Empress mills’ collapse on him , conveniently ignoring that both had been caused mainly by factors which were beyond his control. The criticism grew to a new level when JRD stepped down as the chairman of the group in 1981 and named Ratan as his successor, as his detractors thought that but for the Tata surname, he was not worth much.
Ratan Tata drew up a new strategic plan in 1983, anticipating expansion of capital markets. His plan emphasized on venturing into high tech businesses, focusing on select markets and products, mergers & acquisitions. He promoted seven such companies in the same decade:- Tata Telecom, Tata Finance, Tata Keltron, Hitech Drilling Services, Tata Honeywell, Tata Elxsi and Plantek. But his plans found a cold response in many of the group companies, most of whom were run as defacto independent units. All the progresses in them were made independent of him.

In 1988, he tookover as Telco chairman, amidst the worst labour dispute in Tata’s history. He stood firm and the dispute was resolved in the company’s favour. Three years later, he He implemented the retirement age rule for the board of directors and business heads, and this took care of many of his detractors. The economy opened up in 1991, and his peers at Bombay house were not very enthusiastic about this new change which took away the protectionist policies of more than four decades.

He drew a new plan in 1991 in place of his old plan.He gave prominence to technology, and made global competitiveness the motto. McKinsey group was hired for reorganization. Multiple, overlapping group companies were brought in under one roof,  and by 1998, there was a single group logo and Tata belonged to Tata Sons, who now held the sole authority on the use of the brand name. 
Tata exited from its once established sectors like cement, textiles, pharmaceuticals and cosmeticsNew businesses were entered into viz telecommunciations, finance , retail and preference was given to IT and renewable energy. Today, TCS is the most profitable company in the IT sector.
Tata Group's global expansion started in 2000 with the acquisition of Britain's largest tea firm, Tetley, by Tata Tea, now called Tata Global Beverages.From 2000-10, more than USD 18 billion was spent to acquire more than 22 companies worldwide . Tata Steel also acquired Europe's second largest steel maker Corus in 2007 for $12 billion. The company is now called Tata Steel Europe. These  acquisitions also include of controlling stake in government-run Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) by Tata Sons, purchase of heavy vehicles unit of Daewoo Motors in South Korea by Tata Motors, acquisition of Singapore's NatSteel by Tata Steel and purchase of New York-based The Pierre hotel by Indian Hotels Company. Jaguar Land Rover, a personal favourite of Ratan Tata since his young days was acquired for $ 3 billion.
Before him becoming the chairman, less than 5% of Tata’s earning came from overseas. Today, it is the largest Indian multinational conglomerate; more than 65% of its income comes from overseas . Tata group has, till now 98 operating companies spread across 56 countries in six continents. Tata Group's market capitalisation, which has some 30-odd listed companies, is now nearly Rs.4.54 trillion ($825 billion), 33 times more than in 1991 when Tata took over the top job. During this period, the group's aggregate sales have increased 43 times, while net profit has grown 51 times.
In 2008, he was awarded India’s  second-highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan.
He has not been without controversies, namely various environmental issues flouted by the group in case of the port at Dharma (Orissa), which is near protected wildlife areas.Or about the Nano plant withdrawal from Singur, WB and going to Sanand , owing to farmers protest over inadequate compensation for their land.
What makes him so different than other Indian businessmen who began in the license permit era? The very fact that he turned the biggest relic of the license permit raj into a global company in little more than a decade. On other hand, where behemoths like Birla could not stand the changed business scenario and promptly broke up into little factions, Tata grew beyond its wildest dreams, acquiring overseas businesses, a fact which would have been impossible for any Indian enterprise for most of the 20th century. On one hand where he acquired luxury brands like Jaguar Land Rover, he also strived for the development of the world’s cheapest car, Nano and the first car designed in India, the Indica (which has been Tata Motors biggest success till now, and still going strong). On one hand where Laxmi Mittal’s takeover of Arcelor is still causing problems, Tata’s bid for Corus hardly raised any concerns, speaks about the goodwill the group has built beyond India’s borders. Most of his now hailed successes, like the Corus and Jaguar acquisition were predicted to bring the company’s doom and bankruptcy. But he spent no time in proving them right. Because after all, Tata has been among the very few to perfectly understand the pysche and the needs of the Indian consumer -- and build successful businesses around those insights.

For those who think that he is into full fledged pensioner’s life now, he heads Sir Dorabji Trust and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, which control nearly 60% of the group company. Its very logical that he is in no mood to rest on his laurels.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Exit Wounds

Ban Guns.

 Say no to guns.

Its time someone brought a law for gun control.

