What the Duck?

The grass is always greener on the other side, and it’s about time somebody blamed Monsanto and genetic modification for it.

Or the Japanese.

Wherever highly advanced technology is used in pursuit of the absurd, expect the Japanese to be there. Back when I was a kid, I’d seen a picture of square watermelons in the newspapers, and it turned out it was a Japanese thing. Since that day, I’d always been suspicious of the Japanese when it came to technology. If a country with the latest, greatest, state-of-the-art, cutting edge technology at its disposal could use it to come up with square watermelons, you wouldn’t put anything past them. Over the years, the Japanese have gone on to repeatedly demonstrate beyond a shadow of doubt that my fears were well founded. A vending machine that dispenses underwear? Check. A toilet with controls more complicated than an airline cockpit? Check. A robotic pet with all the trouble of a real pet but without the fun? Check. A device worn around your face that makes you look like a cartoon lion, to prevent your hair from falling into your bowl of soupy ramen? Check. While corporations use technology in pursuit of profit and Governments use it to make bombs, the Japanese use technology to create ridiculous vending machines.

While it can deliver dubious benefits when in the wrong hands, there is a lot of good that technology has done – it’s cured a lot of diseases, given us access to so much information and allowed us to watch Game of Thrones on the same day as it’s released in the US. Not being Amish, I’m by and large pro technology – I use smart phones, order groceries online and, thanks to Google Maps, am finally not in the embarrassing position of refusing to ask for directions and getting lost. I think Google Maps has done a great favour to all men – we finally don’t need to ask for directions, something that we hated doing in the first place.

Another example of good technology is predictive texting, although that’s probably the wrong term for it. Whatever it’s called officially, I’m impressed that my phone is able to predict the word I’m trying to form in the middle of typing, and suggesting options that would save me time. Of course, sometimes it’ll lead to massive gaffes, with auto correct deciding, in its infinite wisdom, that large bosoms are a more plausible reason for disconnecting a client’s call than being busy, and therefore changing “I’m busy” to “I’m busty”. Still, I can live with the occasional faux pas in exchange for the overall benefit this technology provides. What has utterly baffled me, though, is that the same predictive technology can also detect when you’re trying to use swear words, and then simply refuse to type them out. Ever. It’s as if there is some technological moral police coded into that software that’s decided that swearing is bad for you. I could understand if they had a child mode that enabled the phone to do this – but why have it on all phones? We’re swearing all the time anyway, so why does the phone have to step in and decide it’s not right? We get enough lessons in morality from religion, the censor board, assorted busybodies and the government. To compound the issue, the phone refuses to save any swear word even after I’ve used it repeatedly. Fuck is always changed to duck, bastard is changed to batter, bitch is changed to botch and asshole is changed to the mystifying ‘Anole’. Why?

But coming back to good technology, while I don’t care much for drones delivering pizzas or any other packages, I am excited about driverless cars. But while driverless cars are perfect for those Western countries where traffic rules are taken seriously and good driving skills are enough to get by on the roads, what happens in a country like India where you’ll often land up in trouble or cause a traffic jam if you’re following traffic rules? More crucially, what happens when a driverless car gets into an accident with a human-driven car on a busy Delhi road? Can the car start abusing in chaste Hindi, to create the right aura of menace and intimidation? Will the driverless car be able to threaten the guy in the other car by claiming to know the police commissioner or a local politician? And what about the human in the other car – how does he go about hurling abuses at a car or beating up a car?

It’s the sort of oversight that could result in driverless cars failing in India. Just like it happened with vending machines – I think the reason they didn’t succeed in India is that they don’t allow you to bargain. In a country that boasts a proud tradition of bargaining, that’s suicide. It deprives one of the sweet satisfaction of a well-earned bargain, that proud glow of vanquishing the shopkeeper in his own game and getting a deal that someone of a weaker disposition would not have obtained, which makes the purchase worth savouring. Perhaps with the advent of artificial intelligence, they could come up with a vending machine that could bargain – it would be just the sort of vending machine that would work in India.

Picture this – there’s a vending machine that lists the price of a Coke can as Rs 30. A man enters a ten-rupee note and presses the button to dispense the coke.

Vending Machine: Rupees ten? Are you kidding me? That wont even cover the cost of electricity I’m using up in this transaction.

