A fond goodbye to Cricket - Part I

Like a fine wine whose delectable taste lingers on much after it has been imbibed, India's World cup victory earlier this year still has its rabid fans basking in its afterglow. Indeed the memories of that March night when the winning runs were scored by the Indian captain MS Dhoni still warms the cockles of many Indian cricket followers. That marked a culmination of a long journey that was peppered with many gut wrenching lows & a the occasional flirtations with greatness.

Now that the promised land has been reached , ominous dark clouds are appearing on the horizon. Indian cricket much like India is a jumble of contradictions in the best of times. It is therefore a miracle that cricket in this country manages to rise above the petty & produce astounding results from time to time. However there is a feeling that the good times will soon come to an end as a few disturbing trends have come into view.

There are issues ranging from the ability of the new players on the block to the administrative acumen of the "wise men" who manage the game in India. Questions on how cricket will appeal to the future generations used to living in a fast paced world .

For many Indian cricket was synonymous with one player Sachin Tendulkar, his munificent influence on the game not enabled Indian cricket to find its full expression but also helped India redefine itself in the new age. For 21 long years one constant in a turbulent era for this vibrant democracy was Tendulkar striding out to play a match saving innings & thrill his multitude of fans. He is to cricket what Babe Ruth was to Baseball, Vince Lombardi to Football & Michael Jordan to basketball , his true value can never be ascertained by the weight of runs scored ( in which he leads in all categories) or any other statistic.

21 years is a long time in anybody's life and Tendulkar himself knows he will not last much longer in the the game . He and his accomplices in success Dravid, Laxman etc (giants in their own right) soon will have to ride into the sunset . It is this perpetual "what next?" question that many fans find disturbing . None of the new emerging talent Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina or Rohit Sharma have shown themselves as worthy successors inspite of being very talented. They have glaring deficiencies especially when fronting up to the short ball or playing in alien conditions. They simply don't have the technique or the nous that a young Dravid or Tendulkar displayed.


If the problems on the field are glaring , the issues off the field are much more serious & their deleterious effects much more cringe worthy. India's coming of age in the field coincided with Indian Cricket board waking to the lucrativeness of the game . The Indian board(BCCI) used it's growing clout ( back no less than a billion consumers of its product) to subjugate the ICC which is the organization that is supposed to run the game worldwide. With its coffers overflowing , the BCCI has become a target for failed Indian politicians to usurp important positions which helps them to stay in position of prominence while implicitly partaking in a vulgar party where money is showered upon them like confetti . It is not surprising that these new "guardians" of the game don't worry much about why Indian pace bowlers are losing their sting or why new bowlers are not upto international standards or why Indian batsmen cannot ply their trade in foreign conditions. Like termites out of woodwork , these new office holders have come out to get their piece of the pie supplanting genuine administrators with cricketing acumen. It is not difficult to guess what this ultimately will lead to. Cricketers with overblown sense of abilities without results to match, a board disconnected with reality & a nation waking out of its stupor and moving onto other avenues of sporting entertainment .


<<<<< Part -II will follow>>>>

Recession 1 Bookstores 0

The news of Border's impending closure due to bankruptcy proceedings came as more than a news item to me. Although it was not entirely unexpected given all the going ons in the current economy, it was still enough to induce a wan smile tinged with a sense of regret & loss on my face.

That the concept of a bookstore would be consigned to history books & nostalgia never occured to me when I first came to the country . When as a jobseeker Border's would not only be a place of refuge , it would also be a place where one could for a few hours lose the laden feeling that life can sometimes bring.

Where else can you read a book, sip on a hot mug of coffee, people watch or get some work done or maybe even set up a blind date . The bookstore at once served as microcosm of some of the more serene undertakings.

