The Antifits

To Go Back

2009-10-07T02:49:00.005-04:00

“I am going back,” she said.

“Wait, have dinner,” I blurted.

“No, I am going home for good. To India, silly,” she said.

I could not believe it. My sister wanted to go back to India. She wanted to leave New York.

My sister, Neera Dugar, 24, is a Carnegie Mellon graduate. For the past two years, she worked at Goldman Sachs, and as the financial markets collapsed in the wake of the credit crisis of 2008, was one of the few that chose to leave, rather than asked to leave.

It was a crisp April evening. Winter was finally on the retreat. Like the weather, the economy was on a rebound too. President Barack Obama had committed $787 billion to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. New York, bruised and battered from its exalted position as the epicenter of American finance, was finally finding its feet. Though unemployment numbers would get worse, the worst was over.

“It isn’t just the economy,” she maintained. “It’s not like I have lost my job.”

“And I am not alone in this,” she said.

I stared blankly at her for a while. Then it struck me. She was right. She wasn’t alone in this. Why would anyone ever want to trudge back? Wasn’t the miracle, the American dream, in America?

This after the United States had served some of it’s finest to her, whether it was her education or the corporation she worked for or the city she lived in. She had the better part of the American dream. And that wasn’t enough.

Or was it just that a bigger dream was unfolding back home in India?

In the coming months, I seek to understand history as history itself changes course. Anand Giridharadas wrote in the New York Times, “it is a milestone in any nation’s life when leaving becomes a choice, not a necessity.”

But is the moment enough? “Not living in New York after having lived there is living with a vague feeling that you are missing out on a great party somewhere,” Craig Ferguson, host of the “Late Late Show” on CBS wrote in his memoir “American on Purpose.”

The stories will be personal, of people having to choose. Migration often gets enveloped in statistics, but it is the human story that needs to be told

And New York City is the theatre of this ebb and flow. The city is home to about 600, 000 Indians, the largest such community of any metropolitan area in the United States.

While at it, I might just understand how my sister manages to get by back home without the sample Tory Burch sale.

(Please send your feedback and possible ledes that might develop the story. A similar story on diaspora did for Holding Willey is here)

The Diaspora protests the President

2009-09-23T12:49:00.004-04:00

At New York City’s Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, Where is My Vote- New York kick started its planned protests surrounding the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to the 63rd United Nations General Assembly with Iran Alive, an art installation featuring a short film projected on a 300-person human screen.

Apart from Iranians from across North America, the evening saw notables like Roxana Saberi, an Iranian- American journalist detained by the administration on 8th April on accounts of espionage but subsequently released, and Mehtab Saharkhiz, son of Isa Saharkhiz, a renowned journalist and human rights activist arrested in Tehran on 4th July.

(Photo Courtesy: Trevre Andrews. Reach him at trevre@gmail.com)

President Ahmadinejad is scheduled to address the General Assembly tomorrow afternoon, a first to the international community after his controversial inaugration on 5th August 2009. An address in which, as Mohammad Bazzi, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, reckons in the Global Post, “his message will be crafted to improve his standing in the Muslim world and bolster his reputation as a Third World hero.”

Ali Bahari, an Iranian engineer at Perkins Eastman since 2004 cautioned that with the President so strongly in focus, one must not “loose sight that it is the system that needs to be held accountable. “

The President might be the face of this mess, but the Guardian Council, Sepāh and the Ayatollah cannot be ignored,” he said.

Where is My Vote is a grassroots initiative under the Voices For Iran, a broader coalition of Iranian human rights and solidarity organizations. Unlike protests against President Ahmadinejad’s visit in past years which have been fixated on the Iranian nuclear technology program, Voices for Iran prioritizes the well-being and rights of Iranian citizens, much compromised after the June 12, 2009 Iranian elections as the administration sought to control the thousands of Iranians that took to the streets protesting alleged electoral fraud.

Voices for Iran asserts itself as a “new generation of human rights advocates inspired by the brave men and women in the streets of Esfahan, Tehran, Tabriz and Shiraz. “ Polya, a dentist practicing in Lower Manhattan since 2001, calls such an aggregation of intent as “moving beyond the dichotomy of diasporic existence.”

“Yes, at night we sit behind our computer screens and we cry with them. Yet we are thousands of miles away and have to switch back to our regular lives here where nothing has changed much, if at all,” he said.

“It is an incredible moment to be in Iran. Even if not being in the forefront, but just to be witness to it would have been an honor. Most of the people here wish they were there,” he added.

“But it is still amazing the feedback we have gotten from Iranian people. I can hardly overstate how important it is that when they look outside, they feel we are with them in this,” he quipped.

Gordon Brown: The new master of the universe

2009-02-02T16:21:00.006-05:00

If anything, the last few days have nailed the point home that Barack Obama is not going to be the one leading us out of the financial crisis.

You might call David Brookes a conservative (Read his column here) , but even a liberal like Paul Krugman yesterday in his column rubbished the Obama administration's response to the financial crisis as one stuck in a "time warp." And why isn't Larry Summers or Tim Geithner or Obama himself in Davos right now.

Mr. President, you have to realize that this is an international banking crisis we are dealing with, and not an election that has to be won.

So, where is the leadership that is going to take us out of this? It has to be Prime Minister Gordon Brown. More on him soon, but watch this (From 49:53 to 52:21) as he recounts the then-British Treasury secretary in the 1930's responding to John Maynard Keynes proposal to overturn the economy, and makes a valid case for counter-cyclical spending.

Is it just me, or Zakaria's face just drip with awe.

Beating Terror in Modern India

2008-12-07T10:55:00.010-05:00

"Come home ASAP." Ken never kept it that concise.

Little did I know I would come home and switch on the TV to a city with blood on its asphalt, holed up and taken hostage. For sixty odd hours in the shock and awe of the unchaste, Bombay would writhe and squat, billowing in smoke as black as the godless sky, and I would watch.

Tom Friedman, columnist for the New York Times, when asked about India said, "Take a champagne bottle, shake it for an hour and then take the cork off. You don't want to get in the way of that cork. It is an explosion of fifty years of pent-up aspirations. That is how India feels like."

Why bother to come in the way? Just burn it, like those few men of God would do.

And the images were relayed across America this thanksgiving weekend. One terrorist repeatedly insisted on American and British passports, and apparently, let an Italian go. The headlines blurted “Americans targeted.”

Incredible India, go fish! Convince an American kid now to spend his summer to intern with Morgan Stanley in Bombay, or wait, try holding on to the $ 13.6 billion American businesses poured into India as direct investment in 2007. And why fly the top executive to Bombay from San Francisco when one can videoconference.

Couple this with the economic crisis of 2008, which many reckon to be the worst since the Great Depression, and you have a country brought down to ground after years of exuberance, rational and sometimes, irrational.

Since the highs of early 2008, the Indian stock indices have collapsed by 60%, as portfolio investors have pulled out $ 12 billion from the capital markets. The Indian Rupee has lost 15% of its value against the United States dollar, and foreign exchange reserves are down to around $ 250 Billion from a record $ 340 billion. Even though the economy grew at a blistering 7.6% this quarter, it is seen flagging considerably compared to the 9% growth of the past three years.

According to Sonal Verma, an economist with Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities "There are increasing signs of non-linear economic effects: vicious negative spirals from falling asset prices, sagging confidence, rising job losses, tightening lending standards and weakening demand, as well as increasing multiplier effects on domestic demand from the slump in exports"

Nomura cut its estimate for growth in 2008/09 to 6.8 percent from 7.2 percent, and expects 2009/10 GDP growth to slow to 5.3 percent from its earlier estimate of 6.9 percent.

Is the Indian story over?

On the eve of India's independence that warm August night in 1947, the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, told the nation "long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now at the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance."

But the world would have to wait till 2001 to make its tryst with independent India. Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street investment bank, made India the I in the BRIC and altered our perception of the word “emerging". Danielle Pergament wrote in the New York Times, "You may not have heard of BRIC -- the acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China -- but you've heard its buzz. These emerging powers are where investors are sending capital, architects are rejiggering skylines and cognoscenti are mining for cultural talent."

Cognoscenti in India? The terrorists would have known. Andreas Liveras, the British yachting tycoon, was shot point-blank at the Taj Poolside.

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The Taj in South Bombay is an iconic 105- year old flagship property of Indian Hotels, the hospitality subsidiary of the Tata Group and the proprietors of the Taj group of hotels. Jamsedji Tata, the founder, commissioned it himself after he was allegedly denied entry to one of the city's grand hotels, Watson's Hotel. It was restricted for "whites only."

Years later in 2006, in what Alison Gregor of the New York Times called "A Manhattan hotel deal, with foreign accents," Indian Hotels took management of the Pierre Hotel in New York City from Four Seasons Hotels.

The terrorists probably wouldn’t have known that the Taj in South Bombay was built as a tribute to the 16th century Islamic architecture in India.

Suhel Seth, managing partner of Counselage India, called India the "proverbial bus in today's world." A bus that "no one knows where it is going, no one knows whether there is space on it for them – but no one wants to miss that bus."

Keener than most on this bus ride was George W. Bush, who in the most strategic initiative of his second term, signed the India- US nuclear deal onto law on October 4th. This allowed India access to nuclear fuel and technology for its civilian nuclear program, without giving up its nuclear weapons. Throughout the passage of the Hyde Act within Washington and international diplomatic circles, the United States argued for India's status as an ally and a forthcoming economic superpower. Ambivalent countries like New Zealand and Norway reportedly got the call personally from Condoleezza Rice.

New York Times in an editorial on September 9th lambasted the administration for the nuclear agreement that was a "bad idea from the start. They extracted no promise from India to stop producing bomb-making material. No promise not to expand its arsenal. And no promise not to resume nuclear testing."

But according to Fareed Zakaria, it is going to "alter the strategic landscape, bringing India firmly and irrevocably onto the world stage as a major player, normalizing its furtive nuclear status and anchoring its partnership with the United States. With China rising and Europe and Japan declining, India is seen as a natural partner."

Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister did not mince words at India's exultation. "Mr. President, people of India deeply, deeply love you," he gushed. It was a coup of sorts for India’s foreign policy, but more importantly an affirmation to itself that it had finally gotten up from a slumber party that had lasted way too long.

An affirmation that yes, India could build tall buildings, write the next generation of software, have its own breed of privatized financial institutions and global chic, raise money in Bombay like they do in New York and London, show long lingering kisses in movies, have jobs so that kids can graduate out of college and not want to take the first flight out.

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But not everybody got on this "proverbial bus". Some reconciled with their fate. Some promised to try harder. But some did not want to be on it. Heck, a few could not see anybody else on it. Such was their fervent antagonism that a hospital for women and children wasn't spared. In the Indian edition of 9/11, 188 were killed, and more than 293 injured.

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Amitav Ghosh, author of the Sea of Poppies and a visiting professor of literature at Harvard University wrote in his op-ed in the New York Times, "For if there is any one lesson to be learned from the wave of terrorist attacks that has convulsed the globe over the last decade it is this: Defeat or victory is not determined by the success of the strike itself; it is determined by the response."

Hence, whether the Indian story remains intact, is going to come down to how the Indian government reacts. An institutional investor from Greenwich, Ct. needs to read the right news coming out of the country to be confident of putting his money that India's burgeoning economy cannot do without. He needs to get up in the morning to his Wall Street Journal telling him that India is undertaking major police reforms, making its borders safer or working towards a more inclusive society. Terrorism invokes sympathy, but an apathetic and disconcerted response to it disgusts.

India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) is a partnership of the Ministry of Commerce in India and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the top industrial lobby is New Delhi. It seeks to build positive economic perceptions of India globally. At the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2006, it splurged $ 5 million to promote itself as the next economic superstar in an extraordinary charm offensive. Mark Landler in the New York Times wrote "there were few places one could go, on this first day of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting here, without seeing, hearing, drinking, or tasting something Indian."

Even they could not have dreamt to garner a fraction of the eyeballs the events of 26/11 have. India will do well to recall that the same press that told the world of its prowess now has its eyes firmly on it. "If India can react with dispassionate but determined resolve, then 2008 may yet be remembered as a moment when the tide turned. A crisis is also an opportunity," continued Ghosh. Sounds perverse, but here’s a shot at showcasing India’s character. While the eyes remain glued to the TV Sets.

In her November 29th column, Dean Singleton, the chairman of the Associated Press tells Maureen Dowd, “If you need to offshore it, offshore it. In today’s world, whether your desk is down the hall or around the world, from a computer standpoint, it doesn’t matter.” Apparently, the promoters of Pasadena Now, a Pasadena community newspaper, outsource local news to “Indians, who are writing about everything, a 1000 words for $ 7.50, from the Pasadena Christmas tree-lighting ceremony to kitchen remodeling to city debates about eliminating plastic shopping bags.”

Macpherson, the promoter of Pasadena Now, is the scourge of American journalism, and Dowd calls this the “General Motors” moment for the newspaper industry. The story is itself a trifle trite. Macpherson has been on it for more than a year now, and with the elections over, outsourcing is an exhortation a month too late. This is her first column since the attacks in India, and it has nothing to do with them. Though it has everything to do with India.

As the world looked elsewhere, India did the dirty work of the developed world, and sneaked in literally through the back-office. At one-tenth the cost. In fledging suburbs of its cities, young men and women learnt to tell between Kansas and Kentucky, and some learnt the hard way that in the world of the Yankees, there is a quiet Mets fan somewhere too. Better stick to the Knicks when selling a credit card to someone in New York. But they didn’t just sell them in New York, nor was a credit card the only thing they would sell. India became indispensable to the West, as the world underwent the greatest economic boom in recent history. Someone just had to be on the other line.

Indians soon learnt the possibility of the human life, and means to it in the new flat world. What took years in the West was transplanted to this exciting new playground. While some ran away from it, some denied it, and some just did not see it coming, India crashed headlong in this level-playing field. The terrorists don’t like this. But let them know that India remains open to Pasadena Christmas tree-lighting. These bastards won’t win.

Or as Suketu Mehta, Professor of Journalism at the New York University, in his op-ed in the New York Times puts, "The best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Bombay more than ever. Make a killing not in God's name but in the stock market, and then turn up the forbidden music and dance; work hard and party harder."

On the morning of November 27th, The Taj website read, "We will rebuild every inch that has been damaged in this attack, and bring back to its full glory." Hostages spoke of unstinting courtesy, courage and calm of the Taj staff, sometimes to the very peril of their own lives. These are standards Indians across the board should strive for, whether in public or private enterprise. The Taj, standing for 105 long years as a testament to the indomitable character of the city of Bombay, must have rankled them awfully hard. Let it stand for another 105.

Give W. a chance

2008-11-06T23:18:00.033-05:00

"We have one country, one Constitution and one future that binds us. And when we come together and work together, there is no limit to the greatness of America."

This was George W. Bush in his 2004 victory speech over John Kerry. Sounds awfully like Obama, doesn't he?

Fast forward to 2008. 12, 000 people in San Francisco voted a proposition to name a local sewage plant after the incumbent President.

Jeffery Scott Shapiro in the Wall Street Journal writes, "the president's original Supreme Court choice of Harriet Miers alarmed Republicans, while his final nomination of Samuel Alito angered Democrats. His solutions to reform the immigration system alienated traditional conservatives, while his refusal to retreat in Iraq has enraged liberals who have unrealistic expectations about the challenges we face there."

It really stopped mattering what W. did. People had given their verdict, and he was too good for John Stewart to let go.

W. today addressed his White House staff urging them to smoothen the transition for the President-elect Barack Obama . How unprecedented the smoothening of the transition has been can be seen in contrast to the transition he himself got from the Clinton White House. Ben Feller in the Huffington Post writes, "when W. took office in 2001, some aides found their computer keyboards were missing the W key - a nod to the middle initial in George W. Bush. Staff members of outgoing President Bill Clinton were suspected and criticized for acting immaturely."

W. faced extraordinary challenges during his Presidency. Americans, on the other hand, jumped on to conclusions far too quickly. Let history give its verdict on the President, not Oliver Stone. But as a people, we were to indulge in crass slander, not informed criticism. How many times did we hear, "the guy is an idiot." First things first, he could not have been an idiot to win the American vote in 2000 and 2004.