Man: It’s water and sugar, pretty much. I can get the same thing for 20 elsewhere. 30 is too much. I could give you 15, but not a paisa more than that.

Vending Machine: Oh come on, have a heart. I know I don’t, but that’s because I’m a vending machine. Still, everyone has to make a living…you think I’ll be allowed to operate here if I don’t earn money? It’ll be the junkyard for me – rotting away in obscurity alongside old TVs and refrigerators, valued only as scrap metal. Make it 25 at least.

Man: No way, I know all your tricks; I wont fall for that sob story. 20 is the best I can do – I know you’ll still make a neat little profit out of that. Otherwise I’ll walk away.

Man starts walking away.

Vending machine: Fine – see if you can get the Coke for lesser anywhere else. I promise you my Coke is the cheapest.

(Secretly hoping that man will turn around and come back. But man continues to walk away, secretly hoping that vending machine will call out after him.)

Vending machine: All right, all right, 20 rupees it is! Here, come back and take it.

Man walks away glugging the can of Coke, refreshed more by the sweet satisfaction of a perfectly executed bargain than the Coke itself.

All Trumped Up

Here’s the thing – I’m not a religious nut job, I don’t think everybody having guns is a good idea at all and neither have I married one of my cousins. I do, however, harbour serious reservations about evolution. But it’s not because I buy into creationism. I don't believe that a big, bearded man in the sky dressed in flowing white robes created everything during a particularly hectic week before resting on Sunday and then flouncing off never to be seen again. And yes, while all of modern science points to the fact that evolution really has transpired and that humans have been getting smarter over the centuries, something seems to have gone terribly wrong over the last few months. I don’t know what Darwin would’ve made of it, but how can you equate humanity getting smarter with Donald Trump being voted as one of the presidential candidates in the USA? And this isn’t some banana-republic type outpost in the tropical backwaters we’re talking about – the sort where mosquitoes, diseases and tyrannical dictators pop up with alarming regularity – this is the world’s most powerful country. And a democracy, at that – what good is for the people, by the people and of the people if the people themselves are that foolish?

To the outside world, it neatly fits in with the whole stereotype about Americans being dumb. While I’ve never been an advocate for all things American, I somehow don't believe that stereotype to be true. Sure, there may be a large number of Americans who think that we Indians go back home riding an elephant once we’re done with our call centre shifts, but you don’t get to be the world’s most powerful country if you’re peopled entirely by idiots. So I’d always assumed that the US was more a country of contrasts – that for every dungaree clad, tobacco chewing, shotgun toting country bumpkin that was sitting on a farmyard porch all day; there was an overachieving, academically and extra-curricular-ly hyperactive, Ivy league educated, sharp suited city slicker working 20 hours a day to reinforce that country’s capitalist hegemony over the world. It’s the same if you looked at that country through the lens of health habits – while a large segment of the population is obese, there are also enough super-fit people to counter act that and establish some sort of weight equilibrium. For every oversized-cheeseburger-eating, cola-sipping, eat-all-you-can indulging, morbidly obese American that gets wedged in the doorway, there is a calorie counting, carbohydrate eliminating, gym-going, fitness paranoid, wellness obsessed American who only consumes something if it’s decaf, no fat, low-salt, no sodium, zero trans fat and without added sugar. So yes, it’s the most obese country in the world, but it’s also the country responsible for every single health food fad from wheat germ, quinoa and kale to all manner of diets and nutrition theories that have fuelled enough paranoia, anorexia and insecurity to allow an entire industry to get obscenely rich on the back of dodgy health promises.

Of course, it isn’t just America that’s showing signs that evolution has wandered off for a gentle stroll downhill. With our chief political preoccupations in India revolving around Modi’s degree, the extreme threat to national security posed by left-leaning JNU students and the critical need to establish nationalist credentials by screaming Bharat Mata kii jai, we’re not exactly the brightest when it comes to understanding priorities. Clearly, it isn’t too much of a stretch to conclude that we’re all plunging headlong, arms flailing and voices shrill with screaming, into a dumber race.

