IN HINDSIGHT   by an Indo-German newspaper columnist

(In Hindsight 35/Dec 23-27, 2008)

When I see a Greek person’s face, I’m usually disappointed. The reason for this, of course, is that we tend to expect the same chiselled features as on those ancient statues of Greek gods. In reality Greeks are ugly mortals like the rest of us.

Who posed for those statues? It couldn’t have been grisly Greeks like Pete Sampras or Aristotle Onassis–who would require plastic, if not marble, surgery. Like the paint that once covered those naked statues, their virtues have faded. Today’s Greece is an unenterprising and corrupt country with only the unemployment sector booming.

The innovative civilization that produced (the original) Aristotle has taken to the bottle–which it drinks heavily from or hurls at policemen. Where Aristotle’s pupil Alexander the Great once conquered most of the known world, the new hero is Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a teenager killed by a cop who claims he couldn’t shoot straight.

The police acted innocent, saying Alex and his gang threw bottles and stones to provoke them; and that it was only a ricocheted bullet which killed him. The protestors decided to fire back, with messages like ‘Don’t Blame Us, The Rocks Ricocheted’.

Nor can you blame them for doing anything innovative or unusual. After all, Athens has about two or three demonstrations a day that often shut down the city centre. This time, naturally, the whole country decided to join the battle. And they didn’t stop at bottles. They found bigger glass targets with tastier treats inside. The destruction and looting continued for weeks.

Campuses like the central National Technical University were being used to stockpile bottle bombs and other missiles, including pieces hewn off the college buildings. What happened to the Greek tradition of learning and culture? Can these be the same Greeks who gave us democracy, modern philosophy and high-class hetaeric harlotry? Judging from the evidence, perhaps they gave us a bit too much democracy and philosophy.

Now there is a fear that the riots might spread to other European countries. Already there have been ‘sympathy riots’ across the economically and emotionally depressed continent. France, another nation proud of its demonstrations and disruptions, has a comparable percentage of jobless people to Greece. These people are prepared to work very hard in order to ensure they remain gainfully unemployed.

The European Union spends huge amounts paying people to do nothing, or to produce unwanted products. To keep it this way, Greek farmers often spend time protesting instead of farming. Teachers do not teach, students do not learn, and policemen don’t interfere. (If they did, it could lead to riots.)

Recent riots in Greece and France have forced their leaders to backtrack. The French president used to make fun of his predecessors for being intimidated by protests, but surrendered like a monkey last week. The Greek president went so far as to instruct police not to prevent any looting or vandalism unless attacked. If you mentioned the movie ‘300’ to him, he’d probably think it’s about bowling.

Aristotle (the one with the lip, not the ships) believed Greeks were the most advanced humans, while other Europeans were ‘deficient in intelligence’. Now that Greece is officially a part of Europe, its modern mental miracles should surprise no one.

(In Hindsight 34/Dec 9-13, 2008)

Changing the name of Bombay failed to keep the bombs at bay. Maybe those who were so keen on the new name ‘Mumbai’ should have kept mum.

It has been 13 unlucky years since the city’s name change was ordered. In that time hundreds of its inhabitants have been killed in terrorist attacks by land and sea. According to cardinal numerologists, the name ‘Mumbai’ adds up to 18 which has inauspicious properties; while ‘Bombay’ totals 17 which is auspicious.

Now, I’m not a big fan of numerology. Some of the things I’ve said about it aren’t suitable for the ears of anyone under 18. I can’t count the number of times I’ve criticized numerology. However if auspicious numbers and politically-correct name changes can improve our existence then we must be getting pretty close to the virgin-packed paradise some of those terrorists are seeking.

This doesn’t just apply to cities which suffer terror attacks. The terrorists themselves are being renamed. They are now being called ‘militants’. As we know, a militant could be a protestor who does no more damage to human life than a self-inflicted sore throat.

In September 2001, soon after the attacks on New York’s World Trade Center, Reuters’ chief news editor wrote a memo to his reporters: ‘We all know that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter and that Reuters upholds the principle that we do not use the word terrorist…’ The only mystery is why he used the infinitely offensive term ‘man’s’ instead of ‘person’s’.

