New Delhi: In an intriguing turn of events, the Supreme Court today gave Sachin Tendulkar four months time, and set May 31 as deadline to ‘accomplish his 100 international hundreds’, failing which ‘all his records will stand cancelled’.

A two-member Bench of the Supreme Court passed this verdict in response to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by a clutch of Indian cricket fans who had moved the apex court complaining that they had to sit through Tests that had double centuries by Alaistair Cook in England, Michael Clarke and Ricky Ponting in Australia in the hope that Tendulkar would get that world record of 100 international hundreds.

‘Not only we faced the mortification of Tendulkar not getting to that world record, but we also had to endure mind-numbing phases of Test cricket, which are those dull moments when after a batsman hits a four there are no replays of the cheerleaders gyrating gaily,’ the fans said in their plea.

‘The 0-4 humiliation in the Tests at both England and Australia are not exactly humiliations for us. Because we used to follow Indian football in the past. Anyway, winning and losing are everyday aspects of sport. But records aren’t so.’

‘We chose to put ourselves through the grind of Test cricket solely in the hope that Tendulkar would get to that milestone so that we can high-five ourselves in the bar later,’ the fans said and added ‘the greatness of cricket is that it is a team sport that is played so that individual records can be created.’

Accepting that there is prima facie merit in their plea, the two-member Bench, comprising Justice R S V P Gangopadhyay and Justice A S A P Pyarelal, said ‘we cannot but come to the conclusion that Tendulkar, by not getting to that elusive 100^th hundred, was playing with the sentiments of cricket fans who are generally not used to the humiliation of watching Test cricket’.

‘Remember this is a country in which Hrishikesh Kanitkar is a bigger cricketing hero than Abid Ali,’ the court pointed out in a nuanced line.

Writing the order Justice Gangopadhyay said, ‘creating a situation in which people are cruelly compelled to follow Test cricket is a Constitutional no-no. This court is also of the considered view that making people sit through Cook’s innings is both heartless and heinous’.

Allowing the plea, the court gave Tendulkar four months time and set May 31 as the deadline to accomplish the world record. ‘Failing which all his other records stand to be annulled’.

The apex court, however, left it to a trial court to decide on the issue of whether to allow Sachin Tendulkar continue playing Test cricket. ‘As the Supreme Court we cannot be expected to give all the decisions. Even if you come to us for a verdict, we will direct a trial court to take up the matter. Of course, we will overthrow whatever the trial court decides when the same matter comes to us on appeal,’ it said.

Meanwhile, reacting to the verdict, sources close to Sachin Tendulkar said: ‘we feel vindicated. For, Sachin Tendulkar the person himself has been quite sad with the Test cricket player Sachin Tendulkar, just as the honest Manmohan Singh himself has been quite cut up with the acts of omission and commission of the Prime Minister and his office (PMO)’.

The BCCI, for its part, said that it would continue to back Tendulkar in his effort to get the world record. ‘He need not worry about the 31 May deadline. We will do everything possible. Like organising a Test match series with Bangladesh.’

‘But if he can’t get it even against Bangladesh, I think, we have no other go but to give Test match status to Honduras, which, for the record, does not have a cricket team, but has a few people who can identity a cricket bat,’ Rajiv Shukla, BCCI’s vice-president, pointed out.

Elsewhere, reacting to the verdict on Sachin Tendulkar, Press Council Chairman Markhandeya Khatju, in a press release, came down heavily on the Supreme Court for ‘wasting its time on frivolous subjects’.

‘Why is the Supreme Court giving a verdict when it can put its time to better use like reading P Sainath’s articles, which we all know are denser and longer than typical court verdicts,’ Khatju said and added ‘at any rate, the Supreme Court is mediocre. I should know, as I have been part of it in the past’.

Elsewhere, Janata Party president Subramaniam Swamy, filed an RTI application, seeking to know the real reason for India’s debacle in Australia. ‘My sources confirm that the only Indian who is coming back from Australia with his head held high is Leander Paes, who is a Catholic and loves Italian pizza. This is a conspiracy by the Christian mafia headed by Sonia Gandhi. I will expose them all by 31 April, overcoming all odds including the fact that such a date doesn’t exist at all’.