On the bright side, though, this isn’t the case with our machines – they’re only getting smarter with time. For a long time, the world was a simple place where mobile phones were as heavy as a brick, could double up as a weapon of self-defence and could be used to place calls, send texts or play Snakes. And then the smart phone came along – suddenly your phone could send emails, allow you to browse the internet, order a taxi, predict the weather and generally do just about anything apart from brewing a cup of coffee. Not content with smart phones, the companies decided that everything should be smart. So smart watches came up, which would do everything already being done by your smart phone, except that you could also wear it on your wrist and really squint to read all that stuff. Then along came the smart TV, which allowed you to do everything that you could do with your smart phone, except that you could also mount it on your wall and luxuriate in the vastness of the screen. It was the era of convergence – your smart phone became your secretary, your secretary became your lover, your lover became your computer, your computer became your home theatre, your home theatre became your smart phone and it all got very confusing indeed.

My only complaint is that if instead of running about like headless chickens making everything smart, the companies could just focus on making one thing really, really, clever. You know, take the smart phone, for example, and turn it into a clever, genius phone. A phone so clever, it could warn you not to drunk dial someone the next time you’re hammered. A phone so clever, it would shut down automatically if it feels you’re being too rude by constantly checking your phone when you’re out meeting people. A phone so clever, it could stop you sending that rude email that you’ll regret the next day by pretending to send the email but not actually sending it. A phone so clever, it would notify pesky clients you’re on holiday even if you’re not. A phone so clever, it’s GPS could warn you if the restaurant you’ve chosen for your next date is not any good, or ask you to get a life if you haven’t ventured out for days on end.

A phone so clever, it would convince Donald Trump not to run for presidency.

It's the Hope that Kills You

For years I’d thought that the Indian cricket team lacked the sort of killer instinct you’d often associate with other teams when they’re on a roll. That they didn’t have the sort of ruthless streak that would see them crush the opposition by 200-odd runs, or chase down a 50-over target in less than 20 overs. You’d often hear about the ruthless Aussies thrashing the English, or the Sri Lankans running rings around the hapless Zimbabweans, or the Pakistanis walloping the Kiwis into submission. But with India, that was never the case – our cricket team would never mop the floor with their opponents as if they were a dirty rag cloth, or make mincemeat out of them in an unparalleled lesson in butchery, or take down their pants, press it neatly and return it to them to show them how it’s done, or steamroller them in a manner reminiscent of someone using earth-moving equipment to paste wallpaper, or pulverize them right down to a sub-atomic level, or…well, you get the drift.

Think about it – if we ever scored 300-plus while batting first in an ODI, did you ever feel safe? Or were you biting your nails in fear that Ajit Agarkar and Ashish Nehra might be generous to the extreme, with a regular and timely supply of leg-side half volleys and a dozen wides down the leg side, and contrive to gift the opponents a victory? I remember a match where we scored some 410-odd runs against Sri Lanka, yet somehow managed to end up winning that match by a mere 5 runs!

It was not that we always snatched defeat from the jaws of defeat or anything. Well, we did that sometimes, but more often than that, we would be in this position where we would appear determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and just when the jaws of defeat were about to close in on us we would get right out and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, although the jaws should ideally have been of victory in the first place anyway. If that sounds a little confusing, let’s go back to the Sri Lanka match where we scored 410 or so. Jaws of victory! But instead of ruthlessly crushing the Sri Lankans, we allowed them to canter to 310/1. Jaws of defeat! That’s when we woke up, fought back and finally won the match by about 5 runs or so. See what I mean?

I always wondered why this was the case? Perhaps it was the lack of a killer instinct – Indians have often been accused of that since the time we started playing sports. Or maybe it was just that we were really good sports – we wanted to give the other team a fair chance – let them make a match of it, so that it felt more like sport rather than, say, someone using a machine gun to kill a mosquito.

After our latest test victory over the English, however, I’m convinced that neither of the above is the case. In fact, the Indian team is actually far more devious, cruel and ruthless than we give them credit for. The answer to this lies in the John Cleese quote “I can take the despair, it’s the hope that kills me.”