Similarly the BBC’s editorial guidelines state that ‘The word “terrorist” itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should try to avoid the term…’ The media trend of demoting terrorists to anything from mere ‘militants’ to gentle ‘gunmen’, and even amicable ‘activists’, continues.

(In fact even before the 9/11 attacks the UK’s Plymouth City Council tried to ban the word ‘manager’ because it sounded as if it contained the word ‘man’. I wonder what we might call them now–womanagers? BANagers? It sounds like science fiction, but perhaps America’s Plymouth pilgrims have been avenged in the mother country for their forced odyssey. More so after 2001.)

Thus from Mumbai to Manhattan–or should that be ‘Womanhattan’?–and other freedom-fighting colonies, we’re in the same boat: terrorists are being treated with respect. You might think this militates against common sense. Indeed there are many who believe terrorists are inhuman creatures: that a ‘terrorist’ and a ‘man’ have nothing in common. What sort of human being, they ask, could so cold-bloodedly kill others?

In the 1960s, Dr. Stanley Milgram of Yale University conducted a series of experiments which showed that most ‘normal’ people would agree to inflict fatal injuries through electric shocks on innocent civilians who had done them no harm whatsoever. More recent research, including Dr. Jerry Burger’s partial replication of the experiments in 2006, confirmed their conclusions. Human nature is not a very nice thing.

Does this shock you? From Milgram’s work, a milligram of evil exists in all of us. What do we do about it? I have no idea; but we’d better start considering it because a US congressional commission recently reported that by the highly inauspicious year 2013, terrorists–sorry, militants–are likely to start using WMDs, i.e. weapons of mass destruction. Or must we call them weapons of mere distraction?

(In Hindsight 33/Nov 25-29, 2008)

Will Putin be Put In again? The former Russian leader, who is now technically the deputy leader, seems primed to reoccupy the Grand Kremlin Palace.

Vladimir Putin became Russia’s president on the last day of the previous millennium; and it’s beginning to look as if he’ll be there on the last day of the present one as well. Earlier this year he had to retire, after serving consecutive four-year terms. But a convenient solution was found. His hand-picked successor became the president, while Putin became the boss of the dominant political party as well as the prime minister. According to reliable reports he’s still unofficially running the country.

Russia’s constitution would allow Putin to become president again after this rejuvenating break. What’s more, lawmakers recently voted to extend each presidential term to six years: which means he could serve for twelve years next time, making a grand total of twenty years. And that might just be a warm-up, as we shall see.

The present president, Dmitry Medvedev, has ruled out extending his own term. It’s expected he will find some excuse to step down within a year or two. If Dmitry demits, guess who’ll get the next turn to serve? Not Andrei Medvedev the tennis player.

The main opposition leader, Gennady Zyuganov, complained that the term increase would further empower someone who “already has more power than the (Soviet) general secretary, the czar and the pharaoh together”. But Mr. Zyuganov’s own Communist Party once wielded more power than Putin, Medvedev, Big Brother and Uncle Joe combined, so possibly he’s just jealous.

Let’s face it, Gennady in no Kennedy; and despite a receded version of Putin’s hairstyle he doesn’t have the same austere charm. Putin retains the support of four-fifths of Russian voters. His approval rating, despite finger-pointing by human-rights organizations and occasional crude comments such as his vow to ‘crush terrorists in the toilet’ or even–according to the French president’s advisor–to hang Georgia’s president ‘by the balls’, is about 80 per cent. That’s four fingers pointed back at anyone who flips him the bird.

One reason why Putin could afford his crude comments is Russia has plenty of crude oil. This has brought huge revenues: and together with blackmail and threats to halt export through the southeastern pipeline it could be argued that he truly had the world, or at least Eastern Europe, by the balls.

Oil revenues helped to sharply increase salaries during his term. But now oil prices have fallen still more sharply, and Russia has started depleting its currency reserves. Russian stock markets’ performance has been the worst in the world.

