Helps Sania Mirza to a Grand Slam Final, Smooth Sailing in Men’s Doubles as well

Mahesh Bhupathi has done himself and the nation proud with a solid showing at the Australian Open in Melbourne. I am not just talking about his smooth progress to the final in both men’s doubles and mixed doubles.

What is more significant is that he was able to deliver such results even with a handicap – that of partnering with Sania Mirza, a player with no meaningful ranking to her credit. Importantly, he was able to give that confidence boost to a fellow Indian.

Mahesh and Sania trounced Iveta Benesova and Lukas Dlouhy (who incidentally is the doubles partner of Leander Paes) in a one-sided semi-final.

Poor Show by Leander: In contrast, Leander Paes had a forgettable run in Melbourne despite having made it to the semi-finals in men’s doubles, as it was just because he had a few easy rounds. In the mixed doubles, teaming up with Cara Black and enjoying top seeding, they were bundled out in the second round.

In the men’s doubles, Leander and Lukas Dlouhy were thrashed 6-3, 6-3 by Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan. Both Dlouhy and Cara may be regretting pairing up with an ageing Leander.

Incidentally, Rajeev Ram and Bobby Reynolds gave the Bryan brothers a fright in the second round, losing a three-setter narrowly.

Congratulations, Mahesh, may you win your first Australian Open title over the weekend!

-- G Joslin Vethakumar

Microsoft comes in at 38^th, but it ought to have been ejected from the top 100

Cisco has retained its place as the sixth best company to work for in the latest Fortune ranking released a few days ago. Google, which took the top spot in last year’s of the 100 best companies to work for, fell three notches to take the fourth slot.

But what came as a surprise to me was Microsoft sprinting to the 38^th position from the 86^th last year. I was actually expecting it to drop out of the top 100, given that it has just fired 5000 people.

With US$60 billion in annual revenues and a net income of more than 25% of it at around US$17 billion, it still had no qualms hacking its workforce just because it saw its profits slipping. It beats me as to how it can be one of the best places to work for.

Mind you, it is not as if Microsoft has started making losses, its profits are still substantial and there is no risk whatsoever of it slipping into the red.

I spent a little more than two years in the mid-90s working for Microsoft Magazine, writing glowing pieces, month after month, about how the software giant was helping transform businesses.

Each issue I had to focus on an industry (retail, shipping, etc) and write about how it employs Microsoft products to draw business mileage. I couldn’t have done otherwise as it was a corporate magazine meant for big registered users of Microsoft. What a shame! The only consolation for me is that I wasn’t being untruthful. I had a healthy respect for Microsoft then.

Not any more! I hate companies that downsize even while their cash registers are ringing in good profits.

Dip into Cash Reserves: Employee-friendly companies should dip into their cash reserves even if they make losses a quarter or two. What are all the billions of dollars earned in good times for if they cannot be used to sustain their workforce during a downturn?  

In the case of Microsoft, downturn or not, it will continue to make money for years to come considering the monopolistic stranglehold they have over particularly the home.

Cisco, with US$26 billion in cash and investments, tops the list of companies with a huge cash pile. Microsoft is also among them.

-- G Joslin Vethakumar

Those of you who have read my New Year wishlist may recall that my plan was to read at least one new book a month and write a book by the end of the year. I even hoped to snare a Booker. I know none of those will happen, but dreaming about the impossible is generally what New Year resolutions are all about.

Nonetheless, I picked up a copy of Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker-winning The White Tiger last week from MPH in Singapore. I hope to fulfill a part of my wishlist at least during the first month of the year.

Brilliant Start: Just after reading the first few pages of the book, I thought how foolish I was in imagining that I could come with a Booker-winning tome. So remarkable is the start, with tongue-in-cheek comments and situations supremely distinct from a customary work of fiction, that I am convinced it will have enough firepower to sustain my interest in reading through and meeting my target by the end of the month.

It takes off with a letter “for the desk of Wen Jiabao, Beijing, capital of the freedom-loving nation of China.” I almost wished I could steal it for my book!! Such light-hearted, yet ponderable humour runs all through the first chapter (which is all I have completed so far) although jingoistic Indians may feel he sold the country by writing about its ills to win a Booker and go up the charts. I have found his style inventive and the book absorbing.