Imagine this: you’re an average English cricket supporter that’s resigned yourself to a lifetime of mediocre performances from your national cricket team. Every two years your team lines up to have their asses handed back to them by the Aussies in the Ashes, sub-continental visits lead to predictable debacles as your batsmen cannot handle spin and you stumble from one disappointment to the other – crashing out of world cups, suffering spectacular batting collapses, and so on. And then, all of a sudden it all changes – your team has suddenly started winning, you’ve reclaimed the Ashes and you’re now World No.1, having dethroned the Indians from their perch by thrashing them 4-0 and foiling the BCCI’s dastardly plot of world domination. Suddenly, there’s hope – the India tour may not be so bad this time, you think your team has a chance. You’re no longer sullenly watching the match expecting India to score 500 and then bundle your team out for under 200. But wait – that’s precisely what happens. So you give it up – yeah, your team had a good run, but maybe this is a frontier too far to breach. So you get comfortably numb as you watch your team being gently taken apart by the Indian spinners. You know there’s no chance in hell of saving the test, you know that everything’s already assumed the shape of a pear, but you still watch it out of sheer loyalty, even though it’ll probably test your capacity to inflict self-harm.

But…hang on, what’s happening here? The Indians have suddenly stopped taking wickets after enforcing the follow-on, your batsmen seem comfortable at the crease and you still have 5 wickets in hand going into the final day? Could this really be? Your start dreaming, recollecting past instances of dogged rearguard actions and thinking that this might just be another addition to that collection of fond cricket memories. You start hoping…only to see your team bundled out by lunch the next day as the Indians canter to victory. Isn’t this whole roller coaster far tougher to deal with than a match where a crushing defeat seemed a foregone conclusion from Day 1?

And this is what the Indians have specialized in; against all teams – they would never win in a straightforward manner – it’s always about dangling that little carrot called hope before cruelly yanking it away. It was all part of a great, evil master plan, a plan that’s so much more soul-destroying and spirit crushing than a hammering where you never stood a chance. 

Of course, if you’d prefer your aggression to be more upfront, ruthless and carried with a touch of arrogance, there’s always the BCCI to fall back on.

Life Isn't Like a Panda - There are Shades of Grey!

They say a picture can speak a thousand words. This isn’t necessarily a good thing. Navjot Sidhu can speak a thousand words. Mamata Banerjee can speak a thousand words. The question is - would you really want those thousand words to be spoken to you? The truth is there are times when you really do not want a picture to speak a thousand words. Take, for example, those ‘friends’ of yours that incessantly put up pictures of themselves or of their innumerable vacations on social networking sites. As soon as the picture tries talking to you, you wish it would just shut up – a thousand words in such cases could lead you to inflict grievous self-harm.


And then there was this curious phenomenon that saw pictures of cute furry animals being the rage in the email forwarding universe. I’ve often wondered if the inventor of the email feels that his achievement has been tarnished by the fact that it directly led to the invention of the forward. What was it that made somebody think “Hey, my friend is having a terrible day at the office. He’s just been looked over for promotion, this girl he was interested in is sleeping with his arch nemesis and he got car-jacked on the way to work. Why don’t I put together some pictures of cute, furry animals and email it across to him? That’s bound to cheer him up!”


At this point, you might want to tell me “So some people like to spend all their time putting together pictures of cute furry animals and sending it to everyone on their mailing list in the hope that it gets circulated again and again. What’s the big deal? It’s not like they’re harming anyone, or that it makes any difference to grave matters of world affairs. So why are you ranting about this?” That’s where I’d beg to differ – the equivalent of sending forwards of cute furry animals has actually taken place at the pinnacle of global politics, and has had a significant outcome on the course of geopolitical events over the last few decades.


Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you…(drumrolls)….Panda Diplomacy!


To begin with, let’s look at the background - 
1945 - The Second World War is over, and to keep themselves occupied most major world powers are engaged in this cat-and-mouse game that’s called the Cold War. China joins the ranks of the communists and is an ally of the Russians – hence making the US antagonistic towards China. This goes on throughout the 1950s and the 1960s – there are no diplomatic ties at all between the US and China.


By early 1970s, though, the situation began to change. The US and China decided they couldn’t ignore each other any longer, and Richard Nixon announced a visit to China in 1972. The Chinese, methodical as always, thought long and hard about what steps could be taken to improve ties between the two countries. There were all the usual measures – removal of trade barriers, opening of diplomatic channels, paradigm shift in foreign policy…that sort of stuff. But this was all regular stuff that often happened at summit-level talks – there was nothing new or remarkable about this, nothing that would really get the people excited, nothing that would yank them out of their state of apathy and jolt them like a cold-water shower on a rainy winter day.