However, corrective measures have been taken. Journalists’ freedom has been further restricted, with reports of the national financial crisis absent from television (and words such as ‘crisis’ banned altogether). The result is that even as the economy falters, Russian consumer confidence is sky-high.

How long can mighty Putin’s magic last in these circumstances? Well, if he can hang on and retain the presidency till 2025 things will get much better. It’s forecast that by then the Siberian snow cover will retreat like Zyuganov’s hair due to global warming, providing easy access to northern oil and gas fields. This, along with extended sowing seasons, will benefit the Russian economy more than any other.

And anyway, when things go wrong people don’t blame the czar but rather his courtiers.

(In Hindsight 32/Nov 11-15, 2008)

America has its first ‘celebrity’ president-elect since Ronald Reagan. Barack Obama had almost no executive experience, yet the media led by Oprah Winfrey decided he was the ‘One’, and soon enough he had Won.

His opponent, John McCain, was an old, short and slightly crippled figure. Unsurprisingly he doesn’t like celebrities very much. During the campaign he ran a television ad comparing Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

Paris Hilton responded with her own ad (Britney may have been too intoxicated to notice). In it she urged people not to vote for the “wrinkly” and “white-haired dude” but for herself because she’s “just hot”. (And should we assume nothing else?)

Paris is often said to be ‘famous for being famous’ (and that expression too is known for being linked to her). Now Ms. Hilton may be no Milton; but who has more influence on this planet than the stars?

She first became famous through the reality show ‘Simple Minds’–sorry, the ‘Simple Life’–showing intimate scenes of her slumming along with socialite friend Nicole Richie. Its premiere was preceded by a leaked sex tape that showed still more intimate scenes alongside (and otherwise aligned with) a friend named Rick Salomon who kissed, told and sold the tape.

Since the days of Salomon’s wisdom, Ms. Hilton and Ms. Richie have achieved much, such as being dramatically jailed for drunk driving and related infringements. Fortunately both imprisonments occurred after the shooting was over: that is to say the filming for the final season of their show.

But now Paris is complaining about people who want their share of fame by association: “Every other guy I’ve been out with has used me for money or sex–but in most cases they just want fame.” Well, how dare they!

The good news is she has finally found someone who’s uninterested in fame. The man she’s mad about is minor rock star Benji Madden, who “loves me for me” as she trustingly puts it. Incidentally Benji’s twin brother and bandmate Joel Madden is Nicole Richie’s boyfriend and the father of her child. These maddening Maddens prove real life is stranger than reality shows.

If all else fails, there’s still hope because she’s starring in a new reality series called ‘Paris Hilton’s My New BFF’ which might bag her some backups. (BFF means either Best Friends Forever or Best F***ing Friend, depending on whom you ask.)

Returning to less important matters, will Obama make a good president? The last celebrity president, Reagan, was voted the ‘greatest American’ of all time by his countrymen. On the other hand the last president to have been called ‘The One’ was Richard Nixon; and America ended up having None. So it’s too early to tell.

At any rate, the growing power of celebrities is inescapable. In some countries they have overtaken God in terms of popularity, or dethroned Him altogether. A study found that people’s religiousness tends to decrease as celebrity worship increases.

So will our hopes of reaching Paradise be replaced by hopes of reaching and touching Paris? Could even she become president someday? If the current president, Barack Hussein Obama, could overcome the handicap of his middle name which reminded voters of their late adversary in Iraq, then perhaps Paris Whitney Hilton can overcome her first, much as it might remind them of their most hated enemies: the French.

(In Hindsight 31/Oct 28-Nov 1, 2008)

These days the word ‘piracy’ means copyright infringement. Most modern pirates only steal people’s songs, dances and fairy stories. All they murder is the music (without being brave enough to face it). But it’s nice to know there are still some REAL pirates left in the world: honest old-school buccaneers with not a floppy disc in their backbones.

The Gulf of Aden is an Eden for over 1,000 Somali pirates. The western Indian Ocean has the world’s most dangerous shipping lanes. However, the pirates prefer to be known as ‘coast guards’ or, at worst, ‘tax collectors’.