(Disclaimer: Agneepath film is deemed a hit because it is far better than the other Agneepath, we mean the Agneepath series)

©2012 Crank's Corner. All Rights Reserved.

# The flavour of the week is literature, and the headlines in the media pithily capture the evolved sensibility of the moment: ‘Jaipur braces up for possible terrorists from Mumbai’.

# Even before the festival opens, controversy dawns. A couple of writers who seem to be the type that pursue its art sincerely are spotted. The organisers, however, assure that in the future that they will be careful and avoid such needless intrusions from ‘total outsiders’.

# Oprah Winfrey is invited to the festival on the basis of her sterling literary achievement, which, as listed in the tournament brochure, is: ‘She once managed to lose weight successfully’.

# Oprah sets the stage for the intellectual discussions by passionately describing to earnest literary-minded media correspondents the details of the party at the Parameshwar Godrej place.

# Some participants insist that he should be allowed to participate at the festival here. ‘If he can’t be at a literary festival, you can as well close it and go away’ is the general gist of those who want his presence at Jaipur. There are others who feel that he cannot get away after offending religious sensibilities. ‘It was a clear case of blasphemy,’ is the sum and substance of those against him. The ‘he’ in reference, of course, is: Jay Leno.

# Salman Rushdie cancels his visit to Jaipur after the security authorities point out, not unreasonably, ‘the fog engulfing North India is getting worse’.

# Elsewhere, Digvijay Singh hits out Salman Rushdie for being a closet sangh parivar man. See ‘Salman Rushdie’ is the anagram of ‘hide RSS manual’, he said by way of explanation to his literary find.

# The moment it becomes clear that Salman Rushdie will not be attending the Jaipur Literary Festival due to ‘external factors’, Hari Kunzru and Amitava Kumar, in true intellectual fashion, quickly step on to the dais after downloading from Google excerpts from the book that is deemed ‘the most offensive in the world’, which on closer scrutiny turns out to be Shobha De’s Socialite Evenings. Before any further damage could be done, the red-faced organisers escort the two writers out and continue to discuss highbrow literature with Chetan Bhagat in a session moderated by the winner of the ‘Dada Saheb Phalke award for journalism’, Barkha Dutt.

# There are many interesting sessions involving many serious thinkers. True literary buffs have difficulty in picking which session to attend and which one to miss. And most of them tide over this existential problem by the most literary way: Attend the one that is nearer to the free booze tents. Oh yes, auto expo or literary festival, the attraction is always liquor.

# On the dramatic last day of the festival, shortly after the proposed video chat with Salman Rushdie is cancelled, actor Rahul Bose, who is a littérateur on the basis of the irrefutable fact that he has acted in a film in which Booker-winning novels were spotted in the background, makes a strong symbolic show of solidarity by reading from the Indian Constitution, since, as he eloquently points out: ‘Indian Constitution is the closest that comes to The Satanic Verses, in that both are big-bound, full of dense prose and nobody really knows as to what is actually written inside them.’

# With views tossed for and against the Salman Rushdie imbroglio, it is left to the ever-astute Suhel Seth to cut through the clutter and point out that seeking a ban on books is also a manifestation of freedom of expression. ‘It is Constitutionally allowed to even seek a ban on the Constitution,’ he said and explained as only he can, ‘But once you ban the Constitution, all bans, including the one on the Constitution, will lose their Constitutional sanctity. Hence banning the Constitution constitutionally will amount to banning the ban, unconstitutionally’.

(Disclaimer: True freedom of expression also means attempting pathetic jokes on some of the people who are actually putting their lives in peril trying to defend the very same freedom of speech)

©2012 Crank's Corner. All Rights Reserved.

Chennai/Mumbai: In a smart early-bird move, Bollywood star Salman Khan has snapped up the Hindi remake rights of Kollywod star Vijay’s new release Nanban.

With Nanban, set for release this Thursday, carrying good word-of-mouth reports, as it features Vijay, and is also directed by the biggie Shankar (known for his larger than life offerings like Robot and Sivaji), it was on the cards that somebody like Salman Khan would pick the rights for its Hindi remake.