And that’s when the eureka moment struck – pandas! Why not gift Nixon a pair of pandas? When the Americans saw the Chinese gifting Nixon a pair of pandas, it was sure to melt the hearts of even the most cynical commentators. And it did – the pandas were donated to the Washington zoo amidst great fanfare and were a wild success. Over a million Americans visited the pandas in the first year alone – and the US-Chinese relationship has not looked back since then, going from strength to strength. Well, at least until the day the Chinese wake up and ask the US to return all their money!


For those of you wondering what Nixon’s return gift was, it was a pair of musk oxen – but this did not receive as much publicity, possibly on account of the Chinese not being too pleased about the fact that the musk oxen did not arrive with cooking instructions. 


While this was the most famous example of Panda Diplomacy, it wasn’t the first or the last – until the 1980s China had donated about 2 dozen pandas to various countries as a sort of ultimate gesture of grand goodwill towards that country (no prizes for guessing how many India got – none). So there have been a few other instances when that last option was ticked in response to the second question in the Panda Requisition Form. For those curious, this is what the Panda Requisition Form looks like.

In the 1980s, though, things got even more interesting. China decided that rather than gifting the pandas, it would loan them to countries for the price of 1 million dollars a year! A panda loan - that would surely be far more interesting than getting one of the usual calls for a personal loan that most of us keep getting. Imagine this – you’re a high ranking official in, say, the British government, and your phone rings one fine morning:


You: Hello?
Chinese-sounding voice at the other end of the line: Good morning, Sir! I’m calling from the Chinese government. You want panda loan?
You: No thanks, old chap. I'm afraid I'm not interested.
Panda loan salesman: Only 1 million dollars a year, Sir. And pandas…they are very cute and cuddly. You’ll like, Sir.
You: That's all jolly well, old fellow...but I really don’t need a panda right now.
Panda loan salesman: We give you one month’s supply of shoots and leaves. For free! And we give you import waiver document. And we no charge for shipping and…
(Disconnect phone)


Perhaps India could take a leaf out of China’s book and use cute, furry animals during summit-level talks with Pakistan – what have we got to lose? Rather than the usual abrupt end to the talks when both parties go back sulking and blaming each other, it could turn out something like this:


Zardari: Listen, Manmohan. You know the drill; we’ve been through this before. There isn’t any major breakthrough going to happen as that would mean either you or me losing face politically and consequently the next election. So we need to come up with something that’ll make it look like we’ve made progress and this hasn’t been a massive waste of time.


Manmohan: You’re right, people are tired of these Confidence Building Measures – it’s starting to wear a little thin. We need some fresh ideas that’ll make it look like real progress is being made. So I hired a creative agency to do some brainstorming and come up with something new. I think you’ll like what you hear – they’re very persuasive and use a lot of big words and analogies.


The head of the creative agency – a crisp, suited Don Draper-type character confidently strides into the room with a nonchalantly arrogant air about him.


Crisp, suited Don Draper-type character: Confidence Building Measures. Let’s begin with the name, gentlemen, because the name is what sets the tone. Confidence Building – you know what that says? That there’s currently zero confidence between India and Pakistan! That may be the reality – but do the people want reality? NO! People want hope, people want dreams, and people want to go to bed dreaming of a brighter future. That’s how all the big brands are built – Coke, Intel, GE – they all promise a better tomorrow. That’s why blockbuster movies with happy endings far outsell gritty realist movies – people want an escape! So let’s not call it Confidence Building – let’s call it Confidence Enhancing. This suggests that there’s already confidence between India and Pakistan – it just needs enhancement. 
And measures – why use such a dry word? Do you think people connect to measures in an emotional way? NO! Measures are seen as mathematical and functional – people don’t want that! Your marks are a measure, your weight is a measure, your targets are a measure – would anyone want to be reminded of that? NO! People remember milestones, not measures! Your first kiss, the day you graduated, your first paycheck, your wedding date – people live their lives from one milestone to the next. Milestones are what you measure your life by; milestones are what you’re left with when you look back at your life. So let’s call it milestones instead of measures. So what we have then, are Confidence Enhancing Milestones as opposed to Confidence Building Measures. Confidence Enhancing Milestones – doesn’t the mere sound of that fill your heart with hope? In fact…


At this point a kitten walks into the room across Zardari’s chair.