Somalia’s coastal waters contain plenty of valuable tuna fish. In the early 1990s, foreign fishing fleets began freely exploiting these, and should have been checked by the Somali government. There’s only one problem: Somalia doesn’t have a government. Central authority is weak–and there are now breakway regions such as Puntland, a pirate’s paradise.

Ultimately, local fishermen started patriotically demanding a ‘tax’ from foreign vessels. The locals fleetly realized that instead of bothering with a ship’s catch, it made more sense to catch the whole ship. Within a few years they forgot all about fishing, acquired guns and grenades; and began hijacking cargo vessels, oil tankers and even UN ships carrying food for the starving Somalis they claimed to be protecting.

In these difficult times for financiers and foragers alike, piracy is the one reliable growth industry in Somalia. The number of employees has, in the last five years, grown more than tenfold. This year, more than 30 ships have been hijacked. The pirates collected up to 30 million dollars in ransom, and still have about a dozen ships left to cash in. The chips are down in Puntland.

Salaries and bonuses are increasing exponentially. A ransom of a million dollars no longer satisfies workers. Pirates holding the Ukrainian ship MV Faina were offered one million by its operators; the pirates’ official spokesman rejected the amount: “That is worthless. It would only pay for several nights’ stay at a hotel.” (Well, yes, we know there are pirates in the hospitality sector too.)

Nato has sent ships to assist American ones patrolling the area. Other countries, including India whose sailors routinely get seajacked, are promising if not providing more. However, India is politically reluctant to cooperate with a coalition of American allies. We are more afraid of Americans than pirates.

But even when pursuing pirates, there is a problem. As Nato’s anti-thief chief Admiral Fitzgerald puts it, “How do you prove a guy’s a pirate before he actually attacks a ship?” And, after all, the MV Faina had 33 battle tanks plus cratefuls of heavy weapons on board, which didn’t do much good–except to raise the ransom demand.

In fact, some groups that claim to be fighting piracy–such as the Somali Marines–are actually pirate gangs themselves. So the only advice I can offer, if you’re a sailor, is: hire mercenaries to defend you. Otherwise, sail your ship in the eastern Indian Ocean instead: that area has fallen to second place on the piracy charts, and there’s a slightly lower chance of being attacked.

Better yet, consider jumping ship and joining the pirates. Would you prefer to spend your life swabbing decks, or earn millions and let the best hotel staff do it for you? Exactly! Booty ahoy, me hearties!

(In Hindsight 30/Oct 14-18, 2008)

If you could print money, would you print more than you need? That’s what America’s Federal Reserve Bank has been doing in recent years. As a result money becomes freely available to fools, who lend it to other fools. Ultimately every crook gets credit.

In addition to fools leading–I mean, lending to–fools, that nation’s benevolent leaders have long encouraged people with little or no money to borrow and build castles in the air, or at least houses made of air for themselves as well as Samaritan strangers eager to pass on the debt. With people selling things they don’t have, and accountants becoming artists, we’ve had the financial crisis and the rationalization–no, nationalization of Freddie Kruger and Mac the Knife, that sharp lot who let anyone make a killing. Or whatever they’re being called.

Everyone knows you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. But if people are already fools by nature, what can you do? Such crises happen in predictable cycles. There has been a tendency to blame the latest one on ‘greed’. Actually there’s one thing you can be surer people are than that they’re fools: which is good and greedy, though the adjective ‘needy’ was recently back in fashion.

Main Street’s masses protested that Wall Street’s bailout was rewarding affluent asses who had thrown away their money. Let capitalists suffer the consequences of capitalism, they argued. If the country-club golfers are in a hole, so what! If there’s a sea of liquidity problems, let the yachters go to Davy Jones! But then they began to realize their own foolish investments would suffer, and started singing a different tune (or rattling a different tin cup).

American lawmakers approved the bailout, promising 700 billion dollars to buy bad assets. Where will the money come from? Well, they can sell good assets to buy bad ones. Bonds may be peddled for bonds. It sounds like James Bond stuff (if not mutual slavery). And why exactly 700 billion? Maybe because the zeros in 007 are worthless.

