Innholdsfortegnelse for 19 November 2018 i Open Magazine

editor@openmedianetwork.in WEALTH AND IDEOLOGY Wealth has often been misinterpreted by politicians and socialists (‘Despite the Paradox’ by TCA Srinivasa Raghavan, November 12th, 2018). Why should wealth be seen as something negative when the reality is that the world and its economies run on it? So do all communities. There is nobody who would be unhappy with wealth. It is natural to want to upgrade the quality of our lives. This should be remembered when wealth is viewed in negative terms. It is not harmful but good for society. It is only when people get blinded by wealth that it turns into a social problem. Otherwise, wealth, as TCA Srinivasa Raghavan argues, is ‘neither good nor bad, neither benign nor malignant, neither kind nor cruel’. How it is viewed simply depends…

FIVE-STAR HOTELS came up with the concept of exclusive lounges, where membership was by invitation only and the hoi polloi were kept out. And the annual membership fee ran into a couple of lakhs. But such being the lure of money, various odd-bod social climbers, having made their pile through illicit means, sought respectability by wangling admittance to these once well-regarded lounges. You go to any such lounge in a five-star hotel in Luytens’ Delhi now, and you will be struck by the presence of fixers and wheeler-dealers, the kind you will hate to say ‘Hi’ to outside the hotel premises. Why the hotels have succumbed to pressure to admit these undesirables is not known, but we do know that some of these members used either bureaucratic or political influence…

THE RESULTS OF elections to the US House of Representatives and the Senate went along expected lines. After almost a decade, America’s Democratic Party has regained control of the lower house with a resounding margin of 223 seats against 197 for the Republican Party. Of 435 seats, 420 have been declared. In the Senate, the Republicans have retained their hold: 51 seats to 44 of the Democrats, with information on 97 out of 100 available so far. Given the level of polarisation and bitterness that characterises US politics today, this can only mean one thing: a divided government again. In practical terms, this will put a brake on President Donald Trump’s legislative programme. A Democratic majority also means that in case matters turn even more partisan, Congressional use of subpoena…

Price is what you pay, value is what you get—so goes an adage made famous by Warren Buffett. And every market has its own understanding of price and value. In the US, Apple can ask for just about what it wants for an iPhone and have customers lining up. But the same formula doesn’t seem to work in India. By a Reuters report, iPhone sales in India may be a million less this year than 2017, its first such dip in four years. Indian consumers see little value in paying the steep prices that the product commands elsewhere. And its gambit to palm off pared down versions aren’t getting any traction either, given high-end Android smartphones cost just as much. Indians clearly have a limit on what they shell out…

MEN IN FINELY TAILORED SUITS EQUIPPED WITH EXPENSIVE accessories can look out of place in an old black-and-yellow cab. Spotted being ferried from a posh South Delhi hotel, one that has over the years earned a reputation for being a favourite haunt of fixers, to CBI House on 2 Janpath Road, the official home of the director of India’s premier investigative agency, they are all the more conspicuous. Their business interests appear dubious and they seem remarkably comfortable with these short jaunts—they are overly friendly with the chauffeur and look only too glad to leave their luxury vehicles behind, a likely ruse to keep their visit from easy detection. Despite the risk involved in meeting a top government official who enjoys heavy security, they prefer one-on-one meetings so as not…

THE TITLE OF this book takes off from a hugely successful 2014 book with a very similar title, The Accidental Prime Minister by Sanjaya Baru. But there the likeness ends. While Baru had worked with Manmohan Singh for four years as his media advisor, and knew him quite well before that as well, Tharoor hasn’t had that privilege. Also, it is entirely likely that he wouldn’t regard that as a privilege at all because there are a lot of people who regard Narendra Modi as a parvenu. The Cambridge dictionary describes a parvenu as ‘a person of humble origin who has gained wealth, influence, or celebrity.’ Tharoor is quite the opposite—an erudite intellectual who grew up in a well-heeled family, had an excellent education, and is also quite a man…

