Hats off to those saviours of humanity for enabling broken lives to regain vitality and bringing them back from the jaws of death or a state of numbness (Earth, Sea, Mountain, Man, Jan 9). What can be more encouraging than to note that globalisation hasn’t failed to wrest the capacity for compassion from among us. Let us hope the tribe of such people only expands as the years pass by.
Arvind K. Pandey, Allahabad
The great deeds of the folks left my eyes misty. Suddenly I realise that heroism lies hidden in all of us, waiting to be woken up.
Parthasarathy, Chennai
Heroism is that thing in you which comes out of circumstances, only that people around should appreciate it strongly (Who Are You, Who?). Thus popular perception has a role in lending somebody the tag of a hero. Perhaps a better word is ‘leader’ so that we don’t confuse the term with our favourite entertainers. The interpretation of heroics changes based on social realities. Adolf Hitler was a great hero to most of the German population, but not any more. Mahatma Gandhi was a leader before he died, now he is an icon. Indira Gandhi is certainly more appreciated today than in the days of Emergency. All the same, there are people who do wonderful things that people may not know or appreciate. Nice that you highlighted them.
Srini Jasti, San Jose, US
For a change, Outlook has carried inspiring stories that can move anyone positively.
Swaminathan, Chennai
Good to see an array of lesser-known heroes amongst us but sad to find that young Nagapattinam collector J. Radhakrishnan did not find mention among them. He not only came immediately to the rescue of the people post tsunami, but also brought along with him his wife Krithika and their little son. With their warmth and caring attitude, they consoled the victims. Any ordinary person would have balked at dragging one’s own family into such a heart-rending site but not Radhakrishnan. No wonder, the orphaned children in the district still call them ‘appa’ and ‘amma’.
Brinda Kumarakrishnan, on e-mail
The account of Raja Karthikeya’s deed calls for special mention because he alone took the plunge when everyone wondered what could be done. An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.
D. Ravishankar, on e-mail
I was shocked to find India’s World Cup cricket win in 1983 being described as ‘flukish’ (All For the Game, Or The Man?). This is derogatory towards the team that had achieved such a feat against a mighty team like the West Indies. I hope the writer, Sambit Pal, knows and appreciates the saying that cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties.
Moulinath Banerjee, Manchester
Kapil Dev shows uncommon common sense because he does not have to put up a show (‘Hero Worship In India Is Too Big. It is Both Right And Wrong’). The ace allrounder is an achiever and is obviously down to earth.
S. Soundararajan, Portsmouth, UK
Javed Akhtar is absolutely right with regard to heroes, idealism and the current social trend (‘We Don’t Have Collective Dreams, And Therefore Heroes’). But I still believe that India will get its hero, though he may be within each one of us right now.
Mahesh Rathi, Calcutta
Should one tell a senior journalist like M.J. Akbar that our comrades are mere opportunists (Yawn, It Was A Sleep Year)? Their backing the Congress is one example. Despite being marginalised globally, they still carry on with their bullying tactics to sabotage the country’s economy. The generation next shall not allow anyone to upset our reforms agenda—be they green, red or saffron.
Gyan Ranjan Saha, Calcutta
If politics (an overdose of which we seem to suffer from) taking a backseat to economics is what the heading implies, then I am happy and I hope the future years continue to give us the same drowsy feeling. Left, right, centre, communal, secular, pseudo-secular...there isn’t much to choose from. It’s gladdening we have an economist at the country’s helm. So India’s economic growth will create a class which doesn’t need anything from the politician-bureaucrat nexus, and hence will start to force a change in the power dynamics between the rulers and the governed.
Arun Maheshwari, Bangalore
The recent rape and murder of a call centre employee has come up as a wake-up call for the bpo industry and its workforce (The Wolf Strikes). Security to the staffers should be accorded topmost priority considering that a good number of them are young women compelled to work at odd hours. Added to this is the general apathy of people when it comes to rescuing strangers.
Shazia Shaikh, Nagpur
No bpo firm can take a casual approach on providing safety to its employees. Neither should it shirk the responsibility by blaming lax law and order and the government machinery. All the same, there is a need to recognise and fulfil the collective responsibility that devolves upon citizens, employers and employees. Only that will help them prevent such crimes.
K.C. Subhash Chandra, Bangalore
Crimes like this can be curbed to a large extent if women are recruited as security guards and even drivers for some of the vehicles. Also, there is a need to keep a watch on the pubs in the locality of bpo firms.
Manu Nair, Bangalore
Just as the match-fixing scandal seemed to subside, cricket lovers are now faced with a new phenomenon called selection-fixing (Spring In The Wintry Air). The selection of Sourav Ganguly for the Pakistan tour can trigger more sensational street scenes by fans to pave the way for the selection of their chosen hero into the national team. That really would be a sad day.