For, Salman has tasted good success by remaking in Hindi the Tamil films of Vijay, whose films themselves have tasted good success after having been remade from other languages like Telugu and Malayalam. Salman’s Wanted was the retooling of Pokkiri while Kavalan was remade in Hindi as Bodyguard.

Sources close to Salman Khan say that the Bollywood hulk always eyes with interest any new release from Vijay, who has made name for himself in Tamil with the same kind of senseless films that Salman is so famous for in Hindi. ‘With Nanban enjoying so much good pre-release reports, it was only natural that Salman moved in quickly and walked away with its remake rights,’ the source added.

Salman’s filmi success over the years has been built by a simple commonsense formula: Buy the remake the rights of a Tamil or Malyalam hit. Remake it in Hindi with his signature touch, which is to somehow include a reprise of a Telugu hit song in it.

Now that he has got the Nanban’s remake rights, Salman is on the lookout for a Telugu dance number that will suit the mass sensibilities of his fans. Most likely, the screenplay will be tweaked in such a way that Salman, as a student in the film, will have a situation wherein he will shake a leg with his professor’s wife.

Asked won’t it be too much to have the professor’s spouse dance an ‘item number’ with a student, the source close to the actor calmly explained: ‘What’s there to be aghast about? There are many things in this world more bewildering than this, like the fact that this ‘sensuous item number’ will be actually performed by Malaika Arora, Salman’s real-life sister-in-law’.

The Salman Khan camp also categorically played down the fact that Nanban itself is the Tamil remake of the Aamir Khan’s splendid hit, Three Idiots. ‘What’s the big deal in that? Also, since when did the screenplay or the story become a factor in Salman’s movie?’ trenchantly asked the source close to Salman.

‘Anyway, there is a significant difference between Aamir and Salman’s movies. In that, Aamir, in his films, somehow has the solutions for all the problems that mankind faces. He is usually a character that seems a combination of Arundhathi Roy and Albert Einstein with the artistic acumen of Rembrandt and Mozart. Salman, on the other hand, is more straight-from-the-heart type. He provides solutions by totally destroying the problems. He is one man Atilla’s Horde,’ the source said.

Most likely the answer to the ills of our education system, which is the theme of Nanban/Three Idiots, will be uniquely Salman: He kills all the professors.

Meanwhile, in an interesting development, another Bollywood star Akshay Kumar has reportedly shown an interest to remake in Hindi the Telugu film Snehitudu, which too has been carrying good pre-release word, as it stars Vijay and is directed by Shankar.

Akshay Kumar’s camp said that the story, in the backdrop of life of engineering college students, has plenty of potential for a typical Akshay kind of role: As a civil engineer he can jump off from high-rise structures, as a mechanical engineer he can drive a tyre-less four-wheeler and as an aeronautical engineer he can fly on the wings of an aircraft

Snehitudu, for the record, is the Telugu dubbed version of Nanban.

Elsewhere, in a sensational development, the director of Nanban, Shankar, has sued Rajkumar Hirani, the director of Three Idiots, for revealing the story of the film.

Shankar, it should be noted here, is well known in the industry for keeping the plot of his films totally under wraps, sometimes even after his film’s release. For example, no one knows the story of his film Jeans, a full 14 years after its release.

It is, however, still not clear whether Shankar will also proceed to file a case against his music director Harris Jayaraj, who has not only revealed the tunes of Nanban but also all the films he is still to sign, in his very first film itself.

(Disclaimer: If Salman Khan’s Hindi remake of Nanban becomes a hit, you know what will happen? Yes, Simbu will remake the Hindi hit in Tamil).

©2012 Crank's Corner. All Rights Reserved.

This is an exercise we in the media regularly undertake for two important reasons

1) We get the sense of the nation’s mood

2) It helps us to fill the vast tracts of pages/airwaves without us having to think anything on our own.

Also, such comprehensive and scientific surveys are hugely popular because they provide plenty of detail and data that people have no need for. In general, anything, for which there is no real need, has a big demand these days.  Exhibit A: iPad.