INITIALLY, I HAVE to admit, putting these two books together was a way to plot a trend, nothing more. Two big authors, both writing illustrated hardcover ‘gift books’? Was it, wondered the cynic within me, just a way to pump more money out of those milk cows, to slap a large price tag on something that could be read in under 30 minutes? I am someone who believes in the value-for-money of Big Fat Books, the fatter the better. But then, in a strange sort of serendipity, these books got slotted together. A theme began to emerge. One speaks of how art matters more than ever in these times. The other uses art to illustrate a prose-poem about a father leading his son to safety away from the home to…

The Awkward Embrace There were more than a few uncomfortable run-ins at Shah Rukh Khan’s Diwali party last weekend, but Alia Bhatt and Katrina Kaif ’s awkward embrace is being described as the moment of the evening. Eyewitnesses have revealed that both ladies were fully aware that they were going to bump into each other, and yet the moment they came face to face, you could sense the chill in the air. Good thing for them there were others around, and after the obligatory hug it became a brief ‘group chat’ rather than a one-on-one exchange. They did have a picture taken, though, and expectedly the photograph has gone viral, their forced smiles the talk of the town. Ranbir Kapoor, who was also present, ran into Sidharth Malhotra in the…

Despite a wealth of entrepreneurial talent and skill in the country, a lot of it gets wasted because the economic environment for tech startups is still not optimum (‘Where Are You, Genius?’ by Devangshu Datta, November 12th, 2018). The ease of starting and running a business should be paramount to any nation’s economy, and while India has gained ranks lately on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business chart, there is much work to be done. One often reads stories of young entrepreneurs who reflect on the challenges they had to overcome simply in order to get a business going, forget about turning a profit. There might be more avenues for funding available today, but clearances and taxation pose hurdles. Problems of rentals, tax calculations, bureaucratic red-tape and even difficult…

‘JUDICIAL OVERREACH.’ It’s a phrase heard often, and I have written articles on it, as has every single columnist in the land. With some justification too, because the courts, High or Supreme, seem to take their titles very seriously and find no sphere of human activity outside their ambit. The US Supreme Court, on the other hand, deals only with constitutional matters. Why can’t we take a leaf out of that? The Indian Supreme Court wouldn’t then be faced with the kind of mountainous backlog that defies any real possibility of ever being reduced. Then there are cases of arbitrary bans—for example, a temporary ban on diesel cars and the order to shut bars near highways. These cause untold inconvenience and unemployment because orders are given without thinking of consequences.…

THE FREDDIE MERCURY biopic Bohemian Rhapsody releases next week in India. It has garnered negative reviews for being formulaic and sanitised, considering the colourful and transgressive figure that Freddie Mercury was. But the film, released earlier abroad, has already gone on to become a big hit. It has had a troubled origin, from its director Bryan Singer being fired to the first-choice lead, Sacha Baron Cohen, departing acrimoniously—but not without turning in the knife saying the film was more about the success of the band Queen than that of the extraordinary life of its frontman. The movie is now about to be shown in India, where his parents were born and where he first began to explore his musical talent. It wasn’t just that Mercury’s voice was so distinct, that…

THE PARAKEETS transit between heaven and earth like the souls of departed Sufis, their music of trill, squawk and wooroo echoing in the vaulted arches. Morning’s hazy lucidity brushes the tomb, the light snagging in the mottled red sandstone and sparking along marble intarsia. Antelopes rest in its grounds. Their graceful ease belongs not to a present coarsened by demagogues, but to a paradise garden nourished by the murmur of fountains and prayers. Sikandra is a quiet place. The tomb has withstood weather and desecration, and the Archaeological Survey of India has reclaimed its grandeur from the relentless sand. I have, ever since I first visited the Agra region as a 13-year-old, preferred its tranquillity to the overwhelming resplendence of the Taj Mahal. If a sense of being powerfully centred…

AS WINSTON CHURCHILL might have said, never have so many been so embarrassed by so few. For the last two weeks, the Government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have been quarrelling publicly in the most unseemly and undignified manner. It is unclear who started the fight, but one thing is certain: the prestige of both has been severely dented. Depending on whose side you are on, there are various versions available. One version is that the Government is trying to bully the RBI. Another is that the RBI is being obstinate on principles and not being sensitive to the need of the hour. A third version is that the RBI Governor is ignoring the Board’s wishes and that the Government has had to step in to make peace.…