Chinese New Year: Incidentally, today marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year – and my second daughter Nisha’s 15^th birthday as well. Last year, the Chinese New Year fell on my elder daughter Vino’s birthday (February 7). The Lunar calendar appears to hold special significance for my two children.

Interestingly, today is not just India’s Republic Day, it is Australia’s National Day as well!

Australia holds significance for me not just because my elder daughter is at the university in Sydney. It is a beautiful country with not many parallels. It has three cities (Melbourne, Sydney and Perth) that consistently rank among the world's best places to live in. U.S. cities do not figure even in the top 25.

Does this digression mean I will make a good author? Let me not bore you to tears with a meandering story line.

But how can I close this post without a line on how I spent the day? Well, as usual, we celebrated the occasion with my Chinese neighbours.

Gong Xi Fa Cai and Happy Birthday, Nisha!

-- G Joslin Vethakumar

Read the Ex-Pat Files in ST today to get a taste of it

Singapore loves to be stuck with a monopoly. It’s not the boring Monopoly game I am alluding to. I like to talk straight, as most of those who know me will attest to!

Be it the form of governance that shuns intolerance or the country’s mighty media empire that fosters mediocrity, there is only one factor that ensures their survival – monopoly that gives people no insights into any possible alternative to see what they are missing.

At least the Government hand-picks the right people to helm ministries and carefully monitors their work.

In the case of the Singapore Press Holdings, it hardly has the luxury to hire the kind of people who will do it proud, given that journalism holds little charm in the country for people who are passionate about it as a career.

For one thing, it lacks the freedom of expression they will love to cherish. Then, there is not much money in it. Finally, with the monopoly this one group enjoys, you have no place to go to if you get sick of it.  Under these circumstances, which talented person will want to risk being associated with it for too long?

I did not, however, realize that they have to rely on neighbouring countries even to put in place secretaries and assistants. But then if you are an assistant to the editor, then the advantage is that whatever crap you dish out will get into the newspaper – and that too in the Op-Ed page which is usually held sacrosanct by respected newspapers.

This is what happened in The Sunday Times today, with an assistant to the Editor utilizing the Ex-Pat Files column to pen some bunkum. The first two sentences alone were enough to put me off as it looked to me that they could have been stolen straight from a shoddy short story.

“It was a cold, wintry night. The rain was coming down in fits and starts.”

Newspaper-writing warrants coming to the point straight and without clichés to the extent possible. But Indian journalists (she had a Bengali name) love it because they find it hard to be original in style. This was not the first such junk from her. I had read an equally trashy piece that she wrote a couple of months ago.

Anyway, the purpose of this blog-post is not to review that puerile write-up but to highlight the dangers inherent in a monopoly. Newspapers can get away with third-rate stuff because people have no choice. With such trash, however, they may lose interest in savouring their normal morning reading staple.

-- G Joslin Vethakumar

Part III …Wiping out Corruption, Nepotism, Casteism, Illiteracy and Sycophancy

The biggest problem facing India is not terrorism. Only our politicians want the people of the country to think that terrorism is what that is scuttling the country’s progress. That is their way of keeping some bigger evils that are wrecking India out of the public eye.

Corruption, nepotism, casteism and illiteracy are far more serious issues that deserve to be tackled on a warfooting. Allowing ourselves to be distracted by terrorism only gives our leaders the leeway to breathe easy and continue swindling the country.

A sense of disgust swells within me when I think about how the Karunanidhis and Mayawatis of the country get away with corruption of such mind-blowing proportions that if they were made to make their wealth (both white and black) public, they may be richer than the Ambanis and Tatas.

As one of the world’s most corrupt countries (China figures in that as well, if that is any consolation, although those caught face execution there), India has shown no inclination to get rid of the evil. Worse, our leaders indulge in hardcore criminal activity, including murder, and happily escape punishment.