Yes, the same America that would vote for Barack Obama in 2008.

It is an imperative that the new President is not treated as callously as the old one. Because when late night television dictates how we see our Presidents, the joke is pretty much on us.

In case you were wondering, read the Antifits endorsement of Barack Obama here. (2/1/2008)

Barack Obama is the next President

2008-11-05T02:14:00.004-05:00

Of all the places in the world, Thank God I am in America. And I will let Barack again do the talking. Watch his victory speech from Grant Park in Chicago, IL.

From the world, from the ones who couldn't exercise the vote, we needn't have worried. America, you rocked the vote!

(FiveThirtyEight.com) Obama: 349 McCain: 189

2008-11-04T15:08:00.009-05:00

Four hours before numbers from Virginia start streaming in, and minutes before you awaken to a bombardment of a strange phenomenon called the exit poll, here are the final numbers drawn from a composite of 14 polls from folks at FiveThirtyEight.com.

Scroll down the page for some beautifully drawn up scenarios from these numbers.

Obama: 348.6 McCain: 189.4

Here is how FiveThirtyEight got at these numbers.

An Antifits Prediction: Who takes Virginia, wins the election.

American Stories, American Solutions

2008-10-29T22:52:00.007-04:00

I will just let Barack make his case. He's apparently good at it.

With only six days to the elections, am I going to miss this election or what! More on that in a post coming soon.

Read the Antifits endorsement of Barack Obama here. (2/1/2008)

The 'betrayal' of London, unheard in New York

2008-10-29T16:03:00.011-04:00

As the world more than acquainted itself with Lehman Brothers Midtown Manhattan headquarters when news of the collapse of the financial giant started streaming in, it was easy to forget that Lehman Brothers had an overseas operation, and one that is more profitable.

The top executives at Lehman Brothers in New York did not.

Around 1230 in the morning of 15th September, Lehman announced in a press release that the 158-year-old investment bank would file for bankruptcy protection. In the hours and days leading up to Lehman’s collapse and Chapter 11 filing, $8.07 billion was mysteriously transferred from Lehman’s London subsidiary at Canary Wharf to its Midtown headquarters in New York. Canary Wharf is where Lehman ran its operations in Europe employing around 4, 000 people.

At the opening of Lehman’s new European headquarters in London on 5th April 2004, Gordon Brown, the then Chancellor told Lehman employees, “I would like to pay tribute to the contribution you and your company make to the prosperity of Britain. During its 150 year story, Lehman Brothers has always been an innovator, financing new ideas and inventions before many things even began to realize their potential.”

On 20th September 2008, Gordon Brown stated its support to Lehman Europe’s claim that Lehman New York return its $8 billion.

The British tabloids called this repatriation of $8 billion to New York as the “betrayal” of London. Times Online quoted one executive saying, “We were basically told ‘London, you’re on your own’.” Another E-Mail by an angry executive to Bart McDade, the President of Lehman, quoted by the newspaper read, “Come on guys. Show some respect for the rest of the world who carried your flag and believed in the ‘one firm’ culture. There is a thing called ‘appreciation and class’ even after the war is lost.” Lehman Europe and its employees in London were literally left in the lurch, under the administration of Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) that was called for the dissolution of Lehman Europe.

All this as Lehman New York was raising a toast to Bob Diamond, the President of Barclays, on the orchestration of a $1.75 billion takeover of Lehman’s American investment-banking and capital-markets division, securing 10, 000 jobs and $2.5 billion in bonuses for the staff at the New York office.

In the United States, one could have gone oblivious to this. The New York Times covered the story as reported by Julia Werdigier of The International Herald Tribune in DealBook, its daily filing of mergers, acquisitions and other market movers. Not exactly the headlines.

Werdigier explicitly states “the money was moved to New York from London as part of the usual flow of the firm’s cash between the two financial centers just before the bank collapsed Monday morning.”

Usual flow of money?

Evening Standard ran a story by David Cohen on this “betrayal” of London. In this story, Robert Daniels, a director at Lehman’s Canary Wharf office, explains what this ‘usual’ flow of money was. On Fridays, Lehman London would transfer billions of dollars to the New York headquarters, and is given a portfolio of assets in return. On Mondays, this trade is reversed in what is a standard inter-bank transfer. But this transaction leading up to Lehman’s collapse was different.

“The money was not returned to our bank account from the US and all we were left with was a bunch of useless assets. Nobody can tell us where it has gone. What we do know is that the money disappeared on Friday night and did not come back into our account on Monday morning. That is why the administrators came in on Monday and found no cash and said they probably can't pay our September salaries.”

In the story that appeared in the New York Times, Werdigier goes on to discusses a beleaguered Gordon Brown and the criticism he faces from within and outside the Labour Party on his handling of the British economy amidst difficult times. Why would Werdigier do that? Is Werdigier implying in a very subtle way that it is just Brown trying to be seen as doing something?

More so, it reports PWC sending a letter to Lehman New York “requesting that the money be returned to London, where it is needed to pay the bank’s creditors, employees, bills and some daily expenses.”

On 19th September, PWC filed an 83-page motion disputing the $8.2 Billion taken from London.

Was it the New York Times and the American media deliberately underplaying this story, or the British sensationalizing it too much?

“It goes beyond who gets paid their September salaries. It could be a huge legal issue, setting Lehman London employees against their New York colleagues. This is billions we're talking about, billions that have been moved overnight out of the UK to the US to the detriment of the British economy” says Daniels.

After Lehman’s collapse, much of the financial world continues to undergo an ugly restructuring in the last fortnight. But what hasn’t changed is this strange denial and ignorance of the new global reality the American media, at least in this financial crisis, seems to be catering to.

Maybe the holding company is entitled to ring fence bonuses and ensure employment for its preferred employees when it negotiates takeover bids. It could be well within its right to talk about a unified corporate culture, and then leave your overseas divisions with literally empty vending machines and a lack of basic information that borders on complete apathy.

But there is a slight alteration to the narrative now. It is the British financial services provider, Barclays, that has taken over Lehman’s profitable American assets. And if ever things go down, they might not have to hesitate to play it dirty.

Lehman: You are on your own, London, Danny Fortson, Times Online- 09/21
Lehmans’ $5 Bn ‘betrayal’ of London, David Cohen, Evening Standard- 09/17
Fury at $2.5 Bn Lehman Bonus, John Waples, Times Online- 09/21
UK’s Brown wants Lehman Cash returned, Julia Werdigier, NYTimes- 09/22

On Cricket, and being away from it

2008-10-22T14:16:00.012-04:00

I don't think I am going to get any work done the next three weeks.

I have been sleeping at 6- 7 in the morning, missing morning lectures and reading the reaction of the press the first thing whenever I get up. Even a New York autumn cannot appease this quirk of mine, and get me moving around.

It's the cricket, stupid.

India won the last Test in Mohali the other day. Some have rushed to call it the tipping point, equivalent to the napoleonic Waterloo of the great Australian side of the late 90's and most of this decade.

Obviously still being haunted by that Ricky Ponting century in the 2003 Jo' Burg Word Cup final or Damien Martyn taking the test to a draw in Chennai in 2004/05 and the series with it, I would hesitate to give my verdict till the Tests at New Delhi and Nagpur happen. And ask the English about the wounded Aussie. That 5- 0 drubbing in Australia must still rankle hard.

But it's difficult to be in New York. Nobody just gets it here. My Los Angeles roommate struggles to understand how I can follow sport without live broadcast, but still sit through the entire night staring at the computer screen, the cursor always on the refresh button.

And worse, I am addicted to this over- by- over coverage. Reality can be sometimes ugly, but the written word is open for manipulation. Because unlike live broadcast nothing is shown to you, in your mind the ugly gets edited, and the beautiful reinforced. Sachin Tendulkar can be forever 24. And even though Harbhajan might have got someone bowled someone out with an uncharacteristically flat one, you can imagine his fingers ripping through a nice loopy delivery drifting in through the gate beating the batsman in his drive. For example:

21:13: The pitch is like a minefield at the moment. Well, the Indian bowlers are making it look like one. Mishra and Singh turning the ball prodigiously.

(My mind lets the imagination loose. A fourth day subcontinent track, complete with puffing dust and widening cracks. Harbhajan landing them right outside the off with a rookie Haddin. Vicious turn, ooh's and aah's from Dravid in the slip cordon..)

21:15: FOUR. At last, Haddin finds the middle of the bat and his cover drive finds the boundary. It's 5-81 at drinks.

(Fuck Harbhajan. Must have let one slip too straight and flat for his own damn good)

If staying up all night ain't enough, getting up the next afternoon only to find myself browsing through the morning press world over for the reaction to the days play can literally be a bit much. But why does it have to be the Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian and Hindustan Times telling me the same thing. Maybe a li'l much, but Cricket allows you that.

No, Cricket needs that. And I ain't even starting on Cricinfo.

One day we will grow up and be able to afford the Cricket beamed live to our TV sets in Manhattan, or wherever we might be. But nothing like to sit in a lecture when the Professor is talking about the Battle of Stalingrad for the sixth lecture in a row and the rest of your generation relegated to something as mundane as Facebook, knowing that you are far away, in fields afar, in that little world that is forever going to be yours.

If you make it to the lecture though.

Is it our tryst with destiny?

2008-10-18T22:15:00.019-04:00

The financial crisis bothers me. Why should it?

I have been asking myself that over the past few days. Is it the paucity of jobs once I graduate? Or is it hurting me financially? Or is it a very intelligent concern that I have for the world around me? Not really.

I think I figured it out.

Amidst rising oil prices during the Gulf War in 1991, India found itself in a balance-of-payments crisis and the prospect of defaulting on its loans. The IMF mandated a liberalization of the Indian economy; a coming out of sorts for what was a closed and to a certain extent, an unproductive economy.

I was two then.

Today, a liberalized India with fewer and fairer taxes, less regulation, a relatively smaller government is the second fastest growing economy in the world.

A liberalized India is all I ever knew.

After a couple of hundred years of British Imperialism, India in 1947, in its first Prime Minister’s words, “had made a tryst with destiny” and had won independence.

Instead it saw a post-war Europe and Japan reemerge from the debris. United States was well, the United States. They were calling it the boomer years. Even a lot of Asia followed.

India wasn’t communist. Nor was it comfortable enough with itself to embrace the free market. But give the Government a li’l leeway, it will kick open the door. Government grew bigger, corruption got endemic in its system and epidemic in proportions. As the world took the next leap forward, we found ourselves tucked in an ugly li’l corner that we had carved out for ourselves stagnating.

It was still waiting for its tryst with destiny.

In 1989, the wall finally fell. Literally.

Post-liberalization, it was India itself that India needed to conquer. Three hundred years stuck in an abyss, India was in the waiting room for so long that it had almost forgotten what it was waiting for.

Yes, India could build tall buildings, write the next generation of software, have its own breed privatized financial institutions and multinationals, raise money in Bombay like they did in New York and London, show long lingering kisses in movies, have jobs so that we could graduate out of college and not take the first flight out. And of course, beat Australia in cricket.

Never was private wealth and enterprise celebrated with such ferocity. It mattered that an Indian ran the biggest steel conglomerate in the world, and an Indian publicly- held company would one day drive home Jaguar from Ford.

They say we are in global financial meltdown.

The Bombay Sensitive Index, India’s equivalent to the Dow Industrial Average, has plummeted to 9,975 from a 52Wk High of 21,206.77. The Foreign Institutional Investors (FII’s), who happened to be more often than not the big banks that find themselves in a spot, have liquidated $ 9 billion worth holdings in India.

It is apparent that India will get hurt too.

World over, there is a growing call for more regulated markets and bigger government intervention.

Wasn’t Regulation what got India there in 1991? Wasn’t it the all-encompassing evil that kept India back as the world moved forward? Now they tell us to learn otherwise.

It is like getting up one morning and realizing that your neighbor is your actual father.

But a funny thing has happened. The years post-liberalization, even if kicked off by creative investors who couldn’t make returns big enough and the excessive liquidity that characterized all these years, India has somewhere realized that if a billion people get up every morning, brush their teeth and go to work, the economy would prevail.

But this financial crisis, unlike 1991, the IMF and the ‘ostensible’ free markets needn’t dictate anything. India has $300 Billion worth of foreign exchange lying around, and an economy that even by the most conservative estimate, will continue to grow at 6.5 %.

Things will get ugly. But wasn’t this where India wanted to be all along? The era of easy foreign liquidity might be over, but it is an India that finally could do without it. This is our tryst with destiny. And now that we have almost made it, let us not let it slip away.

The credit crisis hits India, but it may profit [The Economist- 10/14/2008]

Before we get back to tax cuts

2008-10-17T05:12:00.007-04:00

Did anybody see Barack Obama be more than funny at the Al Smith dinner at the Waldorf today? Sample this.

"I’m glad we’re over John depicting me as some celebrity. I’m serious. I was sad. In fact, I was so sad that I punched a paparazzo on the way out of Spago. It was horrible. Really, I spilled my soy chai latte all over my shoe."

Oh! Apple.

2008-10-16T03:55:00.009-04:00

Apple, the favorite whipping boy of the markets this past month, released the new MacBook October 14th, leaving me scrambling for 1500 odd bucks and my black Mac stale.

Is it just me or Jony Ive, VP Design at Apple Inc., sounds a tad too absorbed by the new MacBook? It is almost funny. Watch the video.

And we really must be in a recession. Even this could not excite investors with the Apple stock loosing as much as 5.89% of the stock's value, closing the day at $ 97. 95.

25 reasons why I will miss the financial crisis (Update: If it ever gets over)

2008-10-13T19:53:00.010-04:00

It really seems that the $ 2546 Billion European bailout is the beginning of the end of the Financial Crisis and the subsequent rally across financial markets. I think I will miss the financial crisis. Really.

1- It bummed Sarah Palin out of the front page.

2- Bristol Palin too.

3- Nancy Pelosi and House Republicans.

4- I could get by without knowing who Gossip Girls were:
Someone else: "Oh my god! Blake Lively!"
Me: Man, the economy is soo fucked up, dudee!
Someone else: I know. I feel so bad that I even brought up Gossip Girls. How shallow am I?

5- Hank Paulson, apart from other things, having a perspective on 15 seconds of fame.

6- The John McCain way to make you a star. Ask Chris Cox.

7- You could not get by with thinking that Freddie Mac was a McDonald's burger.

8- On Lehman Monday, I wanted to call Dad.
"Dad, You were wrong!" Look at these bankers with boxes outside Lehman's midtown headquarters. They look silly. And that is how you wanted your son to look when you insisted on me going to business school!"

9- Oil under $80 a barrell. Exactly the change folks in Ohio, Michigan and Main Street want.

10- Random conversations at the bar that went something like this
Me: The economy is so fucked upp, dudee. Can I buy you a drink?
Blonde: (Looking puzzled) Yeah sure.
Blonde: (After a few drinks) Intelligent guys really turn me on.

11- The Socialists at NYU finally having an audience that stayed, even after the free pizza, coffee, soda, cookies and tons of other freebies ran out.

12- Learning how to plot Iceland on a map.

13- More so, imagining flustered British people learning how to plot Iceland on a map after losing their deposits with Icesave.

14- "Oh bilmey! He had thinnngs on his mind!" The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, finally found a reason for the bags underneath his eyes.

15- But the man with bags underneath his eyes, Gordon Brown, would eventually become the European Superhero with a bailout plan that will become the status quo for more bailouts. So all you kids who don't make the cool cut, there is a happy ending.

16- Finding a banker or a guy dressed like one literally at Taco Bell days ago.

17- It just wasn't the Mets screwing up bad this year.

18- Sad guys on the trading floor.

19- Germany getting mad at Ireland over bank guarantees. Then Germany doing the same thing a few days later. Moral of the story: The Irish know their shit.

20- A corollary to the above: Drinking can't be all that bad.

21- Playboy and BusinessWeek together in the toilet magazine rack in a room shared by four guys between the ages 18- 20. And the BusinessWeek looking more used.

