Enough Trivia To Get Het Up About

Cricketers have realised that a sure way of grabbing the headlines in India is to label the India-Australia rivalry bigger than the Ashes, writes SANTOSH DESAI

THE SARTORIAL ADVENTURES of the Home Minister continued to be discussed this week too. The Indian Express interviewed his tailors on the front page who revealed that the Mr Patil dressed more casually before becoming a minister. Mail Today spoke to a doctor at Max Healthcare who gave us psychological insights into the tendency of people to dress well in times of stress. Barkha Dutt, however, was unimpressed with the media obsession with Mr Patil’s wardrobe changes. “Who cares how many times Shivraj Patil changes his clothes or whether his tailors think his style of dressing has altered over the years?, she asked before presenting a persuasive critique of the inability of the political system to come to grips with the violence of hate. As MJ Akbar said when lauding the Shivraj Patil dress change story in a function I happened to be attending, sometimes the smallest actions can be the most revealing. There is enough trivia in the news to get het up about but to believe that anything small is by definition trivial is perhaps a little hasty.

Wall Street crashed last week and we felt the reverberations all week. The headlines were appropriately apocalyptic. The Economic Times announced the crash with a flamboyant sense of drama. FALL ST’S DARKEST HOUR. Lehman Lynched, Merrill Sold, AIG in a Crunch, China lowers Rates, Fed Gives a Rope. The story progressed through the week, growing somewhat less coherent as it went along. By Saturday, we had ET tell us, Hard Times won’t end soon. GOING FOR BROKE-R. The tremors of the crash were felt immediately. The plight of the poor bankers and brokers laid off after the crisis was poignantly captured in an agency report that appeared in the TIMES OF INDIA. Titled Fall Street Will Cramp Lifestyles of Rich & Famous, the articles quoted Mathew Miller, editor of Forbes, as he outlined the bleak future faced by these hapless men of money. “These people will have to start cutting on some on the more lavish expenses. A $20 martini might need to turn into a $15 martini—it’s all relative.” Maybe we could start a fund to help these people cope.

The upcoming Australian tour has unleashed a flood of inanities passing off as wisdom. “Kapil cautions India not to take Australia lightly,” says one report, while “Chappell asks Ponting to be more patient”. Cricketers have realised that a sure way of getting into the headlines is to label the India-Australia rivalry as bigger than the Ashes. Certainly, when it comes to action off the field, there can be no denying that.

Desai is the MD and CEO of Futurebrands