These are just three examples of demands that come up hysterically whenever there is a shootout in public place or school in USA. These incidents are happening at an alarming rate there, and have had horrific  outcomes. The most prominent in our memory in recent times  are the Columbine school massacre (1999), the Virginia Tech massacre (2008), the Aurora cinema hall shooting (2012) and the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting (2012), the very last being the most horrific in the writer’s opinion as the victims were children who had barely lived the first five years of their lives.

The popular media will have us believe that all these are the result of violent video games or violent films, but school shootings have been going on in United States since the early 1800’s.

The second amendment, stated in the Bill of Rights of United States of America proclaims:- A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

In simple words, it is the right to arms for the citizen. The powerful gun lobby thrives by it, and since the days of the war of independence, armed citizenry has been a permanent part of the American life. And no politician who wants to be on the scenario for a long time dares oppose it , or the gun lobby brings him down without delay. As the popular saying goes, America doesn’t go to war because it wants to, it goes to war because it has to. The arms manufacturers like Colt who produces , among others the standard issue M-16 rifle for the American forces (the same is available in semi-automatic version as AR-15 for the civilians) to the ones like Boeing and Lockheed Martin that produce F-16 and F-18, war is a required industry. If conflicts don’t exist, they have to be invented, so that, in addition to increasing the sales of the weapons , it will also establish regimes that are friendly enough to be called as allies as they will facilitate American interests in the region and provide cheap oil and allow permanent military bases, which are mostly manned by enlisters who mainly come from the lower middle class or working class, for whom, in these times of recession a stint in the army is the only way out, that of becoming another cog in the war machine and a test user for the weaponry, and for the CIA to run drugs in the area, arming the criminals and other nefarious elements who are eager to become allies to the cause, so what if two decades later, they become the biggest enemies of freedom according to Uncle Sam. Such is life. The mighty have their own rules.

But then, is banning firearms the solution? Sure, the odds are overwhelming, with over 100000 people killed in United States in gun crimes in little over a decade,or that of Pakistan, where thanks to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and American aid to counter it has resulted in a scenario where there is one Kalashnikov per nine individuals, where in areas like Darra Adam Khel , it is easier for a teenager to make an exact copy of a Beretta or a Kalashnikov on a lathe machine than reading a paragraph. Their terrorist network formed against India has now turned on them, imploding the country. Divine justice, isn’t it?

Banning guns to stem crime is like banning fornication to control rapes. There were some other scum like the Westboro Baptist Church which used this opportunity to proclaim that the shooting in the Connecticut school was god’s will because god was being removed from school everyday. The writer prays to gods that he please send an army of crazed shooters to the homes of these biped swine as they don’t deserve  to exist in a civilized society.

A rifle is just a tool. It is a hard heart that kills (Full Metal Jacket, 1989)

The writer has just one answer to give to the ban supporters : Criminals will always be armed. Those who are going to commit crimes will always manage to lay their hands on a firearm.

If there are countless examples of madmen shooting in public places, there are countless examples of many robbery and murder attempts thwarted by armed citizens. A place full of people with guns is much better than a place where unarmed, lame duck citizens are abused and raped at will by armed criminals. Admiral Yamamoto during WWII said that the empire of Japan could never invade United States because “there would be a rifle behind every blade of glass”. The very reason that the mighty Americans are finding it difficult to put and end to Iraq war is because the civilians are armed to the teeth. Three decades ago, the Soviets found out the same when they invaded the villages of the mujahideen armed by Uncle Sam.

Dictators start their regimes by the careful disarmament of the general populace, so that they can be sure of no dissent against their rule. This is true for everyone, from Stalin to Mao .

The de arming of the general populace in India started with the Mughals, who de armed as many Hindus as they could. This practice was continued by the British, and has been continued in independent India. The results are for all of us to see, where any criminal is free to molest any woman on the street, any robber is free to loot anyone’s house and kill the inhabitants and hence the common man has to live all his life being a insect to be crushed because forget about a firearm, he is not even allowed to carry a 10 cm blade knife for his protection. Thats why all these calls of asking the common man to fight terrorism are cruelly laughable, because the only way a defenceless common man can fight terrorism is by getting shot by a terrorist or by blowing into smithereens by a bomb, thereby becoming a statistic to be discussed by so called eminent personalities in some talk show of a so called news channel.

If guns are always going to end up in the wrong hands, shouldn’t there be provisions that they can end up in the right hands as well? Those who still say that the pen is mightier than the sword should really try fighting an armed assailant with a fountain pen.

Imagine for a moment if even three people in the vicinity of a terrorist in event of an attack like the 26/11 in Mumbai have guns, wouldn’t that create a chance to gun him down before he kills 50 more people? Or if half the villagers have atleast a country made firearm, can the local “bahubali”’s goons threaten them? Or would a ruffian on the street dare to molest a woman if he had the slightest doubt that she might be carrying a weapon underneath her veil?

After all, if live and live let had been practical in real life, lions and antelopes would have been babysitting each other’s offspring.