Zardari (excitedly looking at kitten – until now he had a particularly stiff demeanor – suddenly it is replaced by unbridled joy): Oh my God, Manmohan! Is that kitten yours? It’s like the cutest thing ever! Can I please have it? I’ll give you anything in return – take all of Kashmir. In fact, take NWFP as well while you’re at it – I have no idea what the hell to do with that region. I’m sure you could make it into a tourist destination or something – it has mountains. We’ll also hand over Hafeez Saeed to you; stop helping Dawood – anything at all, as long as you let me have the kitten. Pleeeeease???


65 years of bitterness ended by one cute kitten. No wonder those forwards are so popular.

In the Mood for Trade!

A few weeks ago, there was this curious headline in the newspaper – “South Korea to build nuclear reactors in India”. Further reading revealed that in exchange, India would launch South Korean satellites into orbit – it just made me realize how wonderfully complicated modern trade has really become. I mean, building nuclear reactors in exchange for getting their satellites in orbit? How did the Koreans think that up?

It would've been fun being a fly on the wall in that fateful meeting when the Koreans were going about deciding this:

Korean Trade Minister: We need to get the Indians to agree to launch our satellites in orbit, and of course, keep it there! What can we give them in return? How about oil? I’ve heard India is always short of oil.

Korean Trade Minister’s Aide: We don’t produce oil, sir. But I’ve heard they’re looking for help in building nuclear reactors.

Korean Trade Minister: Excellent. Do we produce nuclear reactors?

Korean Trade Minister’s Aide: No – we decided to focus on cars, consumer electronics and hosting pointless multinational sports extravaganzas, remember?

Korean Trade Minister: So who builds them, then?

Korean Trade Minister’s Aide: The usual suspects, sir. The Americans, the Brits, the Russians, the Chinese, the Japanese…

Korean Trade Minister: Did you say the Japanese??? That’s it, then! Anything the Japanese can do, we can do almost as well, but a whole lot cheaper. That’s the whole point of Korea! They’ve got Honda, we’ve got Hyundai. They’ve got Sony, we’ve got LG. Let’s tell the Indians we’ll build nuclear reactors for them!

Of course, this is not to say that Korea isn’t a perfectly respectable country, economically speaking, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t trade with them. A lot of you, however, would be surprised to know that India has also signed a strategic trade pact with Mongolia, of all countries! You might wonder – what can we possibly need from the Mongolians?

Historically speaking, Mongolia has been famous for just one quality – aggression. Everyone remembers Genghis Khan, the legendary Mongol warrior-king who can never be mentioned without the word ‘pillaging’ also used in the same sentence. And the Mongols were so persistent in attacking the Chinese whenever they felt like it that the Great Wall of China was erected specifically for the purpose of keeping the Mongols out – and also so that even people on the moon could see how aggressive the Mongols really were.

Which made me think that maybe trading with the Mongols was not such a bad idea after all – there have been times we’ve been left with the feeling that India needs to be more aggressive when dealing with its foreign affairs – who better to learn it from than the Mongols, the one-time scourge of the Chinese? We could give the Mongols spices, bauxite, cattle, rice, telecom services, trucks, and even throw in Navjot Sidhu; in exchange for some of that aggressive mentality – sounds like a perfectly fair arrangement. Unfortunately, though, it turned out that the Mongols had stumbled upon a lot of Uranium in all that barren land of theirs – so they were going to give us Uranium and not the aggression we so badly need. Worse still, Navjot Sidhu was not a part of the exchange!

However, this again goes to illustrate how complex modern trade really is – you may think that someone has nothing to offer to you, only to find out that he’s suddenly discovered natural gas or inherited a lot of Uranium and could now be a strategic partner. This is all a far cry from the trade I’d known when I was a kid – when I’d go hungry the day they gave us samosas for breakfast, because I’d traded it with another kid for sausages – it never got any more complicated than that. So how did trade really begin?

According to economics, trade began when Country A (presumably full of really fat people) decided to produce only butter and Country B (presumably full of Texans or teenagers) decided to produce only guns. While trying to kill someone with a stick of butter, Country A realized that some guns might be handy as well, while Country B decided that butter would be a good lubricant when their guns got jammed. So they got together and exchanged some guns with butter so that both countries had a bit of both and lived happily ever after.

