Newsmakers 2009!

It’s good to see the back of a depressing year. My astrologer has predicted a brilliant year ahead for me financially. Bless the astrologer! He spreads more cheer than the Governor of RBI who has predicted darker days ahead.

Some memorable moments of 2009.

Music :

MJ End of an era : As I read the flash on CNN, I went blank. A part of me died when I heard that the King is no more. Reams and reams have been written about him. There is noting much to write. All I can say is that The websters can describe ‘ Genius’ in one word – Michael Jackson.

AR REHMAN WINS THE OSCAR : I reproduce my tribute which I wrote when he won it :
There was nothing unusual last night. As the brightest stars of the galaxy came together to sparkle, we knew who will shine the brightest.
There was a feeling of Deja vu.
with him it never is will he , won't he? it always is 'when'?
Occasions dont decide him he decides the occasion.
and last night he looked at the oscars. " You are coming home!"
I doff my hat to this genuis. The jewel in our crown.

All I can add is that I doff my hat to him not only for his genius but also for his humility. We are indeed blessed- Oscar or no Oscar – to have him amongst us.

AR REHMAN : JAI HO.

Corporate :

The rise and the rise of Sensex : Show me a story with sex in it and you are showing me a best seller. Well most of the times at least.
How can Sensex fail when its last name is sex. Money and sex make a heady concoction. This one has both!
In all the gloomy scenario, this was one sunny spot. The captains of the industry can congratulate themselves for steering their industries so well.

Raju Ban gaya Chor : Ramalinga Raju was a civil engineer. He rose to fame and became the poster boy of AP Industry as his company Satyam rose to become the third largest Indian IT company. But the nation watched in horror as he confessed that he had committed a fraud of 7,500 crore rupees make it the biggest fraud in the world.
The hero became a zero and satyam asatyam. But full marks to the government for deftly handling the aftermath. The company looks to be on its road to recovery.
As Raju cools his heels in the Chanchalguda Prison, the CBI is running out of calculators which can count the amount of the fraud. Its now speculated that it may go beyond 12000 crores. This is not the end. Investors in USA have sued the company for over $ 1Billion in separate law suits.
This raju sure isn’t a gentleman.

Sports :

Tiger Tiger Burning bright : OK this isn’t about the famous poem by William Blake. This isn’t even about sports.
Tiger woods is used to being in the headlines. This time it was for all the wrong reasons.
But Tiger Woods validated my theory that stories with sex make good copy. He showed to the world that being accomplished in one field doesn’t exclude you from being an expert in another. He handled his club expertly on and off the field. So far we have heard about his 17 affairs. They are still counting.
While the delighted media exploited on all the juicy details and made bags full of money, poor Woods couldn’t plug the leak. An university study revealed the total loss of his philandering as $12Billion.
Silly Americans.
They want their sporting icons to be saintly like the Pope and their Pope to be a bit more sporting.
Whoever said sex is a great tonic? Not if you are Tiger Woods.

Movies : without any doubt ‘ Avataar’. With this movie Cameroon has played God. Literally. He created a new world. ( wonder if he slept on Sundays). This is the costliest movie in the history of movies. It needed a lot of skill, imagination and lets admit balls of concrete!
All the movies in the future will be judged only on one basis : Pre Avataar and Post avatar.

There were many who could have been up there – Saina Nehwal , who polled more than the cricketing icons as the sportsperson of the year and dislodged Sania Mirza , another hyderabadi and equally precocious talent as the most popular sportsperson, Shashi Tharoor , the tweeting minister, the one bright spot in an otherwise drab and inept government, the unassuming Resul Pookutty , the other Oscar winner, ND Tiwari ( come on guys he got more hits on Youtube than Sachin Tendulkar!), Shahrukh khan’s tantrums at the New York airport or Sonia Gandhi for rewriting the Congress History ( Imagine the 125 years celebration of congress and no mention of PV Narsimha Rao! Lady we didn’t know your talents as a historian. Congress we never knew was all about only the Nehrus and Gandhis! We thought there were many other people) the list is endless.

But then Blogging and advancing age reduces your options. both rely on brevity. One cause of space constraint another cause of memory constraint. The aging brain can only rememeber that much.