Indian Government Board for Satyam: This is precisely why I found it laughable when the Indian government appointed three members to the board of the scandal-ridden Satyam Computer Services recently. While the three are business-related professionals, there can be no stopping the government from dictating direction and stripping the already beleagurered company of whatever little resources it is left with.

There are already reports about how the corrupt Congress government in Andhra Pradesh patronised all of Satyam’s fraudulent practices. The Indian government’s interference is just a big joke. It is a government that cannot run its own entities well. Governments should have no business to meddle in private or public-listed companies. We should let market forces determine the future of those in trouble. Again, we are a copycat nation. So we like to ape what the West and the U.S. in particular do in their countries.

Satyam’s frauds were also imported from the U.S. – that of falsifying accounts and inflating cash reserves. I can only say that if you try to imitate the U.S. or the West, be prepared to embrace doom. Remember, AIDS also originated from the West.

The Indian government is neither known for efficiency nor does it have a clean, corruption-free record. So what will its appointed stewards do? Rip Satyam further off for whatever it is still worth?

Murderers in Government: An MLA from the ruling BSP government in Uttar Pradesh was last month charged with murdering a government engineer after the latter was believed to have refused to bow to demands for bribes for award of public sector contracts.

While investigations are still on, I do not believe he will be convicted. Even if he is, he will get away with some minor punishments. After all, didn’t Sanjay Singh go scot-free though it was believed there was enough evident to convict him of the murder of badminton star Syed Modi. Soon after the murder (or perhaps after he was acquitted), Sanjay married Syed Modi’s wife, Ameeta Kulkarni.

Illiteracy/Poverty: We do not have to be too perceptive to conclude that at the root of such evils is illiteracy. Further, what is making the country mired in abject poverty is bad leadership through the ages. We may have sound leaders (like, for instance, Dr Manmohan Singh, who has proven credentials unmatched by any Prime Minister or President globally) but they don’t dare to take courageous decisions such as initiating measures to put an end to caste-based politics or tackle corruption with an iron hand.

Here are some of my prescriptions to get India out of the mess it has been finding itself in since Independence:

·         No voting rights for the illiterate: Only those with at least a degree will have the right to vote. In fact, as degrees are bought easily in India, I will go to the extent of running the people through an IQ test as well. Anyone without a degree and without an IQ score of 120 or more will be barred from voting.

·         Choosing Leaders: The above conditions will also apply to those wishing to contest elections or to hold positions in Government. Only it will be more stringent. For instance, they will need at least a master’s degree from a reputed institution and have an IQ score of at least 130. Importantly, only those who have held high positions in the private sector (CEO, chairman, directors, etc) will be eligible for it.

·         Compulsory Free Education will be provided to all those ineligible so as to make them join the mainstream over time.

·         I am not prepared to listen to the logic that education can be no yardstick to test a person’s integrity as some criminals also may possess a high IQ. Maybe, but there will be other checkpoints to keep such vermin away.

·         Abolish Reservations: I used to support reservations earlier as I thought for the centuries of suppression the weaker classes endured, this is the least we can do to undo the damage. But that support was dependent on having an expiry period for such preferential treatments. That is not working and if we persist with it, all of the evils I mention at the top of this piece will stay well-entrenched.

·         Death for the Corrupt, Rapists and Murderers: True this is not working in China, but it will probably be worse if the corrupt are not executed there. In my court, if one is proved to have indulged in corruption (nepotism is also a form of corruption), instant execution will be the only punishment. I don’t care if I am called barbaric or of taking India to the stone age. In fact, my reasoning is that if we do not take tough action we will go back to the stone age.

·         Again, I will ask the U.S. and the West to shut up if they raise the civilization bogey. The worst forms of crimes prevail in their countries and they have no business to tell the world what they should practise. But every effort will be made to ensure that capital punishment is fool-proof.

I think if all of the above measures are implemented in right earnest, India will already be on its way to glory.