TWO YEARS AGO, Sharmila Sen was invited to address graduate students at Yale University, from where she had acquired a PhD in English nearly two decades earlier. She was to speak about racism on campus, and how non-White alumni navigated professional spaces after they left university. There was a larger context to the subject—it was 2016, and students were protesting institutionalised racism across campuses in the United States, with some high-profile cases from Yale being reported in the national media. On her way to New Haven, Connecticut, Sen mulled over the story she could tell. “On the one hand, there was an expectation that I should be a positive model, tell a feel-good story: ‘Here are all the things I did. It turned out okay, I’m successful and you can…

I WATCHED SEAN Baker’s latest film The Florida Project (2017) on a palm-sized monitor in between an eight-hour flight from Paris to Mumbai. By the end of that film, all I wanted to do was extend my hand and touch the clouds that my aeroplane was passing through. If there was a way of capturing the magic of life, despite its often extreme and often mundane nature, Baker has learnt to do it just right. As The New York Times noted in its review of The Florida Project, ‘This movie accomplishes something almost miraculous—two things, actually. It casts a spell and tells the truth,’ by telling its young heroine’s story from two points of view at once. The movie went on to gather a slew of awards, including an Oscar…

STILL A STRANGER IN HIS TRAVELS, Aatish Taseer has not abandoned his wonder—or his argument. India for him is an exhausting intimacy. A pause he craves, and an unfinished sentence to which he returns, again and again. Its stories are antique, its sighs are eternal, and as an idea he is not certain whether it is all movement or just stagnation. It is this traveller’s sense of awe and anxiety that makes his journeys discoveries of the mind, and his stories are mined from conflict zones of the present and the past. He is in Benares, which still remains a favoured destination for travellers in search of civilisation kitsch. The oriental mystique, in its elemental diversity, is intact. Taseer is not a nirvana junkie. It’s not the exotic that excites…

THE PHILOSOPHER NASSIM Nicholas Taleb wrote an entire book on people who pontificate on how others should lead their lives while having no stake in the outcome of it. This should have been the ordinary hypocrisy of human beings but when these pontificators create a society that enforces their values, the problem becomes real. He titled his book Skin In the Game, a concise phrase to explain the phenomenon. He explained it thus in an article in Medium, ‘For the central attribute is symmetry: the balancing of incentives and disincentives, people should also be penalised if something for which they are responsible goes wrong and hurts others: he or she who wants a share of the benefits needs to also share some of the risks.’ An opinion which carries no…

ONCE UPON A time in Pakistan... June 2009: In a quiet little village Ittan Wali, district Sheikhupura, Punjab, while working in a field, she had an argument with some women. It was an apparently little thing, but it was anything but little. She didn’t know that her life was going to change, irrevocably, in those few minutes. As she picked up an old, used glass to drink water, the women objected. Was it a class thing, the hierarchy that decides who drank from which glass? Here, it was a matter of faith. Religion was the determinant: she belonged to a faith those women considered inferior to theirs, and ergo, lines had to be drawn whose hands and mouth touched that glass. Body parts become impure as per the way you…

IN NOVEMBER LAST year, the Kerala state police announced that approximately a hundred Malayali Muslim youth were suspected to have joined the Islamic State over the past few years. Many of these ‘missing youth’, as the media began to characterise them, had been reared in the composite Keralite ethos—created from the intertwining of Islam, Christianity and Brahminism over the past 1,300 years. Yet, a spiritual vacuity or moral anxiety seemed to have pushed many of these youths towards Salafi preachers, whose obsession with a literalist interpretation of Islamic scripture perhaps proved too captivating. TK Hafeezuddin, a college student pursuing his BCom from Padanna, Kerala, left his education, wife and parents to ‘reach heaven’ where he could lead what he considered an Islamic way of life. Abdul Rasheed Abdulla, an engineer…