S.R. Devaprakash, Tumkur, Karnataka
At first, Outlook made Greg Chappell the villain in Ganguly’s spat with the coach. Then you fall silent and congratulate eve-ryone except Chappell just as Team India is showing signs of resurgence. What’s more, you even find virtues in Wasim Jaffer when the nation is aghast at the treatment meted out to Dada.
Rohit C.J., Kochi
As usual, Vinod Mehta is trying to shield the shortcomings of the Congress by saying that the Manmohan Singh government has had an average year (Reflections). Who can honestly deny that the legacy of this party is survival in power by hook or crook and promoting ‘secular’ sycophants, full-time thugs and even virtual jehadis?
Raj Purohit, Toronto
His diehard support for the Congress apart, Mehta is right when he says that the upa government "has done nothing seriously wrong, but neither has it done anything seriously right". On the economic front, the PM has shown good intentions but has mostly been let down by the Left parties propping him up. His image has taken a severe beating due to political controversies like Bihar, Goa, atr on the 1984 riots and tainted ministers like Shibu Soren and Laloo Yadav.
Vineet Tandon, Lucknow
Nineteen months out of power has reduced the bjp to a laughing stock. Its leaders have started behaving in an abnormal and erratic manner. Even the seniors among them sometimes act like stand-up comedians in Parliament. Let them continue the show, we have fortunately an able government to carry forward the country in all spheres of life, especially economy.
Lalkrishna Henduklal, Mumbai
Maybe it’s Nitish Kumar for Mehta, but my pick of the year is expelled bjp leader Uma Bharati—the unmasked face of ’05.
A. Azim, Lucknow
Mehta says ex-cricketer Arun Lal was only "displaying a national trait" when he kept addressing the new bcci chief as ‘sir’ in a TV interview. Just as Mehta hopes that this would ebb in 2006, we readers too expect him to curb sycophancy in the new year.
S. Srinivas Rao, Delhi
Agreed, Lal cowers before Sharad Pawar, but what about you bowing and quivering in front of that Italian woman?
S.S. Nagaraj, Bangalore
Don’t try to lend legitimacy to the pseudo-secularist class by associating it with Gandhi. A deeply religious man, the Mahatma never degraded or disparaged Hinduism in the name of secularism. Far from it, he derived a great amount of strength from the ancient scriptures of his religion. Can you ever imagine a pseudo-secularist holding the Gita on his or her deathbed?
Arthashastra.blogspot.com, Madison, US
Though Mehta meant the opposite when he referred to Gandhi as a pseudo-secularist, let’s not forget that the Mahatma sought to win over Muslims at all costs—his indifference to the sufferings of Hindus during the Moplah rebellion being just one example. He blundered during the Khilafat movement, refused to see through Jinnah’s divisive politics—worse, even attempted to make him the PM. Gandhi also failed to live up to his proclamation that India could be partitioned only over his dead body. Remember, he never condemned the killings of Hindus in nascent Pakistan.
V.R. Ganesan, New Jersey
Why did you call those benefactors ‘Heroes from Hell’ when they have all worked like angels from heaven?
Philip Verghese Ariel, Secunderabad
The rise and fall of the Sensex might raise the blood pressure of investors but the bull run hardly excites the rest of India (Taura! Taura! Taura!, Dec 26). Instead of using the highs and lows of the stockmarket as a major benchmark for the nation’s growth, it’s better growth is measured in terms of factors that showcase the lives of average Indians in a more realistic way. Amid the euphoria that follows such news, the rest of the country continues to reel under inhuman conditions. Unless one comes to anticipate qualitative changes in the lives of average Indians, there is hardly any merit in welcoming such ‘booms’ with open arms.
A.K. Pandey, on e-mail
I’m no defender of Bill Gates but found that Outlook took a small-minded position on his intended donations (Godly Gates, Dec 26). There’s no need to adhere to a cynical or suspicious line that the Microsoft boss’ ultimate goal is consolidating the market for his products. It has a dodgy logic, as it would be an unnecessary, expensive and uncertain ‘investing’. The world would be surely better if all mncs, instead of bribing thirsty politicians in developing countries, invested in sectors like health and education.
Temoris Grecko, Jodhpur
He may be ridiculed by experts and non-experts alike, but Gates’ vision of agile software, run on inexpensive and affordable platforms, has set the trend for the industry. My toddler daughter and 80-year-old grandma couldn’t have played online games had it not been for him.
Bhaswati Chatterjee, Calcutta
Gates has helped make technology affordable. With technology having enabled India to achieve better economic influence, he cannot be faulted for having a vested interest in seeing our country succeed.