22- Financial lingo having a poetic rhyme to it.

"Dow."
"Holy Cow!"
"How?"

23- CIA guy: We know where the weapons of mass destruction are, chief.
W.: Where?
Cheney: They are not in Iraq? I knew it was Iran.
John McCain: No stupid. They are in Spain.
W.: Let the guy talk for a change.
CIA guy: It's in the derivative market right in downtown Manhattan in a street called Wall Street.
Cheney: How do you know?
CIA guy: Warren Buffet in 2003 talked about it, and we now have intelligence for it. My credit card is good for shit.
John McCain: I think I found my treasury secretary. I am going to make a press release.
W.: I thought you had suspended your campaign.
John McCain: My friends, Country First.

24- Even though he was on the phone with Hank Paulson throughout the financial crisis and pleading Main Street's case, Barack Obama still finding time to go to the gym.

25- And finally, coming home at 4 AM, switching Bloomberg on and know that you weren't the only one having a rough day. People do screw up. And so do we. Funnily enough, we were in it together. And that felt good.

What an incredible world this is

2008-10-07T23:25:00.007-04:00

Man, there is so much cynicism going around. But we do live in an incredible world. But the world in which we live is pretty incredible.

This is global air traffic stimulated over 24 hours. Wait for the day in Europe, and you will know this Ryan Air business is serious.

Courtesy: The AirTraffic Team

We called it

2008-10-07T22:50:00.007-04:00

We will be full of ourselves for a minute or so. Midnight today, the ban on Short Selling would expire. Now you might ask what is the reason why we at The Antifits would have a reason to feel even better than we do about ourselves?

We called it. We knew it was temporary.

On 09/19/2008, The Antifits wrote:
"I don't necessarily agree with the backlash against, say, short selling. And I would have markets deregulated than the other way round."

On 09/25/2008, The Antifits wrote:
"And apart from a certain executive pay clause and the temporary ban on short selling, it will be all on his terms."

And at times when it was politically incorrect to do so, around the time when a visceral McCain was suspending campaigns and Barack Obama was on the phone with Hank Paulson.

Moral of the story: Read the Antifits and be ahead of the Times.

No pun intended on the Times thing.

Ban on Short Selling ends - Did it make any difference [NYTimes- 10/07/08]

Your skin needs a bailout

2008-10-02T17:27:00.009-04:00

A couple of weeks or so ago, yours truly had a serious bout of acne. And like Investment Bankers who have to learn to deal with less than six-digit bonuses, this was a completely new world that was opening up to me.

The world of solicited and sometimes, unsolicited advice, and of greedy capitalist companies promising a Zach Effron- me.

Dermatologists were recommended. I was expected to know Cate Blanchett's skin regimen. And how the hell could I even consider Proactiv. I needed to sleep better, run more, sweat lesser and drink more water.

Well, I ordered Proactive. The next day a flier made its way to my mailbox. And the fucking spam filters did not catch it. Tell me it is not a conspiracy.

All this for a guy that used shower gel on his face.

I use Lush now. What sold me was the sweet lady in the Lush store at Union Square. I walk into the store, and she goes like "What can I do for you, honey?"

"I have developed acne. I never had it before. I am terrified."

"People say I am going to die now."

No, I did not say that.

"Ohh sweetheart. Don't worry. All your skin needs is a bailout." She quipped.

So, Washington, Wall Street and John McCain, you ain't alone in this bailout business. I feel you.

Skin Deep- Buying Face Cream. Grab a Glossary? [NYTimes- 10/01/2008]

The French gaze across the Atlantic

2008-10-01T02:11:00.007-04:00

Steven Erlanger of the New York Times tries to decipher the French perception of the American Presidential elections. Hilarity ensues.

"From the French perspective, Americans are reckless optimists, incurably blind to the tragedy of life, to the weary convolutions of history and thus to the need for lengthy August vacations and financial regulations. While the French see themselves as the heirs of urban revolutionaries, with a strong distaste for politicized religion, the American revolutionary spirit seems to them these days to come like a hurricane from the uncosmopolitan right — from the dry, dull flatlands of Texas ranch country or the emptiness of Vice President Dick Cheney’s Wyoming, and now from the odd sunset communities of Arizona and the bizarre bars, churches and hockey rinks of Alaska."

He quotes Bernard-Henri Lévy of the Le Point who says of Barack Obama:

“Obama is, certainly, black, but not black like Jesse Jackson; not black like Al Sharpton; not black like the blacks born in Alabama or in Tennessee and who, when they appear, bring out in Americans the memories of slavery, lynchings and the Ku Klux Klan — no; a black from Africa; a black descending not from a slave but from a Kenyan; a black who, consequently, has the incomparable merit of not reminding middle America of the shameful pages of its history.”

Well, Lévy has to be French to get away with that.

Memo from Paris- Steven Erlanger [New York Times- 09/20/2008]

The world as we knew it

2008-09-30T23:52:00.008-04:00

Somehow this haunts me. Here are some relics of the past, two of which have been obliterated into the past amidst the financial turmoil of the past two weeks. Hear top executives talk about how Lehman succeeds, with its four pillars stratgey.

Here is a Merrill recruitment video. I just could not embed it, so you will have to follow the link.

We have lost a bit in the past three weeks. And a lot of the world as we knew it.

The cost of indecision

2008-09-29T17:41:00.012-04:00

Cost of the Proposed Bailout to the taxpayer= - $ 700 Billion

Bailout rejection by Congressional Republicans=- 777 points on the Dow= - $ 1.2 Trillion

Cost of inaction today= - $ 700 Billion + (- $ 1.2 Trillion)
= - $ 500 Billion

I did the Math. You say God bless America.

House rejects bailout package, 228- 205; Stocks plunge [New York Times]
Talent Flight Feared by City Firms [New York Sun]
Why did the rescue bill fail [NYMag- Daily Intel]
Lehmann's demise triggered Cash Crunch Around Globe [WSJ Online]
Why Main Street needs to support the bailout [Accrued Interest]

Why I think Barack Obama is the next President of the U.S.?

2008-09-27T15:12:00.006-04:00

At last night's debate who looked more Presidential?

At the Antifits, we thought it was Barack. Even Fox agreed. Apparently, smears don't help a presidential candidate.

Oh! W.

2008-09-25T16:11:00.018-04:00

Updated on 09/26/2008:
Apparently, President Bush's bailout did go through a lot of bottleneck on the floor of the Congress on Thursday. And now, Washington is working over the weekend to come to a consensus by Monday. Read the New York Times story here.
___________________________________________

Did anyone watch W. address the nation last night? First things first, with this being dubbed as the "greatest depression", W. could not have kicked things off on a more positive binge.

Didn't anyone else get it? The red tie.

Face it America, he will again get what he wants. Even though if it takes a bipartisan frenzy, no John McCain on the campaign trail and Senator Christopher Dodd looking as someone more important in Washington than he really is. And apart from a certain executive pay clause and the temporary ban on short selling, it will be all on his terms.

"Once this crisis is resolved, there will be time to update our financial regulatory structures. Our 21st-century global economy remains regulated largely by outdated 20th-century laws."

Wow. Anyone who can read between the lines, there would not be anything drastic with regulation after all. So W. calls the democrats for a trillion bucks, gives a certain few like Sen. Christopher Dodd and Sen. Harry Reid a few soundbite on TV, but in real terms, ignores their cherished call for a more stringent regulatory framework.

Though this bailout business did put us through a lot of stress. Specially with an angry Sen. Dodd on TV. Let us give it to him. It is his 15 seconds of fame.

And we thought we would not see him much after the most inconsequntial presidential campaign. Ah! well, these are uncertain times.

"Many borrowers took out loans larger than they could afford, assuming that they could sell or refinance their homes at a higher price later on."

Even if it was a couple of lines camouflaged somewhere in W.'s speech, I cannot help applaud a President, who in a world of John McCain and Barack Obama, can literally tell the Americans that like Wall Street, they fucked up.

Or Wall Street fucked up because the American people fucked up. First.

And this Presidential Election; call it a clusterfuck, or a cute Daniel Radcliffe turning into a naked Daniel Radcliffe. There is only as much as we can take. Asked about whether he would go to Washington, Sen. Obama said:

“If we get consensus and everybody is popping Champagne in Wahington, then I’ll probably go back to campaign with folks who are having a tough time in Ohio and Michigan.”

Spare a minute for folks in Michigan and Ohio. Gail Collins writes of them in the New York Times:

"Since the people of Ohio and Michigan have been visited by a presidential candidate virtually every hour for the last six months, it would seem that they could get by on their own for a day or two."

If the last two weeks on Wall Street should teach you something, just remember that the President matters. Even if just for the next four months. Well, add more than a bit of Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke.

After which with the debt ceiling of the United States at $ 11. 3 trillion, I don't think either President Obama or President Palin in Washington would be wielding much stick.

But with them in Washington, for folks in Michigan and Ohio "change" shall prevail.

Transcript- President Bush's speech on the economy on 09.25.2008 [NY Times]
Bring on the Rubber Chickens- Gail Collins [NYTimes]

Movie Review: To Die in Jerusalem

2008-09-23T17:15:00.004-04:00

To think that Hilla Medalia was in school in Southern Illinois when she conceptualized and shot Daughters of Abraham, the prequel to this feature film To Die in Jerusalem, you have someone enormously brilliant on hand. This is the story of Ayat and Rachel, who not only are the microcosm of the Israeli- Palestine, but also a testament to the aggressive pursuit of this young director as she seeks to understand her world.

“I’m not trying to compare; all I’m trying to do is to give the stage to two mothers; to get a glimpse of their world.”*

Hilla realizes that she has something so powerful, stunning and provocative on her hands that the best she can do is sitting back and letting it unfold. It is fluid. It just plays out. In a world where communication does not happen, her film is a conversation; with the mothers, between the mothers, but never does the reality of the either side get shortchanged. In the most crucial of moments, never does anything look forced. And therein lies the beauty of To Die in Jerusalem.

Apparently, HBO sent two established American producers to make a feature on the same issue. They failed. And to think that a young Israeli woman just out of graduate school in Southern Illinois succeeded.

“Documentary filmmaking is essentially endurance, and more endurance.”*

Listening to her talk about the film was an absolute lesson in persistence. She waited for four years to shoot the scene between the two mothers. In between, the crew got arrested. Finally they made the mothers talk it out via satellite. Add cultural animosity, being behind the enemy lines and navigating between two countries amidst one of the bloodiest conflicts of our times. For example, she, as an Israeli Jewish, spent time in the Palestine ghetto with the family. She invested in an intangible element called the “cultural bridge”. The fact that whether it was Ayat or Avigail talking, you sense candor. This is not a coincidence. It is a comfort zone that Hilla has created.

“You actually feel in your heart the conflict.”*

Her film deals with something that is larger than life, a conflict that has now gone for half a century and has enough blood on it for objectivity on either sides. As the director, when she lets her characters talk to each other, she is lets countries talk. And civilizations talk. A conversation for which four miles has been too much, and five decades too less.

An Antifits recommendation.

*The italicized quotes are directly from the Director at the after screening Q & A.

Wait, someone was making money.

2008-09-22T22:01:00.011-04:00

How does a Hedge Fund make a staggering $ 28 Billion in an economy that has Wall Street orgasming at the prospect of a Fed bailout? How do your managed credit funds grow 590% and 350% respectively? How do you take home a $3- 4 Billion paycheck home?

And all of this in 2007, a year that would not go down in books as year for such numbers.
[Photo Illustration: Everett Bogue; Getty Images/ Reuters]

You do. If you are John Paulson. And you have the balls to sell short, while the world plays it long.

Sell short what?

Sub- Prime mortgages. Go figure that. And well, to be a bit of a downer, he reckons "it still ain't too late" to invest in economic troubles.

As the mainstream turns it's back on Alan Greenspan, Paulson calls him over to his advisory board. Another reason why he made money, and the mainstream didn't.

And he went to New York University.

Paulson acquires an Alan Greenspan [Daily Intel- 1/15/08]
Trader made billions on Sub- Prime [WSJ Online- 1/15/08]

I have a baseball team now

2008-09-22T01:07:00.012-04:00

I think I know that I am a Yankees fan now. I flirted a bit with the New York Mets. Now I know better. And it took a certain Derek Jeter addressing the crowd at the last Yankees game to hit the final nail on the head.

Now we are set for a showdown. Kenny and Alex, apart from our new Sharp LCD, are responsible for me getting into baseball, and they happen to be for the Mets.

Fascination for the underdog. Cute maybe, but that is about it.

Echoes in the Bronx- Paul Simon [NY Times- 09/19/2008]

Lehman: Another Enron in the making?

2008-09-20T17:16:00.013-04:00

It is easy to forget with the American media that there about 5, 000 people in Lehman's overseas operations. Easy to forget that there is a world outside New York, and one that is more profitable.

People in Lehman New York did not.

[Picture Courtesy: www.mirror.co.uk]

Apparently, $ 8.07 Billion was transferred from Lehman's European operations at Canary Wharf in London to Lehman's UK operation hours before Lehman filed Chapter 11. Times Online (UK) quotes Tony Lomas of Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), the administrator of Lehman's European operations, as he makes parallels with Enron:

"Both in terms of the impact of the loss of confidence and the complexity of the trading transactions, the interdependencies of the group companies, and the sweeping of cash into a holding company account, leaving subsidiary companies empty of cash at the point of collapse"

New York employees have been called for work, and about $2.5 Billion in bonuses has been ring-fenced as part of the Barclays deal. Bonuses? Well, for the first nine months when Lehman reported profits. Times Online further quotes a London- based Lehman employee:

“It’s an absolute scandal. I will never work for an American firm again. It looks like they are prepared to cut you off at the knees. Nobody from America has been in touch since we went into administration on Monday.”

Sources:
Lehman: You are on your own, London [Times Online, UK]
Fury at $2.5 bn Lehman bonus [Times Online, UK]
The "betrayal" of London [Evening Standard, UK]
My week of hell at Canary Wharf [Times Online, UK]

R.I.P Burritoville

2008-09-20T15:59:00.011-04:00

I don't care what really ever happened to Lehman or AIG. But the credit squeeze down by Wall Street has a casualty I will really cared about.

Burritoville. All the Manhattan ones.

No wonder in the past week, walking by Burritoville down by Bleecker Street twice in the West Village, we found it to be closed. I had found it strange. Little did I know.

R.I.P Buritoville. You were a slice of my Manhattan. Down by the Financial District when I lived in Water Street in the summer. Or on Bleecker. Or on Seamless Web ordering delivery.

The recession is a bummer.

For City’s Burritovilles, Adiós or Hasta la Vista? [NYTimes]

After $700 Billion, dandy times in Wall Street

2008-09-20T14:08:00.009-04:00

I might have to take my words back. With rumours of a Fed bailout, the stock markets had their biggest rally in years the last two days of the week. Merril Lynch shot up 33.73%, or +7.44 points on Friday itself.

It looks like Bank of America and Kenneth D. Lewis were not that dumb after all. But would Merril Lynch, now with better valuations and the bailout which Fed estimates to be at $700 billion, now want to sell itself? At Antifits, we always have our noses out for more drama. What a wonderful world it would be if John Thain addressed the press somthing like this:

"I don't know where Kenneth, or the punters get their ideas from. If we mislead someone into wrong ideas, we apologize. But Merril needs nobody."

But the crisis now is almost over after warranting the greatest intervention of the government in years. $700 Billion is a lot of money, and more so, if it ends up doing what it intends to do. Peter S. Goodman in the New York Times explains:

"If the plan works, it will attack the central cause of American economic distress — the continued plunge in housing prices. If banks resumed lending more liberally, mortgages would become more readily available. That would give more people the wherewithal to buy homes, lifting housing prices or at least preventing them from falling further. This would prevent more mortgage-linked investments from going bad, further easing the strain on banks. As a result, the current downward spiral would end and start heading up."

You better brush up on the past week though. Because in 25 years, if somebody asks you what Lehman was, you better say something, give names and quote numbers. It makes you sound intelligent.

And it has also costed you $2000. I will let that sink in.

