News meeows - 23

Tony Blair’s sycophancy towards the US is well-known. He is now defending himself before the first official grilling of sending 45,000 troops to Iraq in 2003. That is six years too late.



His remarks are completely off:

“This isn’t about a lie, or a conspiracy, or a deceit, or a deception, this is a decision. And the decision I had to take was, given Saddam’s history, given his use of chemical weapons, given the over 1 million people whose deaths he caused, given 10 years of breaking UN resolutions, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his weapons programme? I believed ... that we were right not to run that risk.”

Was this his decision or his Party’s? Or was it prompted by America? Had Saddam caused deaths outside his country? Did anyone in Iraq seek western intervention? Now that no WMDs have been found, he is talking about the threat of Saddam reconstituting his weapons programme. Does the West not have the technical arsenal to know about such earth-shaking occurrences? Aren’t they warning the rest of the world about imminent attacks? Weapons programmes do not just drop from certain skies or sprout from the soil of selected nations. It takes some work and that can be traced.

The more amazing comment is Blair being concerned about Saddam breaking UN resolutions. Apparently he had already promised Bush his support to get to the weapons for, “If we tried the UN route and that failed, my view was it had to be dealt with.”

So, the possibility of the UN route failing was there. Could not Saddam have utilised those same loopholes and tardiness?

And then he has the gumption to state that the post-war planning was flawed:

“The planning assumption that...everybody made was that there would be a functioning civil service. Contrary to what we thought ... we found a completely broken system.”

What did he expect? After decimating a country pretending to help it, there would be a system that would work so that the West could arrive to the sound of bugles and put up a puppet regime?

This war was a lie and deceit. And there ought to be international legal provisions to try leaders of countries that use the UN as their toad.

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Can Shahrukh Khan please thank the Shiv Sena? Or has he already done it much before the ‘controversy’? I hate to revisit the IPL saga, but when the first bits of news trickled in I did not read a single comment by the actor. He came in later to say that the Pakistanis and Australians must be allowed to play. Now, the Shiv Sena has asked its party’s loyal workers to tear posters of the not-yet-released film My Name Is Khan.

Last night I was watching a discussion between a SS guy and an activist, Gerson da Cunha. We know what the SS guy must have said, but Mr da Cunha wondered why the Shiv Sena has not done anything about ‘Bombay’ Port or the ‘Bombay’ Times. I found the latter bit intriguing. The gentleman, although among the few truly genuine people as per my instinct, is pretty much visible on Page 3. It was, therefore, a bit surprising that he brought this up. Also, he made a specific reference to the TOI “at Bori Bunder”! As many of you might not be aware, that stretch was called that, the Bori standing for the Bohris – a sect of Muslims. I think he was trying to make a point.

Anyhow, after that I changed channels and there was Sharukh on a news programme talking with Karan Johar and Kajol and they did their hokey-pokey routine. Is anyone from the SS objecting to the promos, the interviews on TV, in the newspapers?

No. Because the SS needs to be in the news and so do the people “in trouble”, especially if the trouble is going to get them the attention they need at the moment.

The Shiv Sena is a public service organisation that keeps our celebrities in fine fettle. The film is to release only in the second week of this month. Our Home Minister P. Chidambaram has come out and spoken about how he would like to see the Pak players in action. He said it was his personal opinion. The Home Minister cannot appear before the media and give his personal opinion on a subject that has the nation in thrall and is already a diplomatic disaster. No one asked him what his favourite video game was.

So, Shahrukh gets Congress support but being a good Maharashtrian he will also be nice to the SS…maybe an apology, maybe a special meeting with the Supremo where ‘the matter will be resolved’? And then a special screening with buttered popcorn?

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How important is it for anyone to have news channels discuss Sania Mirza’s broken engagement? We know that the media is intrusive and we are. If it has to be reported, fine. Be done with it. But, no. They were playing Hindi film songs in the background and brought in the third party factor, too. Worse, her publicity-hungry father was telling media persons about “incompatibility”, and one anchor in the studio said how can they now become incompatible when they were compatible when they got engaged?