-- G Joslin Vethakumar

He will make history as the President who presided over the fall of the U.S from Superpowerdom

Barack Obama is destined to make history in more ways than one when he assumes the U.S. Presidency later tonight Asia time through what is believed to be the most expensive inauguration ever. The details are here -- http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/01/13/2009-01-13_obamas_inauguration_is_most_expensive_ev.html

This is a disgrace considering that all of America is bleeding economically, with the rest of the world paying for its ills and evils as well! The situation warranted an austere ceremony, not lavish festivities!

And you thought Obama will just make history as the first African-American to don the mantle of the President of the United States of America!!

Also, amid all the din over his ascension, what may be forgotten is that he is almost certain to be remembered as the President who presided over the fall of the U.S. from superpowerdom.

With the economic mayhem in the land of opportunity (individuals will continue to find ways to flourish there), neither Obama nor anybody else will be able to help the country regain its old glory.

What is gone is gone –  forever! The developing world is now gearing itself to step into the space that the U.S. is vacating.

The U.S. economy will mend itself, unless the big-mouthed Obama does something to mess it up, but the recovery will not be just enough to make it lord over the rest of the world along with its European cronies.

A bigger problem in the U.S. than the economy is the high crime rate. You need your life to be intact to live without a job, after all!  Last year, month after month there were reports about Indian professionals and students being murdered there.

A few days ago, an Indian engineer working for scandal-ridden Satyam (which learnt the trick of fooling investors by inflating revenue figures from the U.S.) became yet another victim of crime.

Many of these crimes were suspected to have been committed by African Americans.

I think Obama must give greater priority to tackling crime than to saving a slumping economy!

-- G Joslin Vethakumar

Part II …Sri Lanka my Next Target

It is a pity the Government okayed our cricket team’s upcoming visit to Colombo

I will seek to have a Greater India that includes Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. There was a time when I naively thought Kashmir was a liability for India. My foolish belief was that if we give it away peace would return to the country. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

There are other devils lurking round the corner ready to maul us with their own claims. If we went by my old prescription, then China will begin incursions into the country, hoping we will give away Arunachal Pradesh as well.

With Israeli Help: So I have long abandoned that flawed perception of mine. Now I want an India that will give the rest of the world a run for their money. How best to achieve that dream than by annexing all troublesome neighbours and get Israeli help to run the administration there! I firmly believe India’s alignments will have to change in line with the country’s challenges and goals. Down with non-alignment!

After Pakistan, next on target will be Sri Lanka! Colombo was already getting help from the Israelis in combating the LTTE there. Now it will be boomerang time for the Lankans – using the Israelis to subdue them.

North – South Divide Within India: A month ago during a casual chat with a senior colleague at Cisco with North Indian roots, he brought up the issue of a Sri Lankan minister calling some leaders in Tamil Nadu a bunch of jokers. He obviously relished it. “Why are Tamilians landing themselves in trouble wherever they are,” another chipped in. North Indians love it when Tamils face trouble anywhere, within and outside the country.

This is a divided India at its worst for you. India is run predominantly for North India and the leadership will not hesitate to forsake the interests of South India, particularly the Tamils. How can we forget India sending its army to Sri Lanka to pound the Tamils there?”

IPKF, Indian People Killing Force?: The Indian Peace-Keeping Force, sent there by Rajiv Gandhi, did all it can to weaken the LTTE. It was one of the most inane decisions taken by India -- sending more than 10,000 soldiers there to fight hand in hand with an alien army to kill people of our own origin.

The result was an exposure on how hollow Indian intelligence is. The LTTE was very easily able to fool the Indian soldiers by getting them into traps and landmines. Their ploy was to send misinformation about the whereabouts of Prabhakaran. With an intelligence machinery that cannot think beyond the obvious, the IPKF was running there in haste and court danger. Such forays and their activities in the island cost them dear -- a needless loss of around 2000 Indian soldiers during 1987-1990.

Sadly, far from helping keep peace, the IPKF went about killing people they ought to have protected. Sri Lanka just used India to suit their cunning designs. So India ended up getting cheated by both Colombo and the LTTE. At least, the LTTE resorted to attacks on the IPKF only after the latter started killing Tamil civilians there.