Francis Reys, Toronto
Shocking is too mild a word for what I felt as I read Namrata Joshi’s so-called review of Deepa Mehta’s Water. Film reviews are perhaps taken in the band of ‘light’ topics that can be assigned to amateurs. Joshi exposes her deficiencies of perception, brain, taste, understanding, logic and plain old-fashioned journalism. Perception: By all accounts the film got the highest accolades at the Kerala film festival—it wasn’t chosen as the opening film for nothing. Brain: Joshi fails to see the sexual exploitation is caused by the widows’ poverty. Taste: Joshi says the film doesn’t move you. When I saw it, men and women could be heard sobbing. Understanding: She says the characters lack any regional/social framework. Suffering is universal, regardless of region. It’s the film’s strength. Logic: Joshi writes the film doesn’t create any sympathy in the viewer. Yet she contradicts herself and says the child Sarla tugs at the heart-strings. Make up your mind. Journalism: Joshi breaks its cardinal rules. Not only does she write out the story like a school précis, horrifyingly, she actually gives the ending away. Deepa Mehta lost a lot of sleep making Water because she believed in it—we all know the humiliation she, her cast and crew were subjected to in Varanasi. By this ‘so cool’ flick of her computer, Joshi callously dismisses this solid piece of work. Why does success irk us so? Why does it provoke us to eat our own? Is this de rigueur negativity? The fear of being positive? And why does Joshi have to be so acutely aware of how the West perceives us? Who cares?
Madhu Trehan, Delhi
Yeah, movie lovers in Canada have raved about Water, calling it one of 2005’s best films. It lives up to the reputation created by Fire and Earth. Besides, depicting the plight of Hindu widows in 1930s is a subject with wide resonance, for all the right-wing indignation on show during its shoot.
Ghulam Y. Faruki, New York
The controversial fax has notings of several bureaucrats (Letter from Baghdad, Dec 26). It only shows that they singlularly run the show and the ministers keep touring.
Capt (retd) H. Rajagopal, Bangalore
The Baghdad mail falls in the semi demi-official category of bureaucratic correspondence. It would mostly be opened by the addressee’s personal secretary. The foreign secretary is not expected to read all of them, so Shashank is justified in saying that he doesn’t remember having seen the mail, but the notings suggest it had been shown to him. As for Yashwant Sinha, he had been a bureaucrat, thus shouldn’t be complaining that the mail never reached him.
K.K. Sharma, IAS (retd), on e-mail
Let me remind Vinod Mehta that it’s the same Great Indian Middle Class (Delhi Diary, Dec 26) that’s expected to go through the 117 pages of advertisements in Outlook’s 330-page 10th anniversary issue.
Deepanshu Bhandari, on e-mail
Common sense alone is enough to sense the difference in the credibility of Aniel Mathrani’s story based on first-hand experience and that of Romesh Bhandari, quoting his sources in Baghdad. The mention of a Manipur story won’t help hide your political bias.
Arun Maheshwari, Bangalore
Sadly, for all its other virtues, Outlook’s forays into fashion and the polls it conducts have all been a disaster. Whether it is the urge to sensationlise or trivialise fashion (Jagged Hemlines, Dec 26), I am not entirely clear, but once again you have scored! The article on fashion week being split, I find it odd that only three people who are quoted have irrelevant comments about parties and page 3 people fighting over seats. I find it shocking that this is the face that you chose to give to a fledgling industry that has great potential in India. How come you failed to speak to a greater cross-section of people from the trade and represent their thoughts visually? The danger in this is manifold. When an industry insider like me reads a piece like this, I begin to wonder if all other pieces written are as poorly researched. Your 10th anniversary special issue was superb. Come on, either drop fashion altogether or get it together. I am sure you can do it.
Tarun Tahiliani, New Delhi
Our Correspondent replies: If Tarun Tahiliani were to look at the article again and read beyond the picture captions, he would find that we have spoken to nine members of the fashion industry, including designers, retailers and heads of fdci and Lakme. Also, we have quoted their views on the controversy. We would, nevertheless, be happy to quote Tahiliani in our next article on fashion.
Ref Taura! Taura! Taura!. In 1992, P. Chidambaram, resigned as commerce minister when he disclosed his wife had invested out of post-tax savings in a company which, much later, was found to have played the stockmarket. Although the firm (Fairgrowth Financial Services) had no connection at all with Harshad Mehta, the controversy is considered a part of the securities scam.
Ref our Jan 9 New Year issue, Bob Hoekstra is ceo, Philips Software Centre at the Philips Innovation Campus in Bangalore.
And a photo caption on page 102 should have read Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India workers and not Hero Honda.