Diamond and Kashyap explain it all [Freakonomics]
What happened in Lehman in 30 sconds, or less [Chris DesBarres- NYMag]
AIG in 30, more like 45, seconds [Chris DesBarres- NYMag]
The story of the men in the middle of it all [NYTimes]
And the men who seem to be sorting it out [NYTimes]
Hard Truths about the Bailout [NYTimes- Editorial]
But will it work? [NYTimes]

Something's wrong? And not just on Wall Street.

2008-09-19T02:30:00.017-04:00

There is something wrong with me.

I am actually deriving this perverse pleasure seeing the financial world collapse. And not because I resent it in any way.

Matter of fact, it is quite the contrary. I believe if you can make a living selling paper for paper, taking long and short positions on them, calling them something fancy like a derivative, good on you. I believe in Wall Street. I don't necessarily agree with the backlash against, say, short selling. And I would have markets deregulated than the other way round. The more cushion the Fed gives, the better it is. And I literally cannot stand John McCain or Barack Obama be so shallow on the campaign trail as they talk about greed, and the how apparently how Main Street has been sold short by Wall Street, as paychecks for CEO's have gone fatter. All while Joe Bloggs works three shifts to afford healthcare for his ailing mom.

But why this urge to check on Nikkei 225 before I sleep? Read Floyd Norris in the New York Times, browse the new Journal, get the European view in something like FT, and then look at slideshows of Wall Street bankers with sullen faces and hot bodies outside, say Lehman, in the Daily Intel? Why would I look down upon you if you did not know who Chris DesBarres was? Why does it get my tongue wagging when on Bloomberg, they literally put "the worst since the Great Depression.." on repeat. All day long.

Ken calls it the quarter- life crisis.

I reckon it is a sitcom like sitcoms dream to be, with each character with a story, and each story with a lot of such characters. Give me Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Bob Diamond, Blankfein and a certain W., who realizes rather Fed's billions of dollars than a speech that lasts more than a 120 seconds to cuddle a country in distress, over say, Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgely or a Chace Crawford. Or just that I am about twenty blocks, or two stops on the Pelham Express (4,5) to the Financial District in a city called New York.

Or maybe it is the quarter- life crisis. Because it is a Thursdsay night, but I am sitting with a Walgreens pint of orange juice, still not over Floyd Norris's post on short selling, and there is no place I rather be.

I might want to get better orange juice though.

Or maybe because I had no idea who Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgely or a Chace Crawford were till I looked Gossip Girls on IMDb.

Thank You, Darren Gough.

2008-09-17T02:23:00.016-04:00

There are times in your life when you do look back. And as Darren Gough calls for the end of his professional cricketing career, this has to be one of those moments.

To my favorite cricketer, my idea of boyish charm and an absolute childhood hero, The Antifits raises a toast to the English and Yorkshire fast bowler, Darren Gough.

Rob Smyth writes in the Wisden Cricketer:

"Perhaps Gough is seen as too frivolous a character, or someone whose love of a beer and a good time might not set the best example. Perhaps Warne is seen as being of quintessentially Australian stock, whereas in this country Gough is seen as simple folk, somebody who excelled but was not always entirely sure why. Either way, it is nonsense. Like Warne, Gough is blessed with a quite brilliant game intelligence, one that England would be foolish to ignore in years to come. For now, however, we should raise a glass or 12 to the sort of bowler we won’t see it again in a hurry."

Also, read Rob Bagchi's tribute in today's Guardian here.

I dug up some 2003 archives for more Darren Gough material around the time when he retired from test cricket. On August 5, 2003 Andrew Miller in Cricinfo tracked the highs and lows of Darren Gough's Test career. Hear what the likes of Dickie Bird, Ray Illingworth and Bob Willis had to say about his test retirement. "They paid him the highest compliment possible when they said he played the game like an Australian." Read the Aussie perspective by David Wiseman here after Goughie's test retirement on August 11, 2003.

And for those of you who have no idea I am talking about, his wikipedia page would not be a bad idea.

Damn Gough, thank you for all those years when I was a kid, and you were everything I wanted to be.

The Wall Street we did not know.

2008-09-16T14:45:00.008-04:00

Now, come on. A stiff upper lip would not get AIG or Washington Mutual sorted out. So why don't we have a sense of humor about it.

New York Magazine's Daily Intel looks at the other side of Wall Street.

"Did anybody else notice that, in all of the endless photographs and clips of disheartened bankers exiting the offices of Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers yesterday, a surprising number of them were ladies? And since it wasn't exactly an official workday, and many employees were just told to show up with boxes, lots of them showed up in casual clothes, like ponytails, gym shorts, tank tops, and the like — and they were actually kind of, well, hot? Finance hot, but still."

Catch the slideshow here. Read the captions. An Antifits recommendation. I don't care whether Sarah Palin of the "Walmart mom" pulls me up for sexism.

Hey, mind what you do though. My sister works for Goldman,

Bank of America: The next Sarah Palin?

2008-09-15T19:40:00.011-04:00

Floyd Norris did live blogging today on his New York Times financial blog Notions on High and Low Finance.

At 1115 AM, he blogged:
Merrill is trading, as I write this, at $21.47 per share. That is a 14 percent discount to the value of the Bank of America stock that is being offered. Each Merrill share will be exchanged for 0.8595 shares of B of A, now trading at $29.01 and putting the value of the offer at $24.93 per share.

Merrill Lynch closed at $ 17.01. Why would you agree to pay 24.93 for something that is by the dumps and available at 17.01.

Expect that story to flare up. I don't understand much of the financial world, but I am definitely curious about Bank of America doing that. Or has it decided that Sarah Palin has too long been the headlines.

Lew from UK on the website commented:

"Forgive me for being a bit slow on this (I’m an engineer rather than an accountant), but - I read somewhere in all the stuff published today, that the Merril Lynch deal (I can already see the headline “Lynch mobbed”) would mean that BoA would would wind up “technically” under-capitalised. Is this true ? And if so, doesn’t that mean that either (a) they will need to embark on some sort of fire-sale / fundraising enterprise to bring things back into balance, or (b) that they’d be risking (and they’d need government complicity to achieve this) a new, bigger game of chicken where BoA tests the limits of “too big to fail” ?"

Something is clearly happening. And as I am writing this Nikkei just opened. Eight minutes ago. And it is 344.92 points down, or 2.82 %.

With the failing U.S economy and Wall Street banks, finally are we seeing the end of our fling with Sarah Palin? Call it the upside of the downside in the economy!
___________________________________________________

Update- 09/16/2008 - Pictures really are worth a million words. Here is what sums up Lehmann Monday. Click on the sideshow. Courtesy The Wall Street Journal. See it. Come on, for once let us love our bankers.

I love the new Facbook, and so should you.

2008-09-14T20:31:00.007-04:00

(Courtsey: Avantika Bakshi Babson College, MA)

If you have been alive in the past few days, It has either been pigs, lipstick or blatant nostalgia for the old Facebook. Or in a very dangerous world, all three. Together.

"Five million strong for the old Facebook.."

Ironically, this was someone's Facebook status update. Hey, Facebook has a hundred odd million users. Do the math. And I am not even counting the herds that have been left out all their lives, and now want to be a part of it, clouding every bit of rational judgement.

Hey, they merged news- feed with the Wall!

Thank You so much Facebook for that. If I have to do the mandatory birthday greeting, I don't have to scroll down your page, highly uninteresting in every way, and the multitudes of applications that would not in any way compensate for a sorry life, from your stupid bumper stickers about you loving everything from Marijuana to your dog. And I really do not want to read the witless quotes from your friends. About your dog.

Yes, I do welcome the fact that reading other people's wall posts got a tiny wee more difficult.

Fuckin' Facebook has gone commercial. They just want to put more ads.

Your mom does not work at wherever she does for free. I still have an unpaid position at The Antifits. Facebook is the cutting edge, having added another realm to the our lives. Call it Web 3.0. Call it human ingenuity. They deserve to make money, liquefy their innovation. and do what they believe would keep it that way. And frankly, you don't matter as much.

Actually you do. 1 in 100,000,000. That is you.

Why does it matter to me so much that they are five million strong for Facebook?

When it was about Pluto, it was cute. Not anymore. The new Facebook is an uncluttered and sophesticated leap in social networking. If you find it confusing, you will sort it out. At least, I hope you have the intelligence for it, which is not a lot. You will get used to it. Getting used to Sarah Palin is a lot mote difficult. I am working on that. So should you.

But all this. Is it symbollic of a bored society? Or a people that literally have no palette for the new? For tomorrow? For the cutting edge? For the innovative. And that worries me.

But man, not as innovative as Sarah Palin. That is John McCain territory. I guess, you need to be a Vietnam POW for such a brave palette.

Farhan Akhtar, you are too cool.

2008-09-13T14:33:00.004-04:00

Oh! What would I do to do a Farhan Akhtar.

Dil Chahta Hai (2001), Lakshya (2004) and now Rock On! (2008). Well, I am just going to forget Don (2006) for a bit!

And man, he sings, dances, emotes and looks a dapper. And comes up with a movie that I recommend. An Antifits recommendation.

Am I recommending a lot or what! But no, seriously. Watch it.

Keith Olbermann on 9/ 11

2008-09-12T16:12:00.002-04:00

I think for this once, The Antifits could do by shutting up.

Did you do Seamless Web yet?

2008-09-10T16:53:00.007-04:00

# 1 among internet- based service companies in the US Deloitte Fast 500.

# 1 on the Crains's list of top 40 business leaders under the age of 40. (Jason Finger, CEO and co - founder)

One of the "50 coolest websites" in the world as designated by the Time Magazine.

But hey, real vindication is that as a college kid, Seamless Web never ceases to amaze me. You know it is for real when Seamless Web is where you go when you need food delivered at four in the morning. Wow! The art is how basic it is, how simple it is. You know it is innovation of the highest order when it seems it was always there, or how easy it seems?

Choose, Click and Order. And in 30 minutes, there is a smiling mexican guy outside your door with your guacamole-laden Burrito.

And unlike Facebook and YouTube where earning is at best ambiguous, "they make money on every transaction." Read this here. And about Jason Finger, CEO and Co- Founder on Crain's here . Apparently, he went to NYU Law.

And if you have not tried Seamless Web, do it. An Antifits recommendation.

Face it, the summer is over.

2008-09-10T08:16:00.010-04:00

I hate to admit it. I am bit of a weather dork. I mean, to an extent that sometimes I find myself checking weather in Anchorage or say, something even more random like Somalia. Trust me, those places always manage to make you feel better.

Apparently I should be careful with Anchorage. Specially with Sarah Palin.

Either how, today was literally the first day of fall in New York. And like it or not, it is autumn in New York. I am excited. I will get corny and cheesy with this picture of the West Village now.

It is time to reclaim the New York of the proverbial romantic comedy. Check the 10- day forecast here. The summer is over.

And look to your right. The latest addition to The Antifits- Our own embedded real time Weatherman. Now be excited. Tell Your friends about it.

Face it, this is the place to be seen checking weather. How could you be anywhere else!

Barack gets it moving, but is it too late?

2008-09-10T07:46:00.005-04:00

Obama: "You can put lipstick on a pig- It's still a pig...You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change, it is still gonna stink after eight years."

Look at Obama's latest commercial. Finally, they get it moving.

But could it be too late? Watch the McCain commercial. Call it obscene. Call it perverse. Or call it whatever you want to call it.

But damn, they bloody know how to get down, and dirty. Maybe, also win elections.

This is actually my first Sarah Palin tagged post. So Mrs. Palin, you even made it to The Antifits.

By the way, while we are at it, read Peggy Drexler's Palin: Don't underestimate the babe factor on The Huffington Post here.

And Maureen Dowd's take on Palin before the Charlie Gibson interview in today's op-ed in The Times here. Recommended.

Two commercials. And all of the contemporary world.

2008-08-30T13:51:00.005-04:00

First, The new Nokia Fourth Screen video used as press material for its Go: Play event .

"It was the end of something. But the start of everything." Wow!

And then Wes Anderson for American Express. Be yourself, specially if you are someone as legitimately cool as the director. American Express realized you let a winner be. Watch it here

This is creativity. On crack.

New York, I love you. In 16 sentences.

2008-08-30T13:12:00.004-04:00

“Everybody’s gonna love today”

“Anyway you got to”

“Love me”

“This is what I have always liked about New York. These little moments on the sidewalks; you can watch the buildings, you can feel the air. You look at the people and sometimes meet somebody who you feel you could talk to”

“Stop it, I feel naked”

“Everyone came from somewhere else”

“This is the capital of everything possible”

“Have a nice night”

“You think we are getting married”

“Are you an actor or something.
You know, what about you? What do you do?
I am a hooker.”

“Make a wish”

“Sometimes you just gotta yell in the city for people to hear you.”

“I quit”

“You know, New York ain’t such a big place.”

“Why you telling me all of this?
Because tonight I want things to change”

“Ahh God, I love New York”

Watch the theatrical teaser of New York, I love you here on HD.

Design your way to loose an election

2008-08-19T11:24:00.006-04:00

Oh Barack! You have to win an election, and you cannot take them without the working class white folks in Ohio or Pennsylvania.

With job losses and the general economy looking more than bleak, having DVF, Derek Lam and Tracy Reese design for your online store might be alienating these folks.

(Artistic rendition of the Obama Campaign by Antara Dayal on sale on the online store)

Read the New York Magazine story here.

I hear you, Barack.

But I am also someone who lives in the heart of the East Village in Manhattan who somehow currently makes do with the sterling pound prices in Edinburgh.

How Starbucks saves my life

2008-08-16T08:53:00.007-04:00

It sucks to be by yourself. In Edinburgh. More so, by the Fringe festival.

But far away from everything, you do know there is a Starbucks round the cornr. Starbucks saves my life.

Oh! The green and the white, tucked in the Royal Mile, perfect TMobile wireless and a Grande Chai latte. America's way of saying "I love you".

Just the New York Times is the Times. But it feels good to be home.

The Frugal traveller will live on.

2008-08-15T04:27:00.006-04:00

Catch Matt Gross at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh here in the last of the Frugal Traveller's grand Europe tour.

Ironically, I am in Edinburgh too. And in the final week of the Fringe.

But I still cannot get over the fact that for the first time in weeks I have reliable wireless without paying TMobile roaming at 0.18 $ a minute, or dodgy pay-as-you-go terminals.

Not ironically, it also coincides with the first time I am staying in a somewhat decent accomodation in the British Isles that has costed me 54 $ a night and is not a dingy Victorian dungeon in the middle of bumblefuck Northern Wales.

Told you, the Frugal Traveller will live on.
___________________________________________________

Update: Although very frugal, I partied amidst Liam Neeson's cousins, 2500 $ Bottle Service and spanking views of Manchester at the much talked about Cloud 23 at the Hilton in Manchester last night. Call it the Manchester bling! And apparently, it is booked till October 23.

Manhattan's on sale, and we ain't invited.

2008-08-02T18:38:00.007-04:00

(Illustration courtsey: Gary Hovland for The New York Times.)

Look at the illustration closely. And then read this.

The Antifits is on The New York Times.

2008-08-02T17:36:00.005-04:00

Half of the outgoing links on The Antifits is to The New York Times. It was about time they returned the favour.

The City Room by Emily J. Reub on The New York Times website featured The Antifits as one of the blogs they are looking at.

And are we blushing or what! Catch us on The New York Times here. We are the first one on the list.

Apparently, This is New York City.

2008-08-01T07:42:00.003-04:00

Is it? Check for yourself. At least, if the city had to be bottled in a 60 second commercial.

The idea behind it is for New York to speak for itself.

At the launch in October 10, 2007 David Doctroff, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development said that for in order "to get to the core of New York City, you simply have to let New York City speak for itself."

We agree, Mayor Bloomberg and Mr. Doctroff.

And in today's world, for someone to speak for itself, it takes a cool $ 30 million well spent.

Check the NYC and Company website here.

We ain't complaining if that is what keeps women world over flocking our shores, while we put the local charm to good use in the bars of Bleecker, and we keep getting our restaurant weeks.

Read the New York Times take on it dated October 11, 2007.

Is Obama the President?