Clearly, this woman has no idea. Did the media ask them whether they planned to get married because they were compatible? It could have been that he liked watching her play.

This has given enough grist for the glossies and sundry snippets to debate the issue about women’s achievement and men’s insecurity. Ten people are asked ten questions in ten places and they give ten answers which effectively say nothing that we don’t already know.

For the 'don’t already know' and my views, watch this space. (Hah, isn’t that how the media keeps you hooked? I am just tryin’ my hand at it too!)

The Spirit of Sprint

Before yesterday, I did not know who Usain Bolt was. Among the sports I have watched avidly are cricket, to some extent tennis and football and for the big events gymnastics and athletics. The first is for cultural reasons, the other two due to the fact that they had stars, always. And style. I knew the name of the tournaments and the players.

I also knew the big gymnasts and athletes. After cricket, my closest association could have been with athletics. I had what someone once said the legs of an athlete. At that time, it was meant as an insult to an awkward adolescence that was trying to hide a growing womanhood. I never did make it although I could run pretty fast. The reason being dizzy spells and blackouts that bothered me most of my school years. After the initial burst of energy I’d slump down with exhaustion as the sun would spin around me. I felt like arid earth denied the sprint to the finish.

I was a bookworm and a recluse. Sports do not make you an extrovert. It, in fact, forces you to delve deep into your inner reserves. Today, I have been watching clips of the record-breaking event where Bolt completed his 100 metres in 9.58 seconds in Berlin. As he gets closer to his goal, there is a moment when he looks at the side; it is precious because it expresses his oneness with the track and his co-runners. I loved what he said, “My body is like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I don't think about it, I just have it.”

Make no mistake. The confidence comes from internalising the strenuous routine as a part of his persona. Think about it. What do 100 metres really mean? Nothing. It is just a length of space – we walk that much to run errands, thieves escape that distance, cops chase, and many people even rush after buses. But for the athlete it is like blinking so fast that you don’t miss anything. If this is turning logic on its head, then that is precisely the idea. You have to cover space, time and competition. And in doing so, you have to conquer your limitations.

As Bolt said, “My start is not perfect, but it's good, and I've got power. I've got a lot of things working for me, so I think if I get my start right it's going to be hard to beat me. It's all about putting the perfect race together.”

Starts are rarely perfect; it is the hesitation that acts as a prompter and pushes one leg ahead of the other.

Bolt is not from a wealthy background. He had to sweat it out. Is that what is the driving force – the naturalisation of stretching the limits of one’s circumstantial limitations? Now Puma is claiming him. He ran with minimal fuss.

It reminds me of the athletes I used to see at the Mahalakshmi Race Course grounds here, practising barefoot. That is how P.T.Usha ran in her village to reach where she did.


We in India continue to pamper our cricketers and tennis stars. We lost out on hockey due to such callousness. Our athletes still win medals despite not being treated as the heroes they are. We hear stories about how they are dumped in hostel rooms, have to travel in less than perfect conditions for their meets. For a few days they are heralded by the media. I will never forget how India Today did a makeover on P.T. Usha for a feature story to make her look glamorous. And this was a news magazine. I wonder why none of these sportspersons sought to move out of the country and find sponsors. I wonder what stopped them. Or did no one care to invite them?

A Jamaican minister might exult, “We are the sprint factory of the world”, but individual achievement, even if it represents a nation, is not an assembly-line product. It arises out of a person’s circumstances and desperation to reach the finishing line.

Usain Bolt says he cannot live outside his country. That country needs him. What drives his need? A sense of fidelity, I think. Not merely to the concept of nationalism. It is the soil he learnt to run on.

Usain Bolt New World Record: 9.58

For those who want a longer version it is here