Some people would argue that Border's got their rightful comeuppance as they uppended the family run or local book stores & the lives of people who managed them. In this I differ , unlike many notorious examples of chains overrunning mom & pop shops consequently killing the novelty & the uniqueness and replacing it with a manufactured & maybe banal experience (think starbucks & local coffee shops or chain restaurants taking out local eateries) , Borders actually complimented & maybe helped locally run book store businesses. While the concept of a book store was always there in public consciousness it was revolutionized by Border's. It can be truly argued that it made going to Bookstore sexy. In any case the economy is proving to be a nemesis for bookstores regardless of whether they are answerable to shareholders or to grandpa.

This digital revolution is proving to be much like the amorous & demanding mistress who thrills at times before plunging you into despair. It is rendering things simpler but in its enormous wake it is bringing down cherished institutions . True it is the inevitable march of time. But some things are meant to last forever.

The age of the Antihero

Angst of Mexico

How does an ordinary citizen come to grips with the fact that his nation will never be the same again? How does he manage to keep his rationality intact & his hopes for the future alive when the terrors of a most brutal war come knocking on his door everyday? Where daily executions, fear of being kidnapped for ransom, getting caught in a shootout between warring groups, nightly curfews, shuttered businesses lining the marketplace and deserted neighborhoods blight the landscape.One might think that a faraway country like Afghanistan or Iraq is being described, but actually we are talking about a state in our own backyard , it is our southern neighbor of Mexico which is going through indescribable horrors and whose challenge at nationhood has never been so gravely compromised. The drug war which has increased in intensity in the last few years has been threatening to sunder the country. Most of the time countries fail because they are unable to quell nationalistic feelings of a subsection of a population or because of economic catastrophes that come visiting every so often, however in Mexico's case it is the obsession for drug money by few well entrenched cartel bosses that is holding hostage the aspirations of their nation.For most americans the debate on mexico begins & ends with illegal immigration, depending on which side of the divide you are on Mexico is either villified as one of the ills plaguing the US or its unique culture celebrated as indeed our own. However what US owes to Mexico more than anything else is a balanced viewpoint which while taking into account the contentious issue of immigration also includes how Mexico has become a focal point of a drug war that in the short term not only threatens the fabric of democracy in that nation but also has long term implications to the health of US as a sovereign state.To briefly recall the last few years in this saga, after the collapse of drug cartels in Colombia & other South American nations ( against whom the US covertly & sometime overtly but always actively waged a campaign) , Mexico underwent a transformation from a subservient staging area into the US to an active & more threatening narco state whose small time mafiosso took it upon themselves to take the place of their estwhile South American masters. They subverted the drug trade thanks to a pliant government & the natural advantage of a shared border with US to ensure seamless drug transit to US. Somewhere along the way these guys stopped getting along with each other & with the Mexican government waking upto the menace these cartels posed ,the entire drug trade morphed into a full blown drug war. To introduce the actors on one side you have the most feared & the biggest drug cartel in the world the Sinaloa cartel led by dimunitive Joaquin Guzman allied with the Gulf cartel, La Familia Michoacana cartel pitted against the Military style Los Zetas, Juarez & the Tijuana cartels. These alliances are like shifting sands as they keep changing allies in an attempt gain short term leverage. All of these are battling the government forces although their have been allegations of favoritism towards Sinaloa cartel on its part.What is the bone of contention here? It is control for lucrative drug routes also known as "plazas" into mainland US passing through bordertowns of both countries. While US bordertowns McAllen,Brownsville Texas & San Diego,Calif & especially El Paso,Texas are some of the safest places in US with very low crime rates, death seems to stalking their compatriots in Mexico. Previously peaceful cities of Reynosa,Matamoros(bordering the first two US towns mentioned) have exploded in violence while Tijuana bordering San Diego is on the brink. The most tragic case is that of Ciudad Juarez bordering El Paso which has earned the unwanted sobriquet of most unsafe city in the world ahead of any other hotspot in the world. Juarez was the same city which saw the worst of unsolved murders of women workers earlier on in the decade. Little did the weary citizens know that worse was to follow.Entire cities & towns along the border on the Mexican side have emptied of their denizens to set the stage for a macabre interplay of violence that shows no sign of abating.There is the curiously symbiotic but also sinister relationship between US & mexico , as is famously known drugs flow up to the north from Mexico into US, but sophisticated weaponry/ammunition even anti tank munitions flow south into Mexico into the hands of the cartels . Thanks to the 4th amendment we have unwittingly been arming the cartels of mexico & have acted as enablers to satiate our appetite for illicit drugs. I have been to mexico and what I found was a deeply religious country with their common folk being very humble in their conduct & like most of US have an ethic built on hardwork. It is therefore not pleasant to see their country being torn apart by the ravages of this unwanted war forced upon the populace. For the situation to get better Mexicans need to emulate the spirit of Don Alejo a 77 year old rancher who refused to relinquish control of ranch to a drug cartel & fought them single handedly taking out a handful of their members before sacrificing his own life.

