Days of Glory

I saw a French war movie recently that refocussed my attention on the racism and class disparity that is widely prevalent in societies. The name of the move was "Days of Glory". I belive the original French version was called "Les Indigenes".

It struck me how the mindset of society and its individuals fosters a cycle of sel-defeating cynicism. We become so stuck up in status-quo and accept the overlordship of others, that we forget to believe and fight for our rights. Even when we fight, its more to let our frustrations than to win the war.

Its important for people to believe.
Its more important for society not to hinder individual belief and aspirations.

Its been true against struggles of all kinds, be it against racism, colonialism, imperialism, casteism....anything. Even today's depressing economic scenario. Markets keep going up and crashing on nothing more tangible than "market sentiment". Nobody knows how long this would last. People have shut shop and are preparing for the Great Depression. But what really is going to take us over the hill is when we as individuals start believing that this is over. Either we do it ourselves or we wait for a catharsis.

Barack Hussein Obama II

The genius of the man is that he means a lot of things to different people depending on where they come from. To many he is the anti-christ and to many more he is THE ONE.

To me he is a man of immense substance - practical yet philosophical, street smart yet very polished, young but very mature, cool but very can-do, liberal yet very disciplined and so on and so forth.

His evolution as a candidate has been an amazing journey. From a journeyman during the 2000 Democratic Convention, with the Clinton family at its powerful peak to being the upstart outsider who upset the Hillary applecart in 2008, he has blazed a trail of his own. He has been brilliant in studying his constituency and building his message. He has tackled various audiences at differing stages of his career brilliantly. Be it the Illinois electorate that gave him his first break or the liberal young college crowd that thronged his rallies or the general election crowd that need to be convinced he was more than an empty suit.

Ive been following this man for quite some time. He is THE ONE. And I thought so much before Oprah Winfrey said so.

I remember watching his 2004 DNC speech and being blown away by it. While still in hostel, I remember I used to look him up on YouTube everyday. I tracked him before he declared his candidacy and also as he declared it. Ive seen him grow as a candidate and take the centre stage.



What drew me to him was how he emphasised the need to unite, rather than divide. At a time when the world was wracked by terrorism, America's response to it with two wars, arrogant with us or against us attitude, this man seemed to be a balm to all the wounds that had been cut up. His cerebral approach to politics was stark contrast to Bush's Cheney approach!

On hindsight, I think Obama is all the more smarter as he understood the problem he faced in gunning for the Presidency and had a plan to get around it.

Fired Up Ready To Go

The most obvious thing about Obama is how good a speaker he is. He used his charisma and speech-making skills to fire up his base before Iowa. For a man who can electrify hundreds of thousands in one speech, I can only imagine how he must have fired up hundreds of people in small halls and school gymnasiums across Iowa.

Politics is about making your opponents strength their weakness. Ask Kerry and the Swift Boat Veterans! Somehow Hillary and team were not able to pin down Obama on their "empty suit" line of attack.

He is a master of playing the crowd. Watch this video, the last speech he gave before the elections. The last 4 minutes are electrifying.




Grant Park - Chicago Victory Speech

I would not forget this speech. I was over at a friends house watching the results come in live. Suddenly CNN called the elections in favour of Obama. It was a great feeling. I felt as though I was one amongst those 250,000 people in Grant Park, Chicago. The enormity of what he had pulled off was astounding. It was too big to comprehend in that little moment.

He came out and addressed the world. He seemed to understand the enormity of the challenges that were ahead of him, while the rest of the world was still ecstatic to see him there.



Somehow, in that one moment, America showed the beauty of Democracy. It was regime change without a shot being fired. An ideology was overthrown and a new one dawned. Make no mistake, this man and his moment shall pass. The old might become the new and this change would become old. But the beauty of democracy is the right man with the right ideology at the right time would be the messiah.