Perhaps they’ll take the easy way out, and go back to printing more money–which helped cause the problem in the first place. Then some more zeros will be worth nothing. One could keep one’s bonds and assets, but with changed face value. Investors could lose face while getting their assets kicked at the same time. And worse.

There are still doubts about the package. The purchase of assets hasn’t started. At the time of writing there was a big rally but the Dow Jones could yet head Down to Jones’s. Would Britain’s bailout keep the FTSE on its feet? Could the Sensex gain some sense and sexiness? Will we thank banks for restored global confidence? Well, at least people were saying, “Hurrah! It’s not as bad as the Great Depression!”

At any rate, a saviour is coming. In the end, we know who’ll graciously pay for this: the taxpayer. After all, if he wants the privilege of his lies being honoured by his leaders, he’ll have to contribute something sooner or later. The purpose of modern governments is to extract taxes and waste them. Many economies are based on waste recycling; and there seems no reason for that to change.

(In Hindsight 29/Sep 30-Oct 4, 2008)

Last week Mr. Zhai Zhigang became the first Chinese astronaut to walk in space. Indians may have applauded politely with “Jai Zhai!” but not much more enthusiasm than China showed when allowing India’s recent nuclear deal.

This month, India is scheduled to send a spacecraft to orbit the moon. The Chinese already did that a year ago. ‘An eye for a Zhai’ seems to be our policy (though the launch could be postponed; as with great wisdom and foresight it’s been scheduled at the beginning of the cyclone season). It remains to be seen who accomplishes the ultimate goal of being the world’s second nation to land a man on the moon. If one of the two succeeds, will the other give up as the Russians did when the Americans beat them to the Big Cheese in 1969?

There’s lots of competition now. Russia did finally announce plans to visit the moon by the year 2025. India has similar vague plans. China hopes to beat both to it; and Japan, the land of the rising sun, will be rising to the moon as well. Several countries, in addition to the US and EU, want to set up permanent lunar bases beginning in the 2020s. With all those rockets blasting off, that decade is sure to be another Roaring Twenties, only more noisy and expensive. As we know, there’s no such thing as a free launch.

But why would anyone still want to go to the moon, several decades after we abandoned it? After all we didn’t find anything exciting on the six previous lunar missions. There are no cute green moon men (or lunatics, or whatever they would be called) with antennae on their heads and tuning knobs for noses. It’s just a big lump of cold rock with no clubs or live entertainment. You couldn’t even make primitive rock music by banging two of them together, because there’s no air to carry the sound: which of course means you wouldn’t be doing much breathing either.

For India and China, it has much to do with national pride and prejudice–or rather, prestige. That Zhai guy’s non-steps are being sold as a Great Leap Forward for his country. Now there’s a race for the right to say, ‘Nyah nyah, we went lunar sooner!’ It’s somewhat like when India and Pakistan set off those prestigious nuclear blasts ten years ago and then made a louder noise about it in public. But apart from the bombast about bomb blasts there are other reasons.

Unfortunately there is no oil on the moon–otherwise we would have fought to establish bases long ago. However it does have other resources to feed our greed. The Chinese have expressed a desire for mining the moon’s metal reserves such as iron, as well as a rare helium isotope for proposed low-cost-low-radiation nuclear fusion plants which they claim could meet all of the Earth’s energy needs. India’s 2008 mission will be trying to map the moon’s helium-3 reserves too. Will it pay off? Will the space helmet replace the Arabian keffiyeh as a symbol of hard-headed energy exploitation?

In addition, the moon would make a fine location for low-gravity manufacturing processes; and an excellent launch pad for deeper space travel, which we might be requiring for escape if all this nuclear business goes too far.

(In Hindsight 28/Sep 16-20, 2008)

Asif Zardari was once know as ‘Mister Ten Per Cent’ for allegedly demanding that percentage of bribes from government contracts during his wife Benazir Bhutto’s rule. Now he has become Pakistan’s president, perhaps we should start calling him Mister Hundred Per Cent.

‘As if!’ Asif might retort. And those who accuse him of rising to power just by being Benazir’s husband should remember Benazir herself rose because she had Zulfiqar Bhutto’s blood. (And if their son Bilawal succeeds them it won’t be because he has Groucho Marx’s eyebrows.) Yet he’s one of the few leaders who rode on their wives’ veil-tails.