Read his story here:http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/north-america-mainmenu-36/5334-don-alejo-garza-tamez-true-grit

The US needs to approach the situation with extra sensitivity and think about ways & means by which flow of arms into mexico can be reduced & the much bigger & maybe nearly impossible goal of weaning users in this country away from illegal narcotics. Ultimately the fate of two nations & not one depend on the outcome of this war.

To follow microtrends in Mexico:www.borderlandbeat.com

The precarious state of manliness

Watching my year old son play in the living room with his assortment of toys brought out squeals of delight from my wife & nod of approvals from me , indeed our Sunday morning ritual of having coffee in the living room while he went about upturning the house is one of those rare events that we will probably cherish over the course of the years & reminisce with maybe a certain nostalgia.
My thoughts take a turn to the abstract & I realize that his eventual chrysalis into a young man will be fraught with a strange sort of an identity crisis. One in which he will constantly question his sense of developing manhood & be bewildered by the conflicting signals from the world that will pervade his mind.

Take a look around you, it is a Woman's world now, most of the images, illustrations & reflections bandied around by the mass media, internet, TV etc are becoming more female centric. There has been a virtual revolution of sorts where womanly accoutrements & consequently feminine qualities are touted to the extreme, from a comical point of view it might be because the fairer sex are more susceptible to seduction of marketing . But a more sinister trend is that it has led to the feminizing of the male persona which is no laughing matter.

The awakening of femininity make no mistake is a welcome trend & a long overdue one no doubt. This apart from being a suave marketing strategem is also a celebration of emancipation of women, a liberation of sorts after generations of marginalization. But the pendulum has swung to the other extreme, womanliness after being celebrated is subtly being touted as a blueprint for the conduct of men, which is uncalled for.

To illustrate a small point consider the current generation actors such as Robert Pattinson of the twilight fame or Shia Le Beuof of the transformers fame , compare them with yesteryear actors or not so contemporary actors like Gregory Peck, Tom Selleck or even Harrison Ford. Who evokes more images of manlihood? I would guess you would'nt need me to spell it out . Or check out the hoardings staring down at you in malls or fashion plazas , I personally have a hard time telling apart the male models.

Somewhere along the lines of us discovering new fangled concepts like metrosexuality we seem to have lost out on old fashioned manliness.

Women often wonder why men obsess so much behind american football, that most manly of sports . At the risk of stating the obvious , it is because the style of play appeals to the inherent hardwiring in most men. It is probably one of the last few bastions of pure expression of manliness whose vicariousness appeals to most men.

This is not an exhortation for men rush out their doors mallets & axes to prove their manliness, indeed there will be a breakdown in civil society if we give in to our deepest instincts. This is a call to recognize to just get in touch with our inner men & take the lead in shouldering responsibility , in becoming better fathers and display profound judgement. We are better off for the various influences women have brought into our lives but at the same time we need to distinguish between asserting our manliness versus deferring totally to our feminine impulses

The Curious case of Silicon Valley/Bay Area real estate

Bay Area .. the land of riches, the mecca of technology, the locale blessed with glorious weather & the brightest minds with the vast expanse of ocean to the west & the high ranging Sierras to the east, (supposedly nowhere else in the inhabited world the distance between sea & snow is so less), an incubator of ideas, a melting pot of cultures & the heartland of liberalism.