Anyway, here are the main finding from the path-breaking poll:

Inflation

67% of the respondents felt that the high inflation of recent times had wreaked havoc with their personal finances.  The remaining 33% were too feeble to talk as their last meal was three days ago.

One respondent summed up the economic crisis rationally thus: ‘The fact there is a huge liquidity crisis in the country for the last one year or so, which is also the period that A Raja has been confined to prison, is not entirely coincidental.’

Staying with economics, 94% of those surveyed were of the opinion that the taxes were ‘very high’ in India.  Asked what tax they had in mind, many respondents helpfully said: ‘What do you mean by what tax? We have just one tax no? The one we pay to the local Tax Inspector so that he doesn’t come and check our books’.

One person pointed out that the need of the hour was lowering of tax rates. ‘Any shortfall in tax collection due to rate cuts should be adequately made up by levying an ad-hoc cess on Digvijay Singh whenever he brings up the RSS into the scheme of things. By this simple stratagem, we may be looking at a revenue surplus.’

Asked to rate, on a scale of one to ten, the performance of Pranab Mukherjee as the Finance Minister,  92% unanimously said numbers cannot do justice to him and opted for the ever-dependable expletives. One respondent wanted to know whether he can use a now popular picture of Virat Kohli to convey his sincere emotions for Pranab da.

Lokpal

66% were of the opinion that a strong and effective Lokpal was what India needed to show that it had a strong and effective Lokpal.  We need Lokpal so that we aren’t in a situation in which we have to say: ‘we need Lokpal’, persuasively argued one respondent.

88% of the government employees said that it was only the private sector people who encourage graft by attempting to get things done through ‘short-cuts’. The remaining 12% of the staff could not be reached for their opinion as they had not returned from their last week’s tea-break.

79% of the private sector staff blamed the government employees for the ‘culture of corruption’ in the country.  One of them, taking time out from preparing his expense account statements and travel bills, said: ‘there is no room for any form of corruption in the private sector’.

73% said fasting amounts to ‘emotional blackmail’ and is untenable in a democracy unless attempted only by Nitin Gadkari.  Asked what is the big difference between Hazare and Gadkari, one respondent explained: ‘Anna  may be a man of moral fibre. But Nitin is a man of fibre’.

On the midnight fiasco over Lokpal at the Rajya Sabha, all respondents, in a rare show of consensus across the country, gave a clean chit to the Vice-President, who as the presiding officer of the Rajya Sabha played the constitutional role of seeming that he had a constitutional role to play.

One of those surveyed said: ‘In reality though, having a VP is like paying in crores for a wristwatch that others wouldn’t even notice: An exercise in monumental pointlessness’.

Cricket

Asked what was best way to avoid overseas debacles, 82% felt that the only workable solution to avoid defeats in foreign lands is to play more matches in India. ‘Like more IPL matches,’ they said.

Only one per cent was aware that a Test series featuring India was underway somewhere. And by the looks of it, none of the members of the BCCI was among the one per cent.

79% of cricket enthusiasts said the BCCI owed an explanation to the nation on the continuous failures of the Indian team abroad. ‘They have some serious soul searching to do. At least in the previous era they had a valid excuse for the humiliating defeats’. The ‘valid excuse’ that every respondent had in mind was, of course, the presence of: Ajit Agarkar.

Bollywood

Asked to name the single biggest problem for Bollywood, 87% of them promptly said: ‘the falling standards in regional language films’. The last originally made film in Hindi seems to be Alam Aara, one respondent pointed even while humming, well, you know that.

General

Asked to name the one big  problem that the nation woke up to in 2012, 86% of them in unison said: The New Year falling on Sunday. The rest 14% were still to come out of their hangover.

(Disclaimer: 56% of you will find this piece funny. If you’re part of the remaining 44%, there’s no excuse for you unless otherwise you answer to the name: Manmohan Singh).

©2012 Crank's Corner. All Rights Reserved.

New Delhi: As the winter air thickens over the country, there is a palpable sense of chilly unease all around over the rapidly declining quality in scandals that the country is justly famous for.