IPKF’s Killings on Deepavali Day: IPKF’s atrocities in Sri Lanka were alleged to have ranged from rapes and unprovoked attacks on innocent civilians to plundering Jaffna and raiding hospitals and universities. The IPKF violence included indiscriminate firing at the Jaffna hospital on Deepavali day in 1987 that killed several Tamil doctors and nurses. All these made the people give new expansions to the IPKF acronym – Innocent People Killing Force and Indian People Killing Force.

Check out http://www.tamilnation.org/intframe/india/warcrimes/index.htm for more information on how the IPKF showed their rancour against the innocent Tamils in Sri Lanka while facing setbacks from the LTTE.

India failed miserably in Sri Lanka, letting down people of its origin and running into disaster against the LTTE.

Rajiv paid with his life for that misadventure. If Sri Lanka had Hindi-speaking people in place of the Tamils, the reaction of India will have been very different.

India at it Again: Now when the Sri Lankan government is busy decimating the LTTE and orphaning millions of innocent Tamils there, India has no qualms sending its cricket team to play matches there. We won’t go to Pakistan, but we have no problems playing in Colombo.

Worse, throwing sensitivity to the winds amid the bloodletting against the Tamils, India even began to prematurely demand that Sri Lanka should hand over LTTE chief V Prabhakaran to it so as to try him for the Rajiv assassination.

Priyanka Gandhi herself tried to forget and forgive the killers when she met one of the culprits, Nalini, at a jail in Tamil Nadu last year. The Indian leadership, and not just those in Tamil Nadu, often behaves like jokers.

Parallels may be struck between Palestinian terrorists and the Tamil Tigers (LTTE militants). But the Tamil Tigers confined their violence to Sri Lanka (with the exception of Rajiv’s assassination) and were fighting for a legitimate cause.

The Tamils were treated like second-class citizens in their own country as the government of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) passed acts such as the Ceylon Citizen Act and the Sinhala-Only Act, which disenfranchised the Tamils and openly discriminated against them.

Now back to the Tamils issue.

Amnesty International has already reported how Sri Lanka is indulging in human rights violations under a veil of secrecy. Journalists writing against the government are done away with quietly. For confirmation, you may check out http://newmatilda.com/2009/01/13/sri-lankas-war-journalists .

India has one rule for the South and quite another for the North.

A Handful of Terrorists can Give Hell to Indian Army: In Mumbai recently, 10 terrorists exposed the weaknesses of the Indian Army. Despite storming the hotels, with no intention of saving lives, it took four days for them to take back control. And that with only one terrorist captured alive. What a shame! The world thus knows India can do nothing today other than making loud, empty proclamations.

That is why Pakistan does not care about India. They know they can inflict irreparable damage to India when it comes to a military conflict. That is also precisely why I say conventional warfare will not be something we will win with.

Bangalore as Capital: So, I will make Bangalore or Chennai (eliminate all the Dravidian parties from the scene – remember I will shove democracy to the backburner in the interest of the nation!) and quickly initiate and complete the annexation of Sri Lanka. It should be easier than getting Pakistan back into our fold. Of course, Israel will be our comrade in arms.

Sinhalese also of Indian Origin: Incidentally, the Sinhalese are also believed to have their origins in India (mostly from Orissa). They are descendants of Prince Vijaya, who arrived on the island with a group of people between 543 and 483 BC after being forced out from their native regions in Kerala and the Sinhapura kingdom in north-west India/Orissa.

So with all of the people of Sri Lanka of Indian origin, it does make sense for making them our own.

That said, I cannot help saying that if India continues to be ruled and dominated by the North Indians, I can see the country splintering out in, say, 50 years and head the way of the USSR.

With Pakistan and Sri Lanka in our kitty, Bangladesh will itself volunteer to be a part of our Broader India! Nepal and Bhutan will quickly follow suit. We should take Myanmar as well! Haha!! Doesn’t it feel good?

-- G Joslin Vethakumar

What’s so courageous about hundreds of people throwing in all their ugly might to tame a single, helpless bull? That’s what I saw in a news clip a little while ago.