To this long list of sobriquets can be added yet another one, namely “the last bastion of stable Real Estate”. That statement can be quite contentious as epicenters of the real estate busts dot the landscape around the Bay Area, the state capital Sacramento, the hillside escape of Modesto & that disaster zone of Stockton to name a few . It is no secret that inland areas are bearing the brunt of the credit crisis & the unfortunate few who ventured out there to buy maybe a second or even a third investment property have been left counting their losses , but the strip of land constituting San Jose upwards into San Francisco still holds its own , on the other side of the Bay barring Fremont & a few pockets ,the sun of real estate never shone so bright to begin with as compared to on the coast , & the unfortunate Solano, Sonoma & Contra Costa counties can be classified as inland empires under siege which in boom times saw very significant appreciation .

But to just focus on Silicon Valley , if you have bought property here in the early part of the boom or during middle phase you can count yourself lucky for you are not afflicted by the nightmares homeowners in the rest of the country are experiencing . & from leading indicators it is going continue to be so. This is not to so say that Bay Area is forever immune to the vicissitudes of the housing market, but just that it better equipped to handle “down” times than most of the other parts of the country.

The first & the obvious reason is of course the local economy, the internet boom in the bay area is akin to the industrial revolution in the UK. Much like the later, the boom has empowered many to take control of the monetary destinies. More than many have cashed in & have comfortable cash cushions to not only invest but also gain throwaway disposable incomes. These silicon yuppies are not perturbed by the vagaries of interest rates or jumbo loans that others in the country think about or should think about. Thus the local real estate market in inextricably linked with the internet business , from all pointers the internet business is not in throes of recession unlike other market segments instead it still continues to still add jobs .

To use a technical term there is a “tight coupling” or correlation between the dominant industry & the region where it is based. The auto industry & their representative giants (Ford & general motors’) are facing unprecedented crisis, is it any coincidence that in some places in Detroit you can buy a house cheaper than a car? On the other end of the spectrum Google, HP,Ebay & slew of other companies are going great guns & so the fortunes of Bay Area is on the upswing .

To give a middling example Seattle home to a tech leviathans Microsoft & Amazon was (is?) one of the few markets where prices rose nominally in the middle of the credit crunch, now I would classify Seattle as not having such a great tech presence as the Bay area, but the point is obvious, have a little of progressive businesses watch the local RE do a little better.

Other factors are also at play in contributing to the resiliency of the local real estate. One of them which I think does not get a significant mention is Immigration which can be thought of as an offshoot of economic expansion. Think of Bay Area without the legions of Chinese, Indian or others from varied Diaspora who form the ranks of its IT workforce, without them surely real estate would not have exploded the way it did & the continued presence & growth of these communities further feeds the need for real estate.

Yet another reason for being bullish is that prices shot up so high that even a 10 to 15 percent of depreciation will allow owners to break even. Sure you will not be able to boast in cocktail parties about the imaginary wealth you made just by owning a home, but compare that with the plight of homeowners in Miami, as Vegas or even Southern California where an equivalent decline translates hugely to their net worth.

San Diego is a case in point , the appreciation there largely mirrored that of Bay Area, I remember it took off spectacularly in 2003 04 , but that is where it is swooning majorly & in the absence of checks & balances that Bay area has , is experiencing large scale depreciation .

There are factors like the non extreme weather, a friendly & welcoming environment that contribute in no small measure as well.