The country that once produced the hall-of-famer Bofors, which steadfastly supplied the primary headline-news to publications for over a decade, is today struggling to come up with scams that can barely last for a few months.

OK, Bofors is from the legends gallery. But even the seemingly lesser controversies from yesteryear like the Harshad Mehta share market swindle were far more sturdy and reliable, lasting for at least a couple of years. But today’s gips are hardly good enough to have a decent run for even few weeks.

The 2G scam, with the booty pegged at Rs.1.76 lakh crore, promised plenty and was expected to keep the nation focussed with its promise of more messy revelations

‘But today who talks of them? Only Subramaniam Swamy does. When something is spoken only by Subramaniam Swamy you know that it has all but reached the extreme stage of being just a stale joke,’ said Jagadesh Rajagopal, who heads the Indian chapter of Society for Controversies And Allied Lies (SCANDAL), an eponymous think-tank.

‘The 2G scam has run out of steam, as it has become sub-judice. In India, when a mater ends up in the court it is as good as it being offered an official retirement,’ he added.

In the last six or seven months, there has not been any dearth of scandals. ‘Thanks to this UPA government, the aam admi is well served on that front. But what we are talking here is the stuff of notoriety of enduring nuisance value. Even V P Singh, in his fleeting career as PM, unleashed the Mandal, the effect of which will be felt across the country for centuries to come,’ opined Fuhel Seth, a professional opinion-giver (an opinion-bot, to use a new-fangled term).

According to experts one of the many reasons for the scams to have little shelf life these days could be the fact that the DMK seems to have gone into a shell.

‘Make no mistake about it, the DMK used to provide plenty of grist to the scandal mill. The Marans in particular were verily the Bradmans of this field. The virtual telecom exchange that was operational at their house is a brilliant primer for all those who intend to take scandals as a life-time avocation,’ pointed Samir Nagpal, a fellow at the hallowed FCUK (Fraudsters & Conmen of Unlimited Kbps), which specializes in telecom scandals. ‘But with Marans seemingly on a sabbatical, scams seem to have reached a dead-end,’ Nagpal added wryly.

Another important aspect that needs to be factored in when you analyse the dilution in the quality of scandals is the clumsy work of people like Digvijay Singh, Kiran Bedi.

‘Digvijay Singh himself is a big scandal. But his scandals are a bagatelle in comparison. They are things worthy of only a few laughs for a few seconds, but not ones that can keep you entertained for years together,’ said Fuhel Seth, who himself is a bit of a stirrer. ‘And what of Kiran Bedi’s contribution? Well, they are just laughable. She is a rank amateur and needs some professional lessons from people like KPS Gill who were past masters in maddeningly muddying the waters, as it were’, Seth said fondly, not bothering to conceal his admiration for a fellow trouble-maker.

But luckily for the nation, there is one man who, within his limited capacity, seems to be constantly at work in providing at least some interesting scandals.

Yes, the irrepressible Union Minister of Communication and Information Technology Kapil Sibal seems to be at it again. A few weeks after talking to social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to explore the possibility of ‘pre-screening outrageous content’, the suave and erudite Sibal is now said to be in talks with dictionary companies to try and ‘pre-edit provocative words’.

‘There are many newspaper and publications that carry sentences which contain words that can trigger trouble. I want dictionary companies to check whether they can prevent such misuse of their platform,’ Sibal is reported to have said. ‘As dictionary companies they too have a responsibility in weeding out the offensive stuff,’ he logically explained.

The dictionary companies, for their part, pointed out they cannot take down words as they (words) have a life of their own (in the case of Brits), a variety of spelling (in the case of Americans) and pronunciation of unidentifiable vintage (in the case of Bongs).

‘Also, the problem here was that the Minister’s outrage was triggered by a word that is not technically in any formal lexicon so far,’ the dictionary firms said.

The offensive word, according to highly-placed sources in the government, was: ‘Lokpal’.

(Disclaimer: Whether they manage to get Parliament approve it or not, Anna and Co should get the dictionary-makers include Lokpal, as a synonym for, what else, a long-running scandal).

©2012 Crank's Corner. All Rights Reserved.