Watching it, I could see myself flinching in shame at being a Tamilian! There are more reasons to be ashamed of, though! Such as a population that indirectly perpetuating corruption by supporting the Dravidian parties.

-- G Joslin Vethakumar

Part I -- Tackling Terrorism and Pakistan

Sitting on judgment is easy. As I have been doing this for long, slamming governments and leaders alike, I thought it was time for me to throw criticism to the dogs, get practical and proffer alternative paths I may have adopted.

So I decided to don the mantle of Prime Minister of India (with due apologies to Dr Manmohan Singh whom I respect from the bottom of my heart). This is particularly because some recent developments have had me boiling.

What difference will I make to India if I usurp the authority to do so? Here are my USPs.J

1.       Adopt China’s “Indo Chini, bhai bhai” strategy: Soon after the Mumbai massacre, I will have cosied up to Pakistan instead of pointing fingers at them and trying to win the sympathy of the world. Singing some “India, Pakistan bhai bhai” refrain without overdoing it, I will have convinced them that we mean well and want nothing but warm ties with them. “After all,” I will have told them, “both of us are victims of terror.”

2.       Even as Pakistan savours the stupidity of India, I will catch them completely offguard by using the ballistic missiles and all delivery systems in our arsenal to unleash a nuclear attack on the enemy so potent that it would have no opportunity to counter it or recover from the shock. I know this is easier said than done, but why should I limit my imagination!

3.       They may have anti-ballistic missiles to counter such attacks just as we do. This is precisely why we have to act on the sly – in a manner similar to how china fooled India amid all the friendly rhetoric between Zhou En Lai and Jawaharlal Nehru and attacked India in 1962 to purse their border claims over Arunachal Pradesh and parts of Ladakh.  Nehru was naïve enough to believe the Chinese then and did not recover from the shock until his death two years later.

4.       It thus makes sense for us to master the Chinese ploy by being sly, selfish and anything but trustworthy. I think the youth of the day have already embraced such “values”.

5.       My recipe for disaster (on the enemy side) will prove wrong Jane’s Intelligence Review that believed India has a nuclear arsenal that is “strategically active but operationally dormant.” I hate India’s spineless inaction on terrorism from across the border with all the anger I can muster, so why will I want our nuclear capability to lie dormant. I see no other way to tackle the menace.

6.       Surgical raids on inimical sites within Pakistan could be an alternative to nuclear strikes, but I doubt our intelligence agencies have had the strength to map them out. Also, that has the risk of dangerous repercussions.

7.       This brings me to a recent piece by Tunku Varadarajan wherein he analyses the Israeli attacks on Gaza and assesses if India should do likewise. His simple conclusion: “India does not because it cannot.”

8.       Pakistan’s trump card, he argues, is the fact that any attack on its territory carries an apocalyptic risk for India. Also, he goes on, India is not a military goliath vis-à-vis Pakistan in the same way Israel is to the Palestinians. It is a nice piece well worth a read. Check it out at http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/04/israel-hamas-india-oped-cx_tv_0105varadarajan.html?partner=popstories

9.       The bottomline is that it is not an easy situation to be caught in. After testing a nuclear explosive in 1974, India did little in terms of consolidating its military might, holding meaningless peace talks in an attempt to foster good neighbourliness. With such dilly-dallying, we even enabled Pakistan to become a nuclear power.

10.   Pakistan will never ever get tough with terrorists. It will not stop its state-sponsored terrorist attacks as well. Importantly, it will continue to have the backing of China, the U.S. and all its European cronies. None of them will want to see India emerging as a superpower.

What are we waiting for then? But then it is too late for India to do anything now as its preposterous efforts to win the world sympathy got Pakistan fully geared for any eventuality. That is tragic for India. No harm hoping though that better sense will prevail in Pakistan and make them act to prevent their soil from being used to promote terrorism worldwide.

I will nonetheless seek to make Pakistan a part of India once again, but this time without all the vermin within there.

I intend to keep this series alive. More posts on “If I were Prime Minister…” can, therefore, be expected although this is no promise.