This is not to say the sun will never set on Silicon Valley Bay Area real estate. The internet economy might get a body blow, people might start emigrating because of consistently high prices & don’t forget it is also one of the most earthquake prone regions in the world. But if you pack off the Crystal ball, you can revel in the knowledge that you are safe for now & for some foreseeable future.

UnREality of Real Estate

For a while now we have been treated to entertaining sound bites from mortgage & financial institutions, national association of realtors (NAR), the federal reserve, the treasury, wall street & last but not the least politicians on the upcoming bottom in the real estate market . Looking at their sometimes overenthusiastic & partly desperate pronouncements one would think that the day the ‘bottom’ is reached, a national holiday would be declared. But unfortunately for them the facts indicate otherwise.
Last weekend the headlines were dominated by the takeover of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac by the government, also existing home sales fell by 3 percent or so belying the warm & fuzzy feeling the previous month’s report showed. More banks are set to be falling like a row of dominoes. Home builder’s sentiment (I don’t know how that one is calculated) is said to be at an all time low. Given all these key indicators pointing downwards I wouldn’t conjecture on the utopia called the bottom.
Save for pockets across continental US like the Silicon Valley Bay Area (because of vibrant economy), Charlotte & Houston (because they never experienced a boom) or Manhattan (because well it is Manhattan), the outlook is especially bleak for those who bought homes after the peak in 2006. The fact that the pendulum is swinging the other way is not surprising, what is surprising is that many people expected the gravy train of real estate appreciation to keep chugging along. Now the government in cahoots with special interest groups of real estate wants to keep this party going. Their rationale is that our economy will go to dogs if they don’t do what they are currently doing namely giving multi million dollars handouts to people to people who least deserve it , this flies in the face of everything that our economy is based on , free market society, capitalism , profit/loss cycles & most importantly ethics .
If the government was looking to alleviate the housing miseries by digging deep into its own pockets , there could have been some commiseration to its actions , but the tragically funny part is that ultimately we the taxpayers are going to be handed the bill for this profligacy which is what makes actions like bailouts of investment houses like Bear Sterns , publicly traded institutions like Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac particularly galling & now as per the grapevine a huge safety net is being put in place for the troubled investment firm Lehman Brothers for overleveraging themselves on mortgage bets.
Indeed people are going to the extent of accusing US being more socialist than China; at least in china while they share the pain, they share the gains too. But here in the US we seem to have been following a dictum of corporatized profits but socialized losses.
In which other country would we see executives like Messrs. Daniel Mud & Richard Styron of the soon to be moribund institutions of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac be provided with platinum parachutes to ensure a smooth landing for running their respective institutions to the ground . The execs are initially put in their positions not only because they have glittering academic records from ivy leagues & but also because they are expected to provide vision to their stated goal of public service in which they failed miserably, you cannot argue that they did not see the mortgage imbroglio coming , the only excuse for that would be they were blinded by greed. The list of corporate types getting obscene bonuses for achieving nothing in the end is long starting from Chuck Prince the ex chief of Citibank to Angelo Mozilla of Countrywide financials .
Since when in America are we rewarding incompetence, major league deception & hubris? Especially at times when the average American is drowning in debts be they credit card related or mortgage induced? It is touted as a land where is hard work is justly rewarded, guess what? Shady work pays much more, so why don’t all of us abandon our contractual obligations visa vies mortgages, indulge recklessly on credit cards without paying them after all, the execs seem to get away from their own indulgences, agreed that the mantra of any capitalist system is to make profit, but they should have gumption to take any losses that come their way & not the run to the taxpaying public to bail them out after all it was the same public they fleeced on their way up top.
Unfortunately they exists a degree of comfortable cronyism between the leaders of the financial markets & our political leaders who in turn are beholden to their campaign contributors and so on , a storm in the form of the mortgage debacle is now on the horizon which threatens this convivial arrangement & they are all looking at ordinary citizens to help them out of the mess they created , only time will tell if the public will be willing pawns in this great mishmash or if they will create a storm of their own to rectify the wrongs of the past .