2008-08-01T07:01:00.004-04:00

You have seen him outdo Nixon, Reagan and Kennedy in Berlin.He did everything but hug an Arab in his Middle- East tour. Already high on Bruni, Paris'ians got another charm offensive that was Barack Obama. And poor ol' Brownie- I guess he could not be seen even though he was in the same frame. Though that would have taken a lot less than Obama.

But the question is, is Obama the President?

Here is your answer at http://www.isobamapresident.com/

_________________________________________________________

I have had a little unforeseen break from The Antifits because of the unfortunate demise of my Grandfather, with whom I was very close.

RIP Bachhraj Dugar (1934- 2008)

This fall, something bigger and better.

2008-07-17T03:10:00.005-04:00

Internet is an unforgiving place. But done right, possibilities on the web are limitless.

With that idea, I am talking to Ken Hsu of the Dumbjock fame for a possible amalgamation, with a bigger and a better product.

We have been raised by The New York Times, and we strictly believe until and unless we give you words of that quality, we should rather just redirect you to the NY Times homepage.

But with Ken, we have certain ideas that would premiere something new this fall. And I am excited for it.

What happens to the Antifits?

The Antifits is and remains as it always would be. It would continue as it does with sporadic and utter randomness. This idea of something bigger stems from the fact that we, as individual bloggers, have understood this world better. Hence, nothing undermines what I learnt from The Antifits and it still remains a priority that I feel very strongly about.

And I am pulsatingly excited for it.

And Ken, before the big premiere this fall, we want to you to write your first guest column here at The Antifits.

___________________________________________________________________

Update on August 1, 2008: Ken Hsu has done it again, and The Antifits lauds the creativity of the man. Check it out here at http://www.kennycity.com/

Hard to keep grades up, Mom.

2008-07-13T13:57:00.010-04:00

If this blog is about the tribulations of a college kid, funny how Facebook never came up. Even funnier is how we as college kids in Manhattan forget that we are college kids after all.

Anyways, little did I know Facebook would force itself in. Or a Facebook application.

As Apple made thinner laptops and iPhones and bigger dividends, and Microsoft battled for Yahoo to do a Google, Facebook did a Facebook with the little chat platform on the right bottom of the screen. And for this to sink in, I say wait till the end of the first academic term since its inception to see how it would eat our academic productivity.

"It is too darn intrusive on my privacy."

"Dude, look this is the bitch down the hall I slept with. How fuckin' awkward."

Of course, what Facebook did was nothing new. GTalk has been there for a while, and my fellow Macintosh mates would tell you, nothing beats doing a video with your roommate when you in the toilet and he in his desk on iChat.

But what Facebook did right was give access to your 500+ buddies, and yes, that included the bitch you slept with.

And sometimes awkward can quickly turn into fun. It just needs a little reconciliation.

Obama wants history, Merkel sees red.

2008-07-10T10:55:00.005-04:00

Obama wanted to pull a Kennedy. The German Chancellor saw red.

Obama wanted the address in Berlin to happen at the Brandenburg Gate, which lay behind the Berlin Wall for three decades and where Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton have made memorable speeched.

What our Senator forgot that they were all Presidents, and not Presidential candidates.

And what has ensued in Germany is the division of the ruling coalition, with conservative Chancellor Merkel disapproving the use of the historic monument as backdrop for the campaign trail, while Social Democratic Frank- Walter Steinmeier, who is the Vice- Chancellor and the Foreign minister all for the Obama visit.

Adding to this heady cocktail is Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, who senses Barack Obama is prime- time material. The address would bring thousands from across the country and neighboring countries to Berlin, and well, a possible photo- op for himself.

Well, Who does not want a piece of Obama?

Read the New York Times take on it.

Addition on Thursday, July 17- Why Merkel sees red, and what Germany really thinks of it all, read the Op- Ed in The New York Times this week by Christopher Peters here.

Where the hell was I?

2008-07-10T08:46:00.002-04:00

I owe an apology.

In case you have been wondering where the f*** am I, I am in India right now. Not a hip backpacker. Just visiting home.

But this past month I have been all about Where the hell is Matt?

You might have seen the video already. You might have been already recommended, or yourself recommended it to someone. It is all over the web, and even on the most read section of The New York Times.

Call it unbridled creativity. Call it the idea of humanity, and the world it dwells in. All that matters is there is a precious few in the world that is nearly as beautiful as Matt dancing. Watch it on HD here.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

And yes, I am already planning a trip to Iceland to catch the Northern Lights this winter. For starters, Reykjavik is warmer than New York City in December/ January.

I have my fingers crossed that it works out.

Thank You, Matt.

The New York Times makes me cool.

2008-06-11T03:24:00.018-04:00

I have been intending to write this for a while. But right now, it has never been more apparent.

The New York Times decides my day.

Let’s scan through my last two days in the city. I saw Take Out , what Nathan Lee in the Times called the most “freshest, most sympathetic movie about making your way in Manhattan.”

I got back home, read David Brooke’s latest column The Great Seduction. I made a vow to be more prudent with money.

Then I thought my financial behavior was a plague of my generation, as my minds traced back to a New York Times take on Young New Yorkers Make a Brand New Start of it, on the cheap.

Then came Friedman’s latest column, and it made me feel good about Obama, about America. I was put too bed.

The New York Times put me too bed.

I got up this morning, missed class and as I clumsily sat on my bed, scratching my eyes and balls, I got back to where I left of.

www.nytimes.com/pages/movies

I decided I really could not afford to see The Grocer’s Son, a surprise hit in France. I had a crew call for a shoot at two. And anyways, The Times introduction of me and French cinema has ended up putting me in the uncomfortable position of Film School at Tisch.

But I needed culture. I took the subway to the Gagosian Gallery for Roy Lichtenstein’s exhibition of pop art depicting women.

I finished my shoot. And then I passed the Wine Store on Broadway. Armed with a bookmark of Wine of the Times on my iPhone by Eric Asimov in the Times, I brought a bottle of Graffigna San Juan 2004.

Back at my Financial District apartment, I uncorked the bottle and got back to my computer. I opened the T magazine that had a profile of Kerala, my plantation home back in India. I don't care if the Financial District has had a resurgence and my summer address is the iconic 200 Water Street, I needed the Subcontinent.

I think I screwed up though with the New York Times. Not just because Morgan Stanley thinks so.

I listened too much to Jeffrey Marcus, editor of Goal!, the soccer blog in the sports section of the Times, almost believing that Euro 2008 in the city could substitute Oysters by the seaport. I asked a girl for a soccer game in the city (Germany Vs Croatia) at Nevada Smith's. Next thing I know she was busy with work.

I realized the New York Times will print everything that is fit to print. And if you interpret a soccer game with you feeling good with the Hoegaarten's as a place to take a girl out, you are stupid. Not the Times.

Missing home, I called Kenny, editor of The Dumb Jock and in Los Angeles for the summer, and we talked The Times some more.

Then I thought why just talk the Times.

Write the Times. And hence, this blog

Twenty- five blocks between us is a world apart

2008-05-17T22:56:00.008-04:00

In case you have been wondering all this while where this blog comes from, it is Café Esperanto. Right in the village, MacDougal Street to be precise, always open, ideas come easy in this place.

Café Esperanto is my idea of the West Village- Marc Jacobs, more chic-than- thou hipsters, 5$ latte’s, and unbridled creativity. And lord, it is always open. For that to sink in, let me do it another way. It never closes.

That's Esperanto on MacDougal, and a loud cheers for Kenny for introducing me to it. Once he got it right.

But all that is going to change. I am moving for the summer to the Financial District.

They say that the Financial District has had resurgence. I am two blocks from the seaport, stones throw from Strand, and Gold Street is the buzz apparently.

Apparently, a walk around my new neighborhood revealed that buzz is a very relative term.

I almost shed a tear for the West Village. God knows if I will ever make enough money to someday come back to the New York you see in romantic comedies. After all, I lived in Bob Dylan’s Positively Fourth Street, and I have done the great bars of Bleecker with pajamas and flip- flops, not thought much of bars with a twenty beers on tap, made plans at three in the morning and yet survived to tell the tale.

So, this is a very last post from Café Esperanto, from a place where they don’t need to know that my order is a Non- Fat Chai Latte and the waitresses could be lingerie models up in the fashion houses by the meatpacking district.

Mind you, the seedy shit was fun too. Even all the angels that came from outside (Long Island), had no halo, had no father..

I know I am just moving twenty-five blocks downtown and I will be fine. But if New York has taught me one thing, it is that the bloody darn neighborhood matters.

And Financial District better have had a resurgence.

Change we will

2008-05-16T17:09:00.010-04:00

Right from Iowa to my New York City to West Virginia, the primaries and the caucuses have moved across America, save Oregon, Kentucky, Montana and South Dakota, and three weeks from the showdown at the Democratic National Convention the Nomination for November ‘08 is not yet certain. But damn, have we come a long way or what from, say, January 4th, when Iowans braved a Midwest winter to get the ball of Democracy rolling?

I go to school at The New York University. I live in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. I am writing this from a legalize-marijuana-I-am-gay- five bucks for a cup of coffee café on Waverly Place. Ironically, it is called Joe’s. Obviously Joe’s is not for the average Joe. But Average Joe, take heart, this election has been about you.

It is about you going on the streets shouting your voice hoarse. It is about you convincing your Conservative Dad that old school for the first time is not legit. It is about that Obama Fleece sweatshirt with a hoodie that saw you through winter. It is eating a 99 cents Ramen Noodles while getting E- Mails from Barack or Hillary asking you to donate. It is the cute brunette working on the photocopy machine, and this time you know for starters that she is a liberal. It is about getting horribly drunk at a Fundraiser but seek redemption in the fact that the end justified the means. It is talking politics at weird hours, and political jargon being used to talk normal things. It is about crashing in with people you don’t know in places you haven’t been before, but knowing that somehow all that matters is who makes it to the Oval Office this January. It is about you knowing that it is you who is the star in the Star- Spangled banner.

Three weeks, and we will have our candidate. Hillary and Barack won’t matter as much in our lives. A portly old man called John McCain will pop in our radars. The Democratic Party would not be divided again. As Democrats, we would have found the bigger evil, the Republicans. And people might bill Hillary Vs Barack as a nomination race unlike any other; it is nothing but an illustration of the fact that how much we do not want to concede it to the Republicans.

In this country, they say that when you are 19, you think you are a liberal. But when you are 35, you know that you are a Republican. They might call us college kids whatever they want, but damn, as kids in College in the United States, we have seen our friends shipped to Iraq and Afghanistan. We have answered for America abroad, when they have questioned us about a Washington in which we have little stake. Some of us have graduated out of college to an America that is in an economic recession. It has been a while since Editorials in Newspapers in this country have made us glad about being an American. Never has America been so constantly maligned. If a Dinner is intimate, it is French. If a dinner is unhealthy, no wonder these Americans are so bloody darn obese. It is a world in which the Russians are resurgent, the Chinese are the new superpowers, the French are always thin, no one wants to buy the U.S. Dollar and the Europeans are the ones you want to be. I call this Anyone but America syndrome. And there in lies what needs to change, come 2009.

But change we will. You know why? Because this is America. As much there is wrong now, there is something inherently right. You know what is that..

I am an Indian. Yet I feel I am the star of the Star-Spangled Banner.

Read my endorsement of Sentaor Obama here.

Wake up, America.

2008-04-16T12:36:00.005-04:00

This came as a shocker. I am a student at The New York University and my page upload was a mere 213 Kilobytes per second.

For starters, I am a student in one of the most expensive and the top research schools in the world, paying an expected $240, 000 for education over the next four years.

Upload speeds back home in Noida, India are about five times, and the broadband plan costs about $ 54 a month. Check the specifics here.

More so considering I am bang in the middle of Manhattan. And we are comparing it to India, and not the more technologically advanced East Asian countries.

Otherwise you would have looked worse.

And yes, in case you were wondering, India has a GDP per capita of 750 $, compared to America's $ 43, 444.

Wake up, America. And you are now a 16th in broadband speeds in the world.

And slipping.

Call it conceptual Art. Call it utter nonsense.

2008-04-01T15:30:00.014-04:00

An Armani pencil-fitted shirt and a Target boxer. Christian Dior Higher gcologne and socks worn inside out. Cigarette stubs and the April edition of Men’s Health. The New York Post and Marx’s Communist Manifesto. A half- empty bottle of a 2005 Spanish Red, but Wine nonetheless. And everything else, from Paper to Paul Mitchell, empty bottles that that filled Artesian Water from Fiji or forty ounces of Budweiser Light and Laundry bags filled to the brim, assignments and take- out from the Diner across the street. And a sea of wires that make life possible in a wireless world.

This is the shoebox existence of an almost twenty Manhattaner in university, a series of contradictions waiting to be flattened as youth passes by and stability ensues. Or why a Sunday morning does not necessarily reflect the elation and exuberance that is a Saturday night, or why an almost twenty is not yet marriageable, and needs a couple of internships and some years in college before he has a job. But whatever it might be, is it art?

Call it Conceptual Art. Call it utter nonsense. Or call it just the times we live in. But a bed with the sheets stained with body secretions, the floor with things from the her room, from condoms to knickers with menstrual period strains to slippers, just the way Tracey Emin found it to be after a suicidal depression kept her in it for days almost won the Turner Prize in 1999.

View the image of here.

It's a pity that Tracy Emin found Charles Saatchi before I did.

(This is an excerpt of my second progression for the New York University Expository Writing Program. For the whole 1430 words of it, leave your request on the comments or drop me an E- Mail at sd1222@nyu.edu. You just might be glad you read it before it came on your morning newspaper.)

Sarkozy needs a shrink, and some paternal love.

2008-03-27T22:15:00.012-04:00

Apparently, Sarkozy needs a shrink.

Living in Manhattan means that I would not read much into that statement, but a head of state for approximately 60 Million people needing a psychiatrist is not a very snug feeling.

But say whatever you might, Sarkozy does like to kiss a bit of ass. The man loves the applause. It is not really a bad thing for a politician actually.

Britons who might have been elated at the speech he gave, something that could be read from my last post, might want to recall the speech he made in Washington DC. It was almost blatant in his explicit in his vindication for the Americans, something that ostensibly did not fall into place after the disastrous last seven years.

Watch the speech here.

It makes sense, doesn’t it? Le Monde reports that there might be something else about Sarkozy and his ways. One shrink reiterates his attention seeking ways and his dire need to be the headlines as the lack of paternal love he got as a child.

Either ways, one expert put is best, when he said, “What makes Sarkozy live in Politics is his being.”

Either ways, he does not stop fascinating me.

Not just bling and pomp perhaps: Sarkozy in the United Kingdom

2008-03-27T20:20:00.016-04:00

Some are not amused by Sarkozy. Rest are vowed.

Simon Boggart put it best in the title for his Gaurdian column. Say what you want, but with the audience in front of him, few can beat Nicholas Sarkozy.

The French President was on a state visit to Britain, albeit a short one of 36 hours. And what followed was a lesson on bling and pomposity, as only perfected by the British. You don’t want to miss this. Catch this BBC Snippet.

It is easy in the past few months not to have taken Sarkozy seriously. I hate to bring up Carla Bruni up again, but few would have given him a shot with his stay at Windsor Castle overlapping with a nude shot of her resurfacing for an auction at Christie’s and not that forgiving British paparazzi.

Instead Sarkozy lathered the British with Sucre à la Creme to an extent that the British did not know what to do with this adulation. Sample this.

"How many armadas has your nation defeated? How many battles has it won which everyone thought lost? In the hearts and minds, even of those who fought against it, your nation has stood through its respect of the Other, its tolerance, its way of life, its freedom of spirit which has been forged throughout a long history full of sound and fury."

Read the text here he made to the British Law- Makers.

Simon Hoggart writes in his column titled in The Gaurdian, “ He loves us. He adores us. He reveres us! Listening to Nicolas Sarkozy address Parliament...was like being underneath a torrent of crème Chantilly [whipped cream] sprayed from a high-pressure hose. He actually said 'thank you' for the liberation [of France by the Allies in World War II]! Previous French presidents have implied that events in Normandy were mere skirmishes [,] while the French got on with the job of throwing off the German yoke. But...Sarkozy could not thank us enough."