Usually it’s the other way round. From Sonia Gandhi to Hillary Clinton to Loretta Lockhorn (la reine de Leroy), there are many examples of women who wouldn’t have become so powerful without their husbands. The same goes for the battling Begums and Bandaranaikes of our neighbouring nations.

It’s not just politics where such things happen. The world’s three richest women inherited their businesses from their father, husband and brother respectively. And if Melinda Gates doesn’t have a prenuptial agreement (a ‘micro-soft’ husband might be grounds for divorce) then she could be still richer. Now there would be a Bill to pay!

The richest ‘self-made’ woman is Rosalia Mera of Spain, a fashion tycoon. She has about 3 billion dollars which is peanuts compared to the richest men, but it’s a start. Actually, she started by making clothes with her ex-husband in their living room nearly 50 years ago, and today he is many times richer than she. But let’s leave that glorified tailor’s assistant out of this.

In politics, business and other fields, women are rising. Still one talks of glass ceilings they have cracked yet cannot quite break through. If it were up to me I’d go further, placing women above the ceiling with men looking up to them from below–provided the women wear dresses, and the glass is clean and crackproof.

In pre-democratic societies, leadership often depended on the ability to crack one’s rival’s skull when required. It may be true that men retain a certain ruthlessness, single-mindedness and possibly other qualities that help them get ahead in life. However values are changing, and success is no longer defined in the same terms. Some poor fools are even asking, “What do money and power really matter?”

But if they matter then women are working harder for them. In developed countries, they outperform men at the school and college level. Perhaps it’s a matter of time before they drop their ‘nice guy’ attitudes and break out of their campus cages, competing as ambitiously as men in the big not-so-bad world beyond.

Research shows the very brightest and very dullest people tend to be men. Women are generally clustered around the mean. But the person with the highest recorded IQ score is a woman called Marilyn vos Savant. This Marilyn is no dumb blonde. In fact she’s a brunette. Her husband is Robert Jarvik, head inventor of the artificial heart. Well, if she’s all head and no heart he’ll need those skills.

The world’s first female cabinet minister arrived with a bang in 1924. To be specific it was Ms. Nina Bang of Denmark. In future there will be many men like Zardari whose only hope is slipstreaming to power in (or, in tragic cases, after) their wife’s wake.

(In Hindsight 27/Sep 2-6, 2008)

New York City will probably be hit by a fifth-magnitude earthquake this century, which would topple some brick buildings and kill people. There’s also an estimated 34-to-1 chance it will suffer a seventh-magnitude quake (about 100 times more powerful). How many buildings would end up dredging the harbour instead of scraping the sky I cannot say.

Researchers have discovered that the city of skyscrapers in not as quake-free as once thought. New fault lines have been found in the vicinity. Also the hard rock foundation which facilitates skyscraper construction lets tremors travel farther. So next time you’re at the Hard Rock Cafe there, just don’t forget The Doors.

The earth makes tall buildings tremble. But sometimes these giant structures may themselves shake the earth. For example, there was an increase in local earthquake activity following the construction of the world’s tallest completed building, the Taipei 101 Tower in Taiwan. Whose fault was it? The fault, dear readers, lies underground, and a geologist from Taiwan Normal University professed it had possibly been reopened by the tower’s downward pressure.

Some scientists think this nutty professor belongs at an Abnormal University: yet it’s a fact that human activity like dam construction, oil production and mining can trigger earthquakes. And let’s not forget nuclear blasts. Yes, humans are hitting back. No longer are we content to let the planet push us around. We’re ready to give it a black eye in return. Or at least a few brown ones, as we shall see.

From raising great buildings to razing forests; from boring tunnels to damming rivers (if not boring many and damning most of us in the process), men have changed the face of the earth. Brown clouds of pollutants cover its surface, such as the one overhanging southern Asia. We’ll use any means necessary: if physical methods won’t kill her there are deadlier chemicals. If required we’ll suffocate the old lump of dirt.