Of course, anyone who’s not dense enough to make the Amazon rainforest look like a barren tract of land would realize that there’s no way in hell that’s a true story. Unlike Shakira’s hips, Economics is not always a shining beacon of honesty. Here’s how trade really began:

When Country A and Country B met up for the first trade summit to exchange guns and butter, Country B realized that they had a huge advantage on their side – guns. So they simply shot all the Country A delegates and walked away with all the butter, without having to give up their guns! After much soul-searching, Country A realized its monumental stupidity and their President remarked – “There may be no better sight than the golden-yellow hue of melted butter; and no better sensation than it’s melt-in-your-mouth texture as you bite into a stick of butter; but by God we need to produce some guns else we’re in deep trouble!”. With this, the President of Country A decreed that Country A better start producing some guns along with butter.

Realizing this, Country B’s President immediately called an emergency meeting with his trusted aide:

President: Well, looks like the trade summit isn’t going to be that straightforward the next time – Country A has also decided to produce guns. What do we do now?

Aide: Well, I guess that leaves us with no choice but to give them something they want in exchange. I came across this product the other day called bread – it tastes perfect with a bit of butter. Otherwise the darn thing is too dry – only health freaks would touch it! Let’s start making some bread – when those guys try their butter on some of our bread, they’ll be more than willing to trade it with us. Plus, our people would also appreciate the improvement that butter brings to the taste of their daily bread.

Thus began the story of modern trade, as well as the modern-day breakfast.

India Has Arrived...yet again!

While I did not check the news channels after Slumdog Millionaire’s Oscar victory, I can well imagine what the scene would’ve been like – non-stop Oscar coverage, repeating the same clips hundreds of times and general celebration over India’s arrival on the international scene. Particularly on the Aaj Tak/Headlines Today type of channels – this is probably what it would’ve been like:

Headlines Today Chap: Good evening, folks, and Jai Ho! On this historic night for India, we have with us in the studio some of the key members that helped shaped this proud moment – Anil Kapoor’s breakfast nutritionist, his third cousin, his cow and his goat. Yes, ladies and gentlemen – we will bring you an exclusive insider’s peek on what exactly Anil Kapoor had for breakfast on the biggest day of his life. We will then speak to his third cousin, who has known Anil Kapoor from close quarters and will tell us exactly what this means for Anil and the country. And representing the animal kingdom, we have Anil Kapoor’s cow and goat.

Other Headlines Today Chap: Thank you, Headlines Today Chap. We begin with Anil Kapoor’s breakfast nutritionist. Our viewers would be very interested to know what exactly was your breakfast advice to Anil on this historic day? Lately, a lot of concern has been raised over carbohydrates during breakfast – how did you help Anil tackle this problem? Also, reports have emerged suspecting that Anil has not exactly been going easy on the caffeine, given the kind of overzealous enthusiasm showed by him on previous awards nights. What was your advice on that front?

Expectedly, this is being hailed as India’s arrival on the international scene. The funny thing is, for how long will India keep arriving on the international scene? Any time any Indian does anything of note, the press tends to herald India’s arrival on the international stage – I can remember India having arrived for the following:

• Continuous success of the cricket team and the fact that it has developed consistency as well as a killer instinct – a sure sign of a new India confidently arriving on the world stage.
• Chandrayaan moon mission - a true statement of India’s arrival on the universal scene.
• Indo-US nuclear deal – evidence that India is now a ‘strategic’ player on the global political stage.
• Super-cool GDP growth rates – a sign of a new India arriving on the global economic stage.
• Bollywood movies doing well abroad, Shilpa Shetty and the whole Big Brother business, SRK and Salman wax statues in Madame Tussaud’s – all pointing to the fact that Bollywood has well and truly arrived at the global stage.
• Abhinav Bindra winning gold at the Olympics.
• Indian or Indian-origin authors winning a Booker prize pretty much every alternate year.
• Sunita Williams and Kalpana Chawla.
• Tata acquiring Corus
• Tata acquiring Jaguar-Land Rover
• Chaps like LN Mittal, Mukesh Ambani, etc making it to global rich-lists.

There are probably many more such examples that I would’ve missed out on, but you get the idea - – you’d think India should’ve arrived on the international stage a long time back by now! It’s almost starting to become one of the constants in life – the sun always rises in the East, Israel and Palestine are always fighting, Akshay Kumar always makes mindless comedies and India always arrives on the international scene!