As much as there is out there that might suggest otherwise, his 36- hours in London just wasn’t ostentation of the most blatant kind As Bronwen Maddox, chief- foreign affairs correspondent put it, "Sarkozy will get what he wants from this visit, with speeches in the Commons...and hours of meetings today with Gordon Brown and other ministers. It will relaunch him as a statesman (he hopes), and distract critics from his whirlwind courtship of Bruni, his paralyzed plans for reform of [France's] economy and his party's defeat in local elections a few weeks ago."

He is not stupid, is he? After all, he came in with a mandate for reform in France. That calls for a political brilliance beyond our comprehension.

Amidst all this, what happened to poor old Gordon? Apparently, the British Prime Minister got lost. The Daily Mail in a headlines shouted Ou est Gordon? And for a dash of humor, please check this report which has got loads of pictures from the official state banquet. She is easily one of the most beautiful women in the world.

And damn, with Bruni, like it or not, Sarkozy again walked away with what he wanted.

Someone get me out of New York, if you please.

Jaguar and Land Rover: TATA's acquires more of the West

2008-03-26T21:14:00.010-04:00

Cheers to the British, and Ratan Tata.

Indian conglomerate Tata brought two iconic British brands, Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motors for an estimated $ 2.3 Billion.

The Times of India in a very paparazzi-ed headlines shouted “Jaguar is now an Indian beast.” Though such acquisitions and mergers are commonplace now in India with it globally integrated economy, one must consider the fact that it is an Indian conglomerate buying British icons that raises such a call for elation. Business Week wondered if fifty years ago Sir Winston Churchill or the Queen could have ever imagined the world would come to that.

And the British, from the linchpins of the imperialist order today stand as the embodiment of how to make Globalization work for you. Bill Clinton in his 1992 Presidential Bid said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” But it’s the British who did the best follow- up on that. Today, Tata itself owns iconic British brands such as Corus, erstwhile British Steel, Tetley and now, Jaguar and Land Rover. Today in London, Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, met fourteen delegates from the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), which included heads of companies like Ranbaxy, Hindustan motors, Nicholas Piramal and Jet Airways. A lot has changed in the last few years, and by seeing itself as a stakeholder in an Indian economic resurgence, Britain has been one of the prime beneficiaries. Read it here.

And again, what can one say about Ratan Tata. In him is what India can and should be. Growing up in New Delhi, the Tata timeline seems to be dotted along my lifeline. I am not a nationalist or do I take any overt pride in a Rising India, but one must say that every morning I run around Central Park West, and see The Pierre, one of New York’s glitziest brought over by the Tata- controlled Indian Hotels, I cannot feel anything else but my heart flutter.

At the Geneva Motor Show last month, Ratan Tata, the patriarch of the Tata Congolmerate, said, “We are conscious that the brands belong to Britain. These brands will continue to belong to Britain.” That’s humility, Mr. Tata. But you own them now.

Touché to that, and a new India.

For more on TATA and who owns the Vitamin Water you drink, click here.

Liverpool meets Providence for 10 Euros: The skies are open.

2008-03-25T21:11:00.011-04:00

The new transatlantic open-skies agreement goes into effect in five days.

Michael O’ Leary, as the Chief Executive of Ryan Air, knows a thing or two about flying.

He says he might be spinning of an airline connecting Tier- II Towns transatlantic, so for a base fare of 10 Euros; you could fly between Providence and Liverpool, Baltimore and Birmingham.

Earlier, the United States had to negotiate with individual nations. The negotiations entailed that Airlines could only take off or land in their native countries, and each airlines had specific airports they could serve.

Simply meaning Lufthansa had Frankfurt, and Air France had Charles De Gaulle in Paris.

All that would hopefully be history with this new aviation policy. The Antifits believe more connectivity can only bring people closer and prices lower. Capitalism can sing a sweet tune, if we allow it too.

European Integration would not have been where it is right now, had there been no hoards of the English and the Germans off every available bit of sun, sea and the sand in Europe. And whenever people doubt the functionality of the union, it would be great to look at the Spanish tourists that throng all over Europe. The Spanish have had it good the last twenty odd years being in the Union, and it’s utterly sweet to see that get reflected in the numbers that travel, living a Europe and a reality different from the one their parents lived in.

Dresden is a city of 500, 000 that received 3,000,000 tourists who stayed overnight, and it’s not the biggest secret that a lot of the spanking new transformation of this East German city, something that contradicts the rest of the state of Saxony or the East for that matter, would have not been possible with federal budgeting.

Yes, It won’t be all that bad if Americans moved around a bit more. And that just isn’t a New Yokk yuppie talking.

Kentucky meets Cote d’Azure. Keep your fingers crossed.

In today's Manhattan, we could do with a little bit of a slump.

2008-03-24T21:51:00.009-04:00

It’s always good to be back in Manhattan.

And like as anyone would tell you about New York, a lot can happen in twelve days.

One of New York’s financial firms, Bear Sterns, collapsed. JP Morgan brought it for 270 Million; ten times divided its worth.

And such are the times that JP Morgan is seen as a liberator, rather than having pulled of a coup.

They say that the city is in a recession.

A lot would be said about it. A lot will be heard about it. But as of now, New York prices have not gone anywhere. Real Estate looks as strong as it did a while ago, and for anyone having a doubt that Manhattan has been on a roll for a while, to quote a New York Times Fashion and Style report by Michael Barbaro and Christine Haughney, witness the Marc Jacobs-ization of the West Village, the surging average price of a two-bedroom apartment in Harlem to $1.1 million, and the rise of $15 tubs of ice cream in, of all places, the Lower East Side, at Il Laboratorio del Gelato.

But as much as the bankers moisturize Manhattan with all that liquidity, as a humble Liberal Arts major at New York University, a little bit of a slump could not be all that bad.

More so, if it keeps the rents down, good dinners more frequent and helps me keep that West Village existence intact.

Damn, I love New York more than ever. And a recession does not do that too many cities.

Thank You for Old Europe..

2008-03-23T03:56:00.013-04:00

Elaine Sciolini in his parting shot as the New York Times correspondent in Paris gave A Guide to the French on March 23d, 2003.

Read it here.

Handle with care.

Sitting in the Cologne Airport having one last opulent French Breakfast counting out the minutes before the much- maligned 757 takes me to Newark and I seal the lid on the Euro Trip Spring '08 edition, I couldn’t agree more.

Donald Rumsfeld, The American Secretary of Defense, once labeled the French and the Germans regarding the opposition to the war in Iraq in 2003 Old Europe.

A Europe that did not matter, and surely wasn’t relevant.

But damn, nothing does it for me better than Old Europe.

And it does not take the falling American economy, a war that should not have been sanctioned, and then gone on for so long, or all that is blatant about being in America at this point of time.

It just takes standing, as in the picture, on the Neustadt on the other side of the Elbe for a view of Altstadt Dresden that stands eternal in time, or just sitting back and letting a Pils do it for you as your train pierces through a countryside that makes the Grimm Brothers come alive.

And Dresden isn't just history. They have a bar- hopping district in the Neustadt with about 200 bars that erupt with nightlife of the very first order.

Europe is special. And the world would do better to learn from it.

Pity Rumsfeld never realized that.

A word of thanks for all the conversations I have had through these couple of weeks and the people I have met, and all that talk from the Euro, to French women being sexually active till late 60's, and to dark Beer being for women.

That's what a German told me. I don't intend any pun at the Irish. I have nothing but the utmost regard for the Guiness.

And yes, I only go to come back.

It takes the Euro to be nostalgic about New York..

2008-03-14T04:47:00.009-04:00

I am trans- Atlantic.

Even though sipping a Tall Caramel Macchiato in a Starbucks am Domkloster in Cologne doesn’t make it very pertinent that I have made the hop across the puddle.

What does make it very pertinent though is the 3. 70 € I paid for it.

Yes, it is easy to miss New York.

Bill Clinton in 1992 bid put it best when he said, “It’s about the economy, stupid.” And as much as Paul Krugman tells us that the economy is going down, whether President Bush’s stimulus plan works or not, the fact remains that the United States is the greatest economy in the planet.

And it is pretty blatant when a bottle of Mineral Water from the volcanoes of Auvergne, France Volvic costs less in New York than in Cologne.

But I would not be complaining. I have the greatest piece of Gothic architecture in the Kölner Dom outside my window. And even though the skies are grey and the weather every bit groggy it is what Europe always was and is going to be. Beautiful.

But another realization has struck me is that to understand things, you have to be there. As much as we celebrate the Euro, and yes, in a greater perspective European integration, we miss a little bit of perspective. And as I have been talking to a lot of people, in the airport and in the trains in the past few hours, one thing is explicit in its conformity.

The Euros isn't perfect, and it is bloody darn expensive.

Agreed, what would a barista at Starbucks know?

And either ways, the banks in Frankfurt would do fine. But why should a barista in Starbucks in Cologne pay up for economic growth in Bucharest.

But he does, whether he likes it or not. And that poses the greatest question on European integration. Who does it serve?

And yes, a decent flight could be run with a 757 Boeing. Continental just showed me that.

Of Manhattan, Women and Presidential Campaigns..

2008-03-08T21:40:00.010-05:00

Thank You Adam Brooks and the makers of Definitely, Maybe.

As a young hopeful in the Barack Obama ’08 campaign, and a man who adores being in New York City, I just had to write about it.

William Haze moves from Madison, WI to New York City to work in Clinton’s 1992 bid for election as the 42nd President of the United States. And what follows is his pursuits in love and in life, with Manhattan as his accomplice.

Everybone who has made speeches in front of shaving mirrors, gone inside dingy campaign offices to be working with people who seem to have all the quirks in the world, eaten bagels for all the three meals of the day from the sidewalks of New York City and still believed in the inherent ideals that dictate the art of Politics as something for the better of the world we live in, go and watch it. If you have been involved in other liberal campaigns, you would also testify the fact that there is more than a smattering of interesting women.

Another reason to be a liberal, I guess.

They don't get fat. They have great sex. And yes, They are French.

2008-03-07T22:58:00.014-05:00

“French women ‘are the sexual predators now’.”

That is, if The Telegraph and the 12, 000 odd women interviewed for The Study on Sexuality in France are to be believed.

Read The Telegraph piece here.

The Antifits has always believed that in Europe lays the hope keep on with the French for the rest of the international community. Nothing beats me how the Germans take it when repeated French governments find the entire fault with Frankfurt for their own economic imprudence. But they do, and in recent years, Germany has never been stronger. Charlemagne in this week's Economist a fabulous insight on it.

They don't get fat. They have great sex. And yes, They are French. But can we in the French women see where we in this world of Venus and Mars are heading?

The report says that sexual behavior of men and women have gone increasingly similar. One in five men in France find sex boring, or have little interest in it. On the other hand, Women have gone increasingly assertive.

The Telegraph cites Le Nouvel Observateur, which says, “The good old dichotomy (male predators, females patiently awaiting the warrior’s return in front of the cave entrance) is in big trouble.”

There’s something we could all learn from the French. But unfortunately, that is often neither Politics nor Economics.

Either ways, I got my ticket booked to Europe next week.

How a bottle of water could teach the Democrats a thing or two..

2008-03-05T23:04:00.011-05:00

My life is such these days that I spend 3 $ on a bottle of water, and I don’t think of it as anything fancy. What matters to me that it’s Artesian, and it has all this wonderful Silica.

I am, obviously, talking about Fiji, bottled in an aquifer in a virgin ecosystem at the edge of a primitive rainforest, thousands of miles away from an industrialized continent.

I can’t think of 3 $ buying anything more in today’s world.

But also, Manhattan rubs in. Just the other day, I got a carton of Pure American, a generic Walgreen’s supermarket brand. It was ridiculously cheap, about 4 $ for a carton of twelve 500 ml bottles. Brimming with satisfaction from the coup I just pulled off, I got back home. And damn, did I know that a generic supermarket brand could put me through such ridicule from my roommate.

And since then, I taste Water.

3 $ Water Bottles are not what college kids do. But this is what I tell myself. In the Modern Bottled Water industry lays the possibilities of the modern world. With a flick of that debit card, you could be sipping water from artesian wells in St. Jana off the Adriatic Coast, or taste the exceptional purity of Icelandic Glacial Water, or have a touch of chic with New York’s own Fred, or have Volvic that has the crisp finish of ancient volcanoes of the Auvergne in France.

And yes, if you still believe that water is nothing but two atoms of Hydrogen and one of Oxygen getting together and doing their thing, you might want to try the Crystal Geyser they sell at Starbucks. You might as well not drink water.

But with all this water business, the Democrats better get their positions on Globalization straight, if the recent bickering between Clinton and Obama on NAFTA was anything to go by. If artesian water from Fiji could be gurgling my mouth right now, Globalization is here to stay.

For America, for the world: Barack Obama.

2008-03-05T00:43:00.005-05:00

As I am writing this, Texas is at the Caucus. But Barack Obama just minutes ago made his speech to his supporters in San Antonio, Texas. God, what a race it has been!

One expects him not to firing in all cylinders, but again, how can one not like him? The message of reconciliation was there again, congratulating Hillary on victories in Rhode Island and Ohio, and so was every other Obama’ esque element of speech- making. People who have been following him on the campaign trail would know what I am talking about. The inherent positivity and this incredible definition of America, something that is almost as powerful as it is lyrical.

“Can we send a message to all those weary travelers beyond our shores who long to be free from fear and want that the United States of America is, and always will be, ‘the last best, hope of Earth.”

Standing in Texas, that’s probably risky business.

"And if that child should ever get the chance to travel the world, and someone should ask her where she is from, we believe that she should always be able to hold her head high with pride in her voice when she answers “I am an American.”

“The world is watching what we do here. The world is paying attention to how we conduct ourselves. What will we they see? What will we tell them? What will we show them?”

Barack realizes that what happens at the Oval Office in Washington matters to geographies far across. The world is thankful for that, Barack! This is just emblematic of what makes me confident about Barack; a man really considerate of people in general, whether American or from anybody else. That is sanctity of life in it's truest essence.

This isn't just rhetoric. America, make him your President. The world would be thankful for it.

Read the full text of the speech here.

It's Med-VEHD-ev, guys.

2008-03-04T12:56:00.002-05:00

Dmitri Medvedev is the new President of Russia.

Such was the integrity of the election that some Moscow newspapers did not seem to deem the new President newsworthy enough to put him on the headlines.

Medvedev said he would step down from the Chairmanship at Gazprom. Sources close to United Russia and said Vladmir Putin would replace him.

What the heck is going on?

Welcome to the new Russia. Ironical is that the New seems to be a lot like the old.

Anyways, start learning how to pronounce the new president. It’s Med-VEHD-ev. You might get some extra credit for that at the weekend socials.

Of Sarkozy and the Germans..

2008-03-02T13:24:00.006-05:00

What’s up with Nicholas Sarkozy? If people haven’t yet had second thoughts about him, they should look at The Economist this week, which has this take on French foreign policy as it talks about President Sarkozy’s plan for the Mediterranean Union being in trouble.
Mediterranean Union?

His idea is called the “Appeal of Rome”. And is a little arrogant in its magnanimity as it talks about a union that would “overcome all hatred” and bring peace and civilization to the reason that is the cradle of European Culture.

It would not be very surprising if this idea would not go past the drawing board! The Blue marks the proposed Union.

But apparently, Berlin is not very happy with it.

Could I blame them? France having a proactive Foreign Policy is one thing, but it almost seems that Sarkozy is big on pissing people, more so the Germans. If Angela Merkel feels that it is almost as if the whole idea in conceptualized to undermine the Germans and the present EU, could she be blamed for it?

“The Germans are very sensitive to the principle of prior consultation,” wrote Jean- Pierre Jouyet, the French Europe Minister.

I would be sensitive if I had been so integral to something as Germany has been to the European Union, and not be on the guest list for the proposed Paris meeting on July 13th. And more so, if I might end up footing the bill for this would- be Parisian extravaganza.

Even I am running out of reasons to like him.