What would an observer from another planet think of us? An alien telescopist might guess some fungus had infested our discoloured globe. Our toxic filaments are everywhere, including the one I’m using to mail in this article complaining about it.

We have reached the stage of ‘ecological overshoot’ where we consume the earth’s resources faster than they can be replaced. Our land and sea cover, and our atmosphere, are permanently changing. If it gets extremely bad we’ll die of inhaling poisonous gases.

But don’t get choked up over it. It’s not the first time this has happened. Three billion years ago the atmosphere consisted mainly of carbon dioxide and water vapour, having almost no oxygen. Irresponsible anaerobic bacteria merrily consumed those gases and produced oxygen as a waste product.

Eventually the oxygen, poisonous for life forms of the time, polluted the whole atmosphere and caused mass extinctions. All those cute cuddly creatures died. It led to exceedingly weird life forms like you and I, breathing oxygen; who are now reversing the process or taking it further, creating new sulphurous poisons to be the lifeblood of future freakier forms.

Are we worth saving? Is it brimstone-breathing time? If there’s a devil he might not have to work from home any more, as conditions are fine for him right here. But don’t dare say a bad word about him! Because the way things are going he could be one of tomorrow’s heroes.

(In Hindsight 26/Aug 19-23, 2008)

India finally won its first individual gold medal at the Olympics, after more than a century of trying and crying. Abhinav Bindra took the men’s 10-metre air rifle event. And by the time you read this, who knows what further miracles might not happen.

Bullets were flying in Beijing, but it was mostly friendly fire. The Russian shooter Natalia Paderina and the Georgian Nino Salukvadze, silver and bronze winners in the women’s 10-metre air pistol, embraced and kissed afterwards. Meanwhile their countries were competing in 10-kilometre air bomb contests and worse.

Russia, which once regularly topped the Olympic medals table, is missing artificial targets but still hitting human ones. This time, aside from its fallen Olympians it was supporting Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia. Earlier they turned the secessionist enclave of Abkhazia into a dumping ground for Russian passports too, unquestionably all worth their weight in gold.

China has replaced Russia as the proud nation that will do anything to win cold gold, including ‘killing’ its athletes or reportedly doping them, hurting the health of underage gymnasts, and so forth. Maybe the world would be better if there were ‘no countries’ as that guy with Gandhi glasses, John Lennon, once suggested in a song (and he wasn’t lip-synching like that Chinese kid at the opening ceremony).

Beyond the atavistic thrill of cheering one’s sports team to bone-crushing victory, nationalism is dangerous and oppressive. The greed for land is groundless in a unifying world. Georgia should probably let South Ossetia go as the Soviet Union let Georgia go. Similarly China should have freed Tibet if Tibetans truly wanted it. And what of Kashmir? We don’t have fully free speech in this country so I can’t say much on the issue; but I think you know what I’m thinking.

Olympic shooting is a fairly fair sport. The great game of politics, on the other hand, is treacherous and inconstant. If only we could eliminate human arbiters from all sport and politics!

A boxing match, for example, can have more than one winner. One judge thinks the first boxer won, another says the second, while a third is weighing his bribe: he’s the biggest winner of all. The sport should use technology along the lines of touch pads in swimming, or fencing’s electronic scoring system, or electric fences if nothing else constrains these brutes.

Regarding India’s medal hunt, what sports should we be targeting? Well, Indians are generally intelligent people: thus tending to have good hands and eyes, if not muscle mass; and so shooting offers hope. Unfortunately such people also tend to think too much; which explains our tendency to ‘choke’ at the finish.

If we’re willing to kill our athletes too, or inflict minor to moderate brain damage (which might serve the supplemental purpose of stopping them from thinking too much) then boxing is another possibility. Few ‘rich’ countries now seriously support boxing, leaving the field to those with less regard for life like the once-invincible Cubans who’re coaching us.

The use of limited replays in the India-Sri Lanka cricket series underscores how useless umpires are. They should retire to a blind people’s home. Some old-timers will protest we should never lose the ‘human element’ in sport. I’ve one question for them: do you go to games to watch the referee or the players?