Yes We can

The difference between Obama and a generation of politicians before him and his own peers, is his ability to inspire people to take up his cause. This video is one of many on the Web that spread his word and message. He has become the ubercool icon for the youth generation. Words like

The fierce urgency of now

We are the ones that we have been waiting for

Yes we can



that have been crafted into his speeches have made him the symbol of hope for a generation of people, for very different reasons, which Im not sure Obama himself understands fully. He has mobilised millions of people at a grass roots level to carry his message. This is not the traditional Democratic party machine, but an entire structure this is outside of it. Rudy Guiliani was right when he quoted Community Organizing as one of Obama's experiences during the Republican Convention. Where he and his party were sorely mistaken, was their lack of respect for the same.

Sure enough, he is the flavour of the season now. But that wasn't always the case. Obama has been a political chameleon but not in a way a fair-minded person could fault him. When the Rev. Wright crisis broke out, he did stand up for the Reverend in his speech on the racial divide in America. I remember seeing that speech and thought this was a great speech and that it should put his election beyond doubt. When i saw the newspapers and news coverage the next day, I did not see a ringing endorsement. Though the media was supposed to be on Obama's side, people did prefer to nuance their positions till it became clear who the top dog was. In American politics, the winner takes all!

Its a New Day

He has come through and won the election. Regardless of what he does going forward, the last two years have been historic. Not because of Barack Obama, but because for people like me who wanted the leadership of the world to change. Change comes not by just hoping for it. But by translating that hope into action, which is focussed towards an ultimate goal. When that happens, each new day seems so special.

Exploring Rishikesh

Ever since the beginning of this year ive become increasingly taken in by the idea of exploring delhi. As April 09 gets closer, i get ever more paranoid that i need to see more of delhi and its surroundings before i get forced out of this place [god forbid!]

So keeping that in mind, I did not miss the first opportunity to go out exploring. Last week, I'd gone on a rafting trip to Rishikesh with 3 friends from work. We had a wicked time.

We drove up to Rishikesh from Delhi in a Maruti Baleno. Its a good ride except for low ground clearance, which gives the owner of the car heart attacks everytime the undercarriage hits a speed breaker!

We had a stopover at Haridwar to take a dip in the Holy Ganges. Now that was a sight!! People....thousands of them - men, women and children, old and young, formed and deformed, from all over India, just for one dip in the holy ganges. And where there is people there is business. Hawkers selling everything from jewellery to plastic bottles to take home some holy water.

There was also a lady going around with a king cobra in one of those flat bamboo baskets. The deal was she would open the basket and the bored Cobra wud raise its head 5 cms and you wud pay the lady some money. [I dont know if the Cobra was meant to be an obeisance to the 30m statue of Lord Shiva across the river or plain daylight robbery, but either way ur screwed as most of us people tend to leave their wallets in their cars!] So if you dont have money to pay the lady and her cobra, u better hope she doesnt come to you, being clad in just a towel and looking lost helps in ensuring she doesnt show interest in you! There is also another chap who goes around with a python that u can wrap around ur neck and pose in. Yes there is a photographer who duly tails both cobra lady and python man. Now I know im clad only in a towel, but even if Madhu Sapre were to pose along, I wudnt be wrapping a python around me.

But I must say the above two meetings happened in a space of 2 minutes. I can tell you I never missed my baby sister so much in my life before!! She wud have swam across the GANGES to avoid that situation... never mind the fast flowing polluted water nor the 200m against the current swim nor the fact that she doesnt know swimming :-))

Im not much of a water person. I always new it and I got reaffirmation the moment I took my first dip in the Ganges. The water was colder than normal but sheer panic seized me. My foot were on the steps of banks. I was holding on the iron chains that fence the dipping enclosure. But in that one moment, it was abundantly clear to me the task that I had undertaken. River rafting was going to be one heck of an experience for me.


We got to our destination well stocked. [Pls note that Rishikesh and Haridwar are bascially dry areas where even getting non-vegetarian food is a tough ask].

We were staying at a camp called Paddler's Zone. It was a good camp, compared to the experiences of friends who had been earlier to other camps down the river.