Saturday Morning laundry

2008-03-01T13:58:00.006-05:00

(Since the Antifits has also something to do with the tribulations of a Political Science Major here in Mahattan, I just thought it would be incomplete without a Saturday morning laundry incident. And in this world where it seems we need a little bit of humor, I guess I thought I should ease it a bit.)

I had a free Laundry today.

The Detergent was Kenny's.

The Washing Machine was all of Nina and Julie.

And anyone doubting the Bay Area's economic prowess better take it up the ass since it was Ms. Reisner who paid for the expansive drying the massive accumulation of a month took. And her Campus Cash, by the way, has enough on it to do my Laundry in its entirety a three- hundred- fifty times.

And getting up Lydia to tell the tale.

Yet it was a difficult time.

Saturday morning's are never easy. I looked like a tool, wore shoes without socks, and a T- Shirt which found place in the clearance section of H and M when they were new. They are now three years old. The in- house phrase is that I looked like a Dodo. The Dodo is a flightless bird endemic to the Indian ocean islands of the Mauritius. Redemption comes on the fact the Dodo is part of the Mauritian Coat of Arms.

Ostensibly, the tiny state of Mauritius has a lot going for itself!
And Ruthie, if you have a conscious, you should think about giving some of that Campus Cash to Mauritius. Maybe adopt a child.

I was wearing shorts too. But yes, the Shorts were not mine either. They belonged to Kenny.

But NYU needs to give a serious rethink. If you want the kids to make Saturday mornings productive, as my intentions were, better have something working. And yes, an Asian at the Desk does not work. As I told him the Campus Machine did not work, he threw some technical jargon at me how to top my Campus Cash online. Of course, I was unsuccessful at it. Or even better was that he thought I could use the Machine on Weinstein. At 10 in the morning, when it was freezing, and when I was dressed to kill, Across the park is almost like Across the Universe.
Only though sitting through Across the Universe was a little more difficult.

Yes, all the guides you read before College told you to do Laundry on Friday and Saturday mornings. The reason being that as a future generation of America readies itself after a night of severe intoxication, random hook- ups, and puke in the hallway, Laundry is the last thing on their minds.

But trust me, the Laundry is empty because of a reason.

And the fantasy of meeting a smokin' hot babe in the laundry room is impossible. A Saturday morning laundry room resembles an assortment of people who would be the Geek Squad who would wet their pants seeing Star Wars, the Gamers who never got laid and a random white guy. Apart from that random white dude, all of them would be Asian.

And all said and done, I got the Laundry done for free and I am Asian myself. A loud Thank You to everybody who made it possible!

And while at it, I had the most raucous debate of my life with a random dude (yes, an Asian) whether the new ThinkPad X300 could ever be as good as the MacBook Air.

Saturday morning laundry, Damn!

I still cannot understand the random white dude..

Sport and the heady days of Childhood; who needs Politics?

2008-02-17T22:03:00.002-05:00

I just got back after seeing Ano em Que Meus Pais Saíram de Férias (International: The Year My Parents went on Vacation). The movie happens to be the Brazilian selection for the Academy Best Foreign film, charts the events of Brazilian history 1970 through a 12-year-old kid’s eyes. I don’t have a movie review here, but as I saw the movie, I could not help but reflect on an India I grew up in.

I grew up in India of the nineties. Fresh of about half a century of socialism, I grew up in that inert period between those times and the blatant consumerism that defines times today, when politics was defined by confusion everywhere. Damn, I still remember those embarrassing Third Front Governments that were around between the Narsimha Rao’s Congress Government and the National Democratic Alliance years between 1999 and 2004 characterized by the charismatic leadership of Atal Behari Vajpyee. We did not have the brashness of today’s Urban India, none of the French Connection’s and Sex and the City lifestyles, or any of the swagger a weak Dollar and a Strong Rupee has brought.

But from nothing, during the course of my lifetime, somewhere the script changed. The Bombay Sensitive Index went from 2800 to 20,000 in the last ten years, property prices went an average 500% in the National Capital Region. Bottomline being that India was swash with liquidity, Bentleys rolled in, Bollywood made better movies and it became an interesting place to live in.

Now, as a Politics Major, I look back at that period, but I have no recollection of all that churn my childhood should have been. I live in a city that did not exist ten years ago in a map. I grew up in India of the nineties. A McDonald’s opening was news, and I have driven across the city to eat a Cheeseburger. On the day of the fiftieth year of Indian independence in 1997, a McDonalds came in my neighborhood. Nothing ever really happened. Television was either cricket games that India invariably lost or government broadcasting stations that had no programming after 2200 hours. Then, late nineties we had Cartoon Network. Bollywood films were always romance with the stars in GAP, complete with kitsch song and dances shot in the Swiss Alps, and had happy endings. Yes, a GAP fleece hoodie was what we wanted. Boys read Hardy Boys. Girls read Sweet Valley. Enid Blyton reached a unisex audience. Till the triumvirate of Nike, Adidas and Reebok came in the latter half, our concept of a sports shoe was no frills white canvas. Till 1996, India had three cars you could choose from. The bestseller was the Ambassador, Indian for the 1966 Morris.

Today, my Study back home is a veritable museum of Apple. I don’t think New York of any different than New Delhi, and young people in both places have more of the same lifestyles than different. Somewhere I should have felt the pinch of a skyline that did not exist coming up and an unprecedented economic growth only superseded in human history by Modern China.

But my answers lay in that kid, the protagonist of the Brazilian movie, and not in any politics textbook. History might remember that era as something else, maybe they might call it the roaring 90's, but for me that is childhood. It was more Cricket than anything else. And we were darn excited about live streaming of cricket games. I still remember Sachin Tendulkar walking out in the Semi- Finals and a 120, 000 disappointed fans at the Eden Gardens in Calcutta, as India lost the 1996 Edition of the Cricket World Cup to the eventual winners, Sri Lanka. Just like with Pele, Tostao and Rivelino, it was easy to ignore everything, even politics, but Soccer.

Sport and the heady days of Childhood; who needs Politics?

Yes, there is a world on the other side of the Atlantic!

2008-02-14T11:25:00.005-05:00

Being in America can means that you almost detach yourself from what’s happening around the world. So, as the Presidential Election of 2008 gets a little overboard, and Senator Obama’s speeches gets a little repetitive (Yes Michelle, we know that your husband, above all, is a good man!), I just thought it would be nice to give it all a little break, and look on the other side of the Atlantic…

But more than anything, it is Tony. Yes, I am a Blairite, and a blatant one at that.

Tony Blair wants the EU Presidency. Yes, you heard that right. If that sounds ironical since Tony comes from a country that is not yet clear about where it stands on the union, think about poor old Gordon. After ten years of having Tony take all the credit for his economics and have a ringside view of it all from 11 Downing, he might have him now in Brussels. And damn, as America tries to imagine a Bill and Hillary saga in the White House, the prospect of Brown in London and Tony in Brussels, with every detail being split wide open in the often- raucous British (!) media is pretty terrifying. Hate Tony, Love Tony, but man, he is front page material.

More than the Browns of the world, we need the Tonys, the Obamas and the Sarkozies. They make politics sexy, civic engagement fashionable and keep democracy exciting. As a Political Science/ European Studies major, they make my life a little easier and give me an opportunity sometimes to get on dinner conversations. Otherwise in a city of SoHo and Williamsburg, you have to be kidding me if you are into politics. You rather be a fashionista.

And yes, now we come to Nicholas Sarkozy. Following the Democratic primaries has meant that I have not been following up on him real close. But I realize the pull of Sarkosphere is probably too incredible to be ignorant. Apparently, he has endorsed Tony Blair’s candidacy. And by all measures by the way, Carla Bruni’s No Promises is a beautiful album.

But I am scared of one thing. With this high profile marriage, or the insistence on the endorsing of David Martinon for the Mayorship of Neuilly even though the polls might suggest otherwise, and being perennially the headlines, he might end up wasting the unprecedented mandate he has to make history with reforms. Reforms is ironically what he came promising…

But it would be foolish to come to any conclusion as early as now. I don’t know a lot, but I know that it would be just naïve to think he does not know what he is doing. An example of the Sarkozy political brilliance would be when the French president was asked how he could justify holidaying on a private plane belonging to French industrialist, Vincent Bolore. He cheekily retorted, “What would you prefer? That I travel at the tax payer’s expense.”

They don’t teach you that in a Politics class. That is talent. Sheer talent.

Not McCain, even if that means Billary!

2008-02-07T21:26:00.000-05:00

John McCain is the Republican candidate. At least the beer you drank on the Super Tuesday result watching party did not go without anything substantial coming out of it.

I do not presume to know much about him. But I am still hard pressed to know how is he the media darling that he is? They talk about his ethics, and the fact that he is willing to work on bipartisan lines to get what America needs done. He’s a veteran, been obviously of great service and has some stories of it. But can we have McCain as another President, and not think that it’s another term of the Bush Administration? I doubt it.

On immigration reform, he's run as far to the right as he can, aligning himself with the most extreme elements of the Republican Party.

On the war, McCain scoffed at Bush's call to leave troops in Iraq for 50 years, saying "Make it a hundred!"

On a woman's right to choose, McCain has vowed to appoint judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade.

On the economy, one of the issues that the American people care most about, McCain has said: "I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated."[1]

A war for a hundred years. Almost a denial that fiscal irresponsibility is what’s not good for the economy and an insistence that it is a Mexican working on minimum wage that it is distorting it all. And by calling it the sanctity of life, you cannot argue overturning Roe V. Wade is nothing but an infringement on a woman’s right to live her life the way she wants to. And by talking about appointing judges who talk your mouth is probably undermining the sanctity of the judiciary a bit.

They say he is the best of the lot. But a lot of what! And of all the talks about special interest, ethics and financial reform, there is much truth to the fact that the two of the three sources of McCain’s campaign cash are lobbying firms based in Washington D.C.

America needs to decide. But what is decided is that McCain is the choice of the GOP. Millions of dollars of special interest money is flowing in. You can be bloody darn sure of one thing; the Pharmaceutical majors and the Insurance companies definitely do not like Barack talking about putting healthcare negotiations live on C- Span. One can guess which candidate their money would go to. And if anything the Republicans are good at it, it is probably winning elections.

I keep doing it again, but in Barack’s words, “we have gay friends from the south and friends who go to the church in California.” Come on, Even Billary! Better a never-ending soap opera at the Oval Office than another Republican. For yourselves, and the world.

[1] Howard Dean, in a widely circulated E- Mail titled How we will beat John McCain dated February 6, 2007.

Politics in the age of Obama..

2008-02-03T05:54:00.000-05:00

A Chelsea Loft. Open Bar. And people dressed straight out of the Urban Outfitter’s catalogue.

This is Politics, fast forward 2008.

And you end up raising 13, 000 $ while at it, not bad. Welcome to the Dummies Guide on how to run a Presidential campaign without taking money from lobbyists..

When history gives its verdict on the Presidential Race ’08, it might end up being remembered as an election that was fought as much on YouTube and Facebook as in the Main Street. An election where Michelle and Sasha Obama were in our inbox, and Obama Girl slugged it out with the Giuliani Girl in an act that had bout two million hits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekSxxlj6rGE

Agreed, Barack Obama can bring people together. His campaign has been called the most diverse coalition of Americans ever seen, and it is probably true. It is an absolute joy to see the demographic diversity that exists in an Obama rally. You know it is something special. But could it just be that?

Anyone using Barack’s homepage would realize this. That homepage is a piece of art in a way it conveys the Obama story. If Obama is the reason for people to get together, technology makes sure that they get together. The fact that he has such a great homepage and a web resource for his supporters makes it pertinent that the man realizes what that technology is a great enabler.

We must realize that life as we know would go through dramatic changes in the next 30 years. I just saw a preview for the Microsoft Surface, and it just blew my mind. Almost scary, you realize where technology is heading and how it directs the course are lives take. See the video for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP5y7yp06n0

America just cannot keep having Presidents that don’t believe in Evolution. And the fact that Barack himself is big on technology cannot be a bad thing. He was quite the dork on his visit to the Google Headquarters in Mountain View just after he announced his decision to run for Presidency.

But Politics ain’t always dorky. I am still feeling from the alcohol that I drank at the fundraiser.

And yes, they did not run out of alcohol.

Obama’ed out..

- Shreshth Dugar

Yes, the Antifits endorses Barack Obama.

2008-02-01T02:59:00.000-05:00

As the Primaries rolls on to Super Tuesday, and the endorsement season well underway, The Antifits endorses Obama as the Democratic presidential candidate for the ’08 elections and as the President of the United States of America.

Is The Antifits jumping the bandwagon in endorsing Barack Obama?

The Antifits has been long a supporter of Obama. Way before you had Uncle Ted endorsing him. I don’t count the Murdoch- run New York Post for anything. And definitely way before Barack Obama became a schmoozing point. But supporting someone and an Endorsement are two different propositions, and The Antifits legitimately now believes enough to endorse Barack Obama for President, come January ’09.

Is it because I have gone down and dirty for Barack, been out on the streets of New York City with the Barack campaign and have called people on my Cingular minutes to convince them about Barack as the Candidate in ‘08? Is it because I have been confronted and abused by Rudy’s angry fanatics, who had been let down after Florida? Is it because he said no to the war in Iraq when Hillary voted for it? Is it because he is different or in other words, the first serious electorally viable Black candidate*? Is it because his healthcare isn’t truly universal just because that is the thing to do and concentrates on delivering health care to people who most need it, the way it should be? Is it because I have been reading too much of Bob Herbert on The New York Times every Tuesday and Saturday, or even Cohen, Kristol and Dowd? Is it because his stance on Immigration stands on the most comprehensive and humane platform? Is it because he is the only candidate who talks about giving tax breaks to middle class American families and realizes that Americans turning 65 deserve certain privileges since in their working lives they have made it grow 4.5 times? Is it because in Barack’s words, “we have gay friends from the south and people who go the church in California”? Is it because he talks about carrots and not just sticks when it comes to Foreign policy and comes across as someone willing to engage himself with the world? Is it because he has it in the gut to talk about that an American loses a job and wages go down because of irresponsible fiscal policy and bad economic management, rather than a Mexican who seeks the American Dream doing jobs an American would anyways never get down doing?

Or is it because of something else?

It is because when Barack Obama takes the stage, people do not know whether he is Martin Luther King or John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton, or probably all rolled into one. You could be an Independent, a Southern Democrat or a third- generation conservative from Kansas, but Obama transcends political partisanship. Working inside his campaign, and being audience to him on the road, and in debates and rallies, it is apparent that Barack has that potential and charisma to be the blueprint for change.

Edwards was on the button before anybody on policy. Hillary is more comprehensive. But being the President of the United States is not just being writing thorough policy; it is being the most powerful man in the planet. It is about embodying America as everything America could and should be. Barack is the America the world loved as it came out in millions on the evening of September 11th, and let’s get closer again to the world that wears I heart New York T- Shirts and gets a little flutter in heir hearts when the Stars and the Stripes come in the picture. America is about Kennedy addressing Berliners in the height of the Berlin blockade and shouting to an audience without ration and food for weeks, “Ich bin ein Berliner”. Does not really matter what he ended up doing, but that marked and defined the United States commitment to West Germany, and if I might add, Liberty.

Is it a coincidence that the caucus in Nevada and Iowa, and the primaries in Florida, South Carolina and New Hampshire had numbers that are unprecedented? Let’s face it; never has Civic Engagement been more fashionable, and never have you used politics as conversation starters with women.

And as Barack says, “Ordinary people can do extraordinary things.”

Go out to vote on February 5th.

- Shreshth Dugar

What the f*** is Livonia?

2007-12-04T16:15:00.000-05:00

“The European Court of Justice was going to decide what EU law was. Not only that the EU law is supreme, but also the EU decides that supremacy…” (1)

Fuck this. This was never about Politics, but about being a Politics major. The humble Political Science Major.

Anyone who is taking Professor Josh Tucker’s class this fall probably knows what struck us this past week. It was Livonia and the fate of eight millions Livonians whose destinies were subject to the designs of an undergraduate taking Introduction to Comparative Politics class.

