Slumdog Oscars - Is India proud or not?

Last night our man AR Rahman bagged two Oscars at the Kodak theater and the desi world rejoiced. We had all the reasons to, so why not? After all it is not every year that Indian cine-world produces Oscar calibre stuff, not gets recognized at that level anyway. ARR was at his usual gracious and humble best with his acceptance. And he made me especially proud when he acknowledged in Tamil on stage - எல்லா புகழும் இறைவனுக்கே ("All glory goes to God"), perhaps the first time ever that Tamil was spoken on Oscar stage. The elusive Bollywood, Kollywood and Tollywood dreams of several years did come true on this occasion with the sight of a desi guy holding a solo (two of them by the way) oscars in his hand, kind of reminscent of the sight of Abinav Bindra donning the Olympic gold not too long ago. I could not help but notice the remarkable similarity between the two guys' demeanour - ARR and Abinav - both painfully shy under the limelight at a moment of global acheivement unfathomable even a few years ago.

With the dust settling down on the Oscars, let us talk some good-old desi politics and public opinion. A month or so ago (after Slumdog Millionaire had bagged Golden Globe but before the Oscars were announced) there was some controversy in parts of India with people staging street demonstrations (in Orissa I think) for what they found to be a derogatory inclusion of the "dog" suffix in association with the "slum" tag, as part of the movie's title. Today I read in Times of India (a day after the Oscars were announced) - "Gujarat Chief Justice bats for Slumdog" http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Slumdog-fan-judge-throws-out-petition-against-Boyle/articleshow/4178764.cms - a case of an Indian judge tossing out a lawsuit that raised the same issue. Several things perplex me about such things.. First of all, would Indian audience have really cared what the name of the movie was if this movie had not won the Golden Globe for ARR? Now that they find the name of the movie objectionable, are they really going to have ARR return his awards in protest? Why would Indian media/people yearn for Oscar recognition when really they have no respect or understanding for western society and perceive the vice-versa to be true as well? Why is it that making a habit out of perennially misunderstanding western society (and their colloquial language) a cottage industry in eastern cultures such as India? Why do we hypocritically bask in Oscar glory when we most of us desis really believe the movie that brought it to us was made by a bunch of Britishers and does not really portray an "insider" (and therefore more accurate!) perspective of Mumbai/India? Why is this "east-west divide" thing an unsurmountable barrier even at the dawn of the 21st century?

New Year, Taxes and more...

Alright, my first post for the new year... Can't believe the so-called new year is already 41 days old when I sit down to write this. We have a new president (non-white I may add), an economy that is in the pits, and a personal "net worth" situation that is plummeting by the day. To make matters worse, my dear Sacramento Kings are scratching the bottom of the league with no end in sight for their travails. Ronald Reagan once famously said "recession is when your your neighbor loses his job, depression is when your friend loses his job, oppression is when you lose your job, and recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his job." We can normalize that quote for current times and hopefully cheer up ourselves for a protracted recovery process now that Dubya is out of a job.

Since Feb is already here, I sat down to figure out my taxes hoping for a silver lining somewhere, even before Barack's federal stimulus trickles down to me and starts filling my coffers. Believe it or not, 2008 is the first tax-year EVER that I will be filing taxes electronically. I finally got over my hump and decided to join the bandwagon of those technology-spoilt e-filers who perhaps helplessly place more trust in software than human comprehension of the federal tax code. I sat down with the online version of TurboTax and the software seemed slick on the things it did accomplish. It asked all the right questions and made a serious first-time user like me feel at home. The fact that the thing never lets you print/view tax worksheets in a traditional federal form format (until you cough up the money of course) did frustrate me several times, however, the thoroughness with which the questions were asked somehow convinced me the software was infact doing the right things. It did quite a few cool things that I liked - electronically downloaded W-2s and 1099's from a bunch of different online accounts, explained rental deductions, did a quick "audit risk" analysis, and came up with several, albeit trivial, ways to maximize deductions (although I did not benefit from any) . All in all, it was a worthwhile indulgence, one that saved me time if not money. My biggest dream these days is that I find that magic "bug" in Turbotax that will enable me to file a class-action on behalf of all those suckers who lost money using this wretched piece of software and thus get myself rich overnight!