-- G Joslin Vethakumar

Playing Nero while the World is in Turmoil

I know with this post I risk being dubbed a hardnosed, egomaniacal, insular, self-centred and even dumb guy. Not that those attributes do not apply to me otherwise! But I I am determined to play Nero today and come up with my maiden New Year wishlist amid the chaos all around. We are already eight days into the New Year, but I guess it is still not too late!

The world is in economic turmoil, Israel is busy pounding Gaza and Sri Lanka is close to decimating the LTTE while India is shamelessly staying still in the face of terror at home. Amid it all, here I am making New Year resolutions, what a shame!

Idle Pursuits: I have never made New Year resolutions all these years, possibly because I like to shun idle pursuits. It may also perhaps be because I have viewed them as a selfish and unrealistic utopian journey. So, why now in the twilight of my career!

Well, what I do or write is not going to change the world. I have generally just been dabbling in opinionated discourses on issues that cheer me, anger me, stress me, even depress me. In other words, I have largely been wasting my time while pandering to my passion for writing.

So, this one may signal a change (call it a deviation if you will) from my practice, even if a transient one. If the “change” plank could propel Barack Obama to the White House, maybe some of my dreams will crystallize as well. However, I am certain most of them will stay unfulfilled.

But just what are they? Here comes the list:

1. Better work-life balance: This is something I have never realized in my 25 years of post-university life. As a journalist, I worked at odd hours always, and that left me with little room to indulge in some of life’s little pleasures. That was one reason why I abandoned the career and embraced the bold, new world of communications technology. If anything, it only got worse. I don’t think this will get any better this year, unless Cisco decides it has had enough of me and sends me packing amid the global economic meltdown.
2. Write a book: This is yet another dream that is hitting the silver jubilee. Other than my hair turning silver, I have made no golden headway on this front. Perhaps I should stop blogging and try to focus on this vision. But then blogging helps store my thoughts securely – something I can leverage when I eventually get cracking on the book. Don’t ask me what this will be about although I will prioritise fiction with an autobiographical tinge. Don't be surprised if I have my very own The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy) or The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga) and snare a Booker this  year! :-) High hopes, you say! But I will have my say as who is to stop me from daydreaming!
3. Master the stock market: This can be a challenge as this is one space where business fundamentals are treated with scorn as investors thrive on short-selling stocks with sound credentials while trying to make big bucks on risky plays. My huge risk-appetite has seen me lose almost a million dollars since the 1997 crisis, but I think I am beginning to understand how not to trade in a volatile market. The options trading course I took last year may come in handy. Who knows, this may be the time for me to recover all those losses and more. Maybe through full-time trading as that is one avenue where I will be working for myself, and not for others!
4. Read More: Quirky as this may sound, I am more a writer than a reader, though I am a big buyer of books. I may have been a better writer if I had been a more avid reader. Funnily enough, I actually nurtured the notion that being a bibliophile or a bookaholic is not a key attribute of a writer but that creative thinking and a sound grasp of the language are. That does not mean I shunned reading, it is just my reading staple was different. If I could read one bestseller (or at least any meaningful book, say, a biography) a month, that will be mission accomplished. Another unlikely dream!

Now you know how I have painstakingly chosen a wishlist that is clearly doomed from the start. Haha!

Forgotten, Forsaken Dreams: Then there have also been dreams that I have completely forsaken. I wanted to be a world chess champion when I was active in the tournament circuit. All I could become was a Madras division champion. That dream dissipated soon after I took up journalism. 

Then I also wanted to be a film director. After graduation, while I was waiting for my PG classes to begin, a family friend (a cardiologist in Chennai) introduced me to a small-time film producer (I don’t even remember his name now) who roped me in as an assistant director for a Tamil film that was in production then – starring Raghuvaran (who sadly died young last year) and Poornima Jayaram and directed by a little-known actor, Madan. Two weeks were all it took for me to walk away from it as I found being an assistant director totally unexciting. The film, titled, Rowdy, did not get completed. I then wanted to leapfrog straight into direction, but that ambition flew out the window very soon. Another passing cloud!

Wish you all a happy, healthy and pro$perou$ 2009!

-- G Joslin Vethakumar