What the f*** is Livonia?

The paper required us to choose a form of Presidential System, have our modifications on it, predict how party systems might evolve and put all of it in the Livonian context. And the Livonian context had three pages of things in the assignment to consider.

Think about it.

For those seven pages, you were to Livonia what Alexander McQueen was to Gucci, Alistair Campbell to New Labor and Frank Lloyd Wright to Fallingwater. You were the shit

A neat contrast to the kid who looked forward to weekday evenings for the three-dollar drafts, and almost thought an obscenely fake I.D from Minot, North Dakota was legitimately cool.

Everything was not that hunky dory though. Apart from to you, your grades, and an overworked TA, Livonia did not really exist to anybody. And because Livonia ain’t real, it ain’t on Wikipedia.

This means you have to develop your political idea yourself. And that means going back to the assigned reading, which you have not been doing, from Shepsle and Bonchek to Jeffrey Sachs, and a thousand pages in between

What this implicates? Your paper is pathetic. NYU gets some slack. The Professor gets bad grades on www.ratemyprofessor.com. You hook up with a girl in the library who’s writing the paper too, and you bond over Dalton’s Partisanship and Electoral Behavior.

Told you, Political Science is where it is at.

Eight million Livonians can wait.

1- Professor Martin Schain, European Union and the 21st Century Lecture on December 4

The Antifits- What is it?

2007-11-30T01:57:00.000-05:00

“Young people and Politics don’t go together normally. Probably you should try writing about the titties of the girl down the hallway.” exclaimed Alex as I deliberated how to bring traffic into this nascent blog in our little shoebox apartment.

Alex went to the sleep after that (or did he go to the gym?), but not before he got me thinking. A Political blog won’t get me anywhere, because I am not Thomas L. Friedman and ostensibly, Thomas L. Friedman is not really making women orgasm either. I still have to figure out whether am a Republican or a Democrat. Maybe, I am the revolution Ron Paul talks about. I do not know.

So, I have thought about which direction to take with this blog. Just so that you end up finding yourself here making my readership zoom, and as a result of which advertisement revenue goes up, college in Manhattan gets subsidized, the New York Times calls me up saying the old hag Friedman has been ranting too much lately, his globalization is out of vogue this election season and they would be pleased if I could offer my services. Wishful thinking, apparently.

I don’t presume to know a lot about Politics. Read the Reuters if you want to know who’s where in the opinion polls. Read the New York Times if you want opinion from Cohen, Dowd, Friedman and Krugman. The Wall Street Journal might be your best bet to make an impression for that internship. Read the New York Post if you want to see naked women. I apologize, but there ain’t here any porn. You might leave now if you came looking for gangbangs, blacks on blondes and the likes. If the Shrek Antifits is something, it is about the tribulations of a Politics Major; about reading big words by big people, getting excited when Obama gets ahead of Hillary in Iowa and trying to understand what does it implicate to be caught as the senator of Idaho engaging in a homosexual act in the bathroom of an airport.

Political Science Majors gets shortchanged in New York City. We don’t have the bedroom eyes of the actors, nor do we jam in the Washington Square Park with the cold New York dampness closing on us, nor do we have the cult of creativity that the filmmakers have, nor do we have the Trust Fund daddies like the art historians have. We are the ones that are the faceless heroes; the people who study elections and voting in Slovakia, who bother with Kansas and Kentucky, and know where Jeffrey Sachs and William Easterly stand on how to eradicate Africa out of poverty.

But we have a story. Yes, even when Law School is a few years from now, and we know we ain’t getting in. This is it. The Shrek Antifits.

The European Union at fifty..

2007-11-29T15:02:00.000-05:00

On 25^th March this year, the European Union (EU) celebrated its 50^th anniversary. And with the celebrations that kicked of in Berlin celebrating that milestone, began rounds of deliberations whether the efforts of the past fifty years toward European integration have really been worth it? Here I would attempt at looking the Union at 50 through the analyzing of John Peet’s interview in the Economist that came out in the March 15^th print edition and Roger Cohen’s column for the International Herald Tribune, which was reproduced in the New York Times on March 25^th.

John Peet’s “Fit at 50?” begins with tracing the historical context of the Treaty of Rome that established the European Economic Commission (EEC), which went on to be called the Common Market, and the relevance of the Berlin Summit in the light of that. The European Union has drawn much flak since 2005 when the French and the Dutch vetoed the draft EU Constitution, with Jean Claude Juncker, the then President of Luxembourg, calling it to be in deep crisis in 2005. Jacques Delors, the President of the European Commission between 1985- 1994, said the crisis which confronted the EU today was worse than the ones in the past; Charles De Gaulle’s “Empty Chair” in 1965 and Margaret Thatcher’s “our own money back” between 1979 and 1984. But Peet argues that nothing should be allowed to obscure the achievements of the European Union in the past fifty years.

The EEC had its critics. The European Federalists saw the EEC as a move away from the European superstate they hoped for. Some argued that the EEC covered only a small part of Europe; excluding the communist east, fascist Spain. Britain chose to stay away with Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland, choosing to set up the rival European Free Trade Association (EFTA). In that context, the present day EU, which today talks about letting Turkey in, stands testimony to its success. Spain and Portugal now seem distant history, with the expansion in 2004 that let in ten new member states, many of which ex- communist ones. 2007 saw the Union breaching new frontiers in the east with Romania and Bulgaria joining the fray.

And the Union has moved beyond the economic paradigm the EEC was based upon. Today, the Union directly influences the way member states act on issues relating to social policy, welfare and the environment. Modern Europe today has a common currency, a common foreign policy and is a passport- free travel zone. The past two years has seen the Union agree on a seven-year budget, and ambitious plans on tackling the energy crisis and the climate change. This to Peet is not an institution in crisis, but only claims of crisis that are overblown.

But Peet underlines the three major problems the European Union faces today, which he calls The Fifty- Year Itch. First is the conundrum of the draft constitution. The Draft Constitution was turned down by the French and the Dutch public, and hence could not go through. Secondly, as Jacques Delors put it, there is popular disenchantment with the European Project. The reasons and the utter necessity that got Europe together does not hold true fifty years later, and today’s leaders would rather downplay out the Union than celebrate its values and successes. Last but not the least, the enthusiasm for the Union ostensibly is not really adrenaline pumping. And this is just not Britain this time, but as the referendums showed, a sentiment popular among Europeans in general. But Peet ends it with making us remember what made the EEC, and the Union what it is today; roaring economic growth. And therein, according to Peet, lies the Union’s secret. As the old adage goes, “It is the economy, stupid…”

Roger Cohen’s Globalist Column titled “For Europe, a moment to ponder” which was reproduced in the New York Times on the eve of the summit is more expansive as it talks about the Union. It starts of with using Spain as an allegory to present day Poland. Today, one does not think of Spain as Poland. But he quotes Polish author Adam Michnik, who reckons that the European Union is the first Revolution hat has been positive. Spain was a poor country when it became a part of the Union 21 years ago. But it no longer is. And Poland would see the same results as Spain did. And this according to Cohen is emblematic of the peace, freedom, wealth and democracy that the treaty of Rome has extended to half a billion Europeans.

But as with Peet’s Fifty Year Itch, Cohen writes about how the Berlin celebration rests on shaky ground. He talks about how the expansion of the Union has made it simply ungovernable. The issue of the rejected Draft Constitution is raised again, and how Integration is not the reality of the Muslim immigrants that is the European reality too. He quotes Joshka Fischer, the former German Foreign Minister, who said; “ The EU is on autopilot, in stalemate, in deep crisis.” But Cohen is way more forthright in his rebuttal of any skepticism of the European Union.

He talks about how the so- called Autopilot is still a major success. He talks about the hundred odd billion dollars that has been committed to Poland even in the present paradigm. If the Marshall plan built Western Europe after the World War, the success of Spain since Franco can be attributed in more ways than one to the European commitment towards it, not to forget the 190 odd Billion USD that the Union has spent on the Spanish economy. Also, the roaring economic growth of the ex- communist states in the past decade and the transition to free market democracies, from Latvia to Slovakia, can be attributed to a certain extent to the European Union. But the success is not purely economic. For example, a survey in the French daily, Le Figaro, showed that about 71 % of the French felt pride in a European identity. The Erasmus Program has helped about 1. 5 Million European to study in a country other than own in partner European universities, and live the European experience of jumbling cultures, linguistic and amorous discovery, and the births of new identities from this mingling. Today, the Union is as much about free markets and draft constitutions as it is about the countless Eurocouples, which actually might be the true hallmark of true integration.

As with the everything else, Europe and the Union have evolved too. According to Cohen, Europe for example today deals with not the question of German aggression, but of German pacifism. Europe in the past fifty years has been a process, and not a destination in itself. For example, Spain after Franco was not given the benefit of the doubt by many, but today, it is a trillion dollar economy firmly at ease with itself as it sits among the developed world. Poland, with all its deliberations, is very much the Spain of the 80’s and in twenty years, one might see a different reality. Cohen urges Europeans to push forward the European experience, and urges, why cannot Turkey today be the new Poland?

In Cohen’s words, “A United States of Europe might seem a distant, probably unreachable dream. At the same time, a continent- wide war has become an unthinkable nightmare.” The Berlin Summit was the Union turning fifty, and a celebration of this undeniable success and the inherent values that make Europe possible today. The European Union is a paradigm that is a success, and like everything else, has its shortcomings too. But as Cohen and Peet put it and history shows, it is something worth pursuing.

Shreshth Dugar, 2007

(For a list of sources, citations and bibliography, please e- mail me)

The Blair Legacy

2007-11-27T14:02:00.000-05:00

It was easy to hate Tony Blair. Tony Judt in the New York Times (November 27, 2008) called it ”opportunism with a human face”. He was the poodle to the American Bulldog. He was the liberal interventionist who invaded Afghanistan and Iraq in the pursuit of the so- called Weapons of Mass Destruction. Simon Jenkins in The Sunday Times called this Liberal Intervention “reinventing the middle ages.” To the Conservatives, he was Labour and to the Labour, he leaned too much to the right. With Alistair Campbell on his heels, people thought he accorded unwarranted power to the Press Spokesman and the New Labour was nothing but an articulately stage- managed political machinery run by spin-doctors. He might have been too close to the Mainland for the comfort of the British nationalists. The Glen Hoddle issue where Blair got his viewpoints put across was something totally out of the jurisdiction of 10 Downing Street. Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer in 1997 thought that Britain was closest to a Presidential system that it had ever been in the course of its democratic history. And irrespective of what Lord Hutton said in the inquiry, Alistair Campbell probably had little business sending memos to John Scarlet as the Director of Communications in the Labor Government as he sat in the committee that prepared the dossier that Tony Blair presented to the British Parliament propagating the war in Iraq. The Labour Government spent about 10 Million Pounds per delegate at Gleneagles for the G- 8, yet foreign aid to Africa for the G- 8 in proportion to their GDP fell. Then, there was the Cash- For- Honors that Blair as the head of Labour was responsible for. If he did lie about Iraq, then the Labour probably lied about a lot more things. Maybe, the economic resurgence had more to do with the less suave Gordon Brown at 11 Downing Street than 10 Downing Street. And did Blair grapple power a little too hard and procrastinate his stepping down at the expense of the future of the Labour.

But I am a Blairist and a blatant one at that. I believe in Cool Britannia, a Britain that was young, hip and ready to play the game of Globalization on its terms. The New Labor was the New Britain, and a Britain which I see hardly possible under the leadership of someone like John Major or his ilk. London has taken over New York as the world’s financial capital as endorsed by the money the city receives as inflows and the amount of foreign companies that deem it feasible to be listed there. Something symbolic of the times was the reversing of the natural order of things as Corus, erstwhile British Steel, was sold off to India’s Tata Steel without much hassle. People might argue that money was thrown in public services like NHS, but public services are better and so have the waiting lists come down. The GCSE’s might have been dumbed, but grades are up and more Brits go to universities. Blair might have come amidst a period of sustained global growth and an European Resurgence, but whatever it is, the truth is that under the New Labor, the Brits have increased prosperity levels and on several indicators, live more fulfilling lives. Ask any tourist about the hoards of British Tourists one encounters no matter where you go, and you know there just have been good times. Even though there is always something beautiful about the British having a stiff upper lip and being generally grumpy!

Moreover, the greatest legacy of the Blair Government when the political historian might sit down and pass the verdict on the New Labour would be increased Social Mobility. The New Labor essentially cut across class and party lines, which were as British as the Beatles. Today, New Labor stands with a legacy called the Third Way, best put in the words of the man himself, someone who was never short of words anyway. According to him, “ The Third Way is the route to renewal and success for modern social democracy. It is not simply a compromise between left and right. It seeks to take the essential values of contra and centre- left and apply them to a world of fundamental social and economic change; and to do so free from outdated ideology.“ (footnote) Today, being British, right from Hugh Grant to the Harris Tweed, is sexy. And in the words of Bonzo Dog Doo Dah’s 1967 hit Cool Britannia which came true to life during the Blair era, “Britannia, you are cool..”

To further illustrate the Blair era, I would like to talk about Geoff Mulgan’s account of his seven years at Number 10, Downing Street titled “My time in the Engine Room- Seven years at Number 10 teaches you a lot about the nature of power.” Blair was always thought more to be a Prime Minister that involved himself more in Britain in a global context than most of them, but ironically Britain certainly had better times domestically. You can’t be a success in Foreign Policy if you find yourself embroiled in a war that you should not have been waging at the first place. Not only Iraq, but also Afghanistan faces a resurgent Taliban threat. But this failure in the foreign sphere would be the biggest inherent contradiction of the Blair years, as Tony Blair was always seen as an international statesman, rather than a British Prime Minister. And it is indeed a touch disheartening that this often overshadows major successes of the Blair Government, say for example who would have imagined in 1997 that a day would come Gerry Adams and the rest of the Sinn Fein’s elected MP’s would sit in the same assembly as the Unionists.

Geoff Mulgan worked at Number 10 Downing Street from 1997 to 2004 including as head of the policy unit and director of the strategy unit, and I found his presentation in the University of Montreal summit “Whatever happened to Cool Britannia” enlightening. In his essay that was accompanied with a power point presentation that also appeared in The Guardian on 23d April 2004, he talks about his year sin the administration. He talk about one of the underlying reasons of Labor’s success was that it never played on people’s expectation. The Labor was prudent in making promises to the public which is incredibly difficult in the heat of political campaigns, something validated by the present democratic debates in the run up to the United States 2008 Presidential Elections. But what it did was to communicate them effectively, and also the underlying reasons behind them. Also interesting to note that the Labour Party found policy inspiration in Scandinavians countries rather than conventional models of the bigger economies like the United States, France and Germany.

New Labor stood for a New Britain. And the landslide verdict in 1997 stood testimony to the impatience of the British public for change and how terrible the John Major’s conservative government had been. And the Blair administration had to bring a lot of administrative changes to Whitehall itself to gear up to this thrust for change. For example, Mulgan went and studied countries where incumbents have remained for long, say Canada, Sweden and Japan. And thus came Labor’s policy of constantly reinventing themselves with what the people wanted. This is the hallmark of the Labor; even with a mandate as extensive as its, a willingness to be open. Even though the Iraq War was a severe anomaly to this.

Mulgan also rebuts the claims that the New Labor lacked ideological clarity. He talks about the inherent contradiction between Labor’s clarity in ideology and electoral necessity. After all, the biggest achievement of the Labor is that it won three straight elections, and with the world’s most aggressive media at his heels, Tony Blair was the Prime Minister for ten good years. From David Beckham to the Spice Girls, anyone who is reasonably acquainted with the British media would tell you ten years is awfully long in the British public sphere!

Historians might continue to grapple over the ambiguities of the Blair legacy. But Tony Blair mattered. In Blair’s words, “I may have been wrong. That is your call. But believe in one thing if nothing else; I did what I thought was right for our country. I came into office with high hopes for Britain’s future, and you know, I leave it with even higher hopes….” If nothing else, you cannot beat the man in diction.

Shreshth Dugar, 2007

(For the list of sources, citations and bibliography, please mail me)