Girish's Blog

Once you go through the fine print in Budget 2010, you ask yourself what does it actually do - for R.K. Laxman’s “common man”. Everybody is waxing eloquent on the budget – calling it a budget for the “aam aadmi”. I would like to debate that for a moment – who is India’s aam aadmi? Is it the educated employed, is it the uneducated employed, is it the farmer, is it the son of the soil, is it India’s super rich, or is it the vast majority of unemployed who cannot afford to have a square meal a day? I leave it to you to decide who is India’s aam aadmi. Who has the budget benefited? This is a no brainer, with the salaried tax payer and individual tax payer getting a lot of relief through stretching of the tax slabs. There is a little bit of everything for taxpayers who benefit. But what is the percentage of tax paying populace of this vast country? Excise has been raised on petrol and cement which will have a ballooning effect on prices of food and housing. The common man who is looking fo...

The first batch of Geo Pilots started off on their paragliding course on the 19th of February from Mumbai. We had twelve adventurous souls including our Chairman who put their hearts, bodies and minds into completing the course. Day one started out with introductions students with trainers and instructors at Rangoli restaurant, Kamshet. After being briefed about the course, going through the training booklet, signing off on the Templepilots indemnity our boys were ready to fly. We went off to a new site at Kara about 60km from Pune, a flat plateau. We had three vehicles, of which one managed to do off-roading very well – Scorpio belonging to Sanjay Sarkar – the two hired vehicles a Tata Safari and Chevrolet Tavera played safe and did not venture to do the steep climb to the training site. Our boys got off and walked in the afternoon sun for their first feel of a paraglider. A lot of the trainees had stated that they had done a lot of adventure sports but those were all connected to the...

Yesterdays 200 in 50 overs against South Africa – one of the top teams in the world – not a Kenya, Bangladesh or Zimbabwe – was a truly master-class performance shutting up hopefully once and for all the detractors in the media and outside. I still remember all the visual media hatchet men on India TV Aaj Tak and assorted channels talking about Sachin should make way for younger players. This, when they were aware that he was battling injury and STILL averaging around 40 in both one dayers and Tests! The know all commentators on TV – guys who have probably used a cricket bat for washing clothes and nothing else – trying to put down an icon and a person who talks little and only performs! Anyone who does this for a living must be a very small person indeed! This recalls a quote by Malcolm X in 1964 “The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make a criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press...

Well, well, well it has ultimately happened – the cubs have ultimately proven themselves to be kittens that too spoilt ones at that! Rahul Gandhi by one swift stroke proved to the rest of us (me too) that he has the makings of a statesman. Traveling by train while all the rabble rousers with black flags were waiting at the airport was undoubtedly a stroke of genius – connecting with the masses and showing the kittens the way forward for inclusive politics. The demonstrators’ black flags will have to be shelved for a later day – so sad na, tch tch tch! Both the kittens are claiming that what he did is high drama – well agreed – but that is drama with class for the mass population! The kittens are left chewing sour grapes, slurp, slurp, slurp, burp, burp, burp! The burps I am sure are leaving a foul taste in the mouths of the kittens – like the saying goes “the best laid plans of mice and kittens go to waste”. Coming to the moot question which now dwells in the minds of the kittens – “t...