This place we were camping at was on the banks of the river Bhagirathi. We had our share of fun, beach volleyball, drinks around the bonfire, country chicken on the beach [now if they didnt ban non veg around there, we wudve probably been having broiler chicken!]. Its a really special feeling sitting on the rocks with ur feet in the water and feeling the awesomeness of nature around you!

Next day morning after a very competitive game of beach volleyball, we headed for our rafting trip. You need to have a lot of patience to live life in the mountains. If you do not have patience, then u will be taught patience! My reference is to the infamous traffic jams here. Most of the time vehicles move in convoys on narrow roads, susceptible to landslides. So a lot of times, we wud be stuck in a jam waiting endlessly for a convoy to pass and once the first vehicle appears, it wud be an endless convoy of various assorted vehicles that pass you by. When we were around, the marriage season it seems had started and we encountered quite a few convoys of marriage parties along the way. All in all, a 10 km ride ends up taking 1.5 hours to traverse!

We arrived at our start point, kitted up and took the mandatory pics as we awaited our turn. There was a huge NDTV contingent on an OBT that was getting its briefing ahead of us. Kit basically is life raft, helmet and an oar. The 4 of us got on board. We had another family for company including a 2 yr old girl. Pretty brave i must say.

I was apprehensive at first, praying that our raft wouldnt topple over. When we went over the first rapids I was a bit overwhelmed, it was the smallest of all the rapids but yet when the first water splashed on my face, it took my breath away. The next rapid was a blur...more than the rapid i was trying to focus on rowing in tandem with the rower in front of me. Just focussing on it, took me away from my fears.Two more rapids went that way. Then my friends jumped into the water as we were going through a quiet stretch. I, needless to say, stuck to the safety of the raft.

Then something happened. I started looking at the waves and how they were behaving. 80% of the waves didnt splash up water.Only the remaining 20% did and these were the waves that could topple the raft if we didnt row together at the moment of contact. The physics was simple if the raft had prolonged contact against a wave for more than 2-3 secs it wud topple over. Thus when we were against such a wave it was critical that we were over the wave before the momentum goes against us. Once I figured this out, I realised the entire rafting experience was just an exercise in conquering our demons as it was a pretty safe proposition otherwise. The most critical person on board the raft is the guide who guides the raft through the currents and away from whirlpools. Otherwise the passengers are required only to row against the big waves.

The next time we were against a quiet stretch, I was game to get into the waters. For the life of me, I cannot explain the panic that seized me when i got into the waters. I momentarily went under the surface and came up gasping for breath. The water was 70 ft deep and I had no confidence in my ability to stay afloat. I grabbed for my friend's hand and with the other held on to the raft. My feet were going upwards and were against the bottom of the raft. My head was moving backwards. All the water around me caused me great anxiety. I didnt realise that I was floating!

Then in about a minutes time, I begun to gain a semblence of control and started to think. I tried to kick my legs and paddle. It helpled me stay afloat and in control. Then I tried to move around, paddling my feet behind me. It gave me control over the direction I wanted to move in. Finally I was comfortable. No more anxiety! I knew there were no sharks in the Ganges there!... Wonder what I wud do if there were sharks around in the waters I swim...Well thats another adventure another day!!

The remaining of the trip brought us against the toughest rapids but it never was a problem. As I said, river rafting seemed to be about conquering my own demons!!

One of the times when we enjoy life is when we are not afraid to get lost. Thats when u discover new routes, more beautiful, more lonely, more adventurous and stretch your self to the limits as you are not afraid of the consequences if something goes wrong! Thats kind of like what happened to us, losing our way 3 times but ended up having quite a great ride back to Delhi anyways.

PS - If u ever pass by Rorkee stop by to have this badam milk in this Sardar's shop in Civil Lines near Century Gate. The best badam milk which u will have in India!! :-)
Thanks Brij, Radhe and Anurag! It was a blast!