Nike patriotism

That the middle class in urban India is incorrigibly callous and insensitive about the sentiments and sensibilities of small town and rural Indians is a truth too well-known to bear reiteration. But inside urban India the people with the greatest insensitivity towards their less fortunate brethren, are the over-paid, over-hyped, over-sexed and regrettably over here (usually self-proclaimed) geniuses of the advertising world. This high-profile fraternity has no qualms about advertising pricey luxury products including fancy bathroom fittings, motor cars and diamond jewellery on popular television channels. A case in point is the wide variety of luxury products advertised on television during the current IPL-4 league cricket tournament watched by an estimated 8.3 million people per day.Among the shorts plugging a wide variety of products and services, the ad campaign which deserves the Oscar for sheer insensitivity and bad taste is the hyper-patriotic ad of the US-based sports shoes, equipment and accessories manufacturer Nike. It glorifies half-clad urchins playing cricket in narrow streets, dangerous rooftops and other ill-suited forums and juxtaposes them with IPL cricket stars squaring off in immaculately manicured stadia. The unsubtle message is that tomorrows cricket stars are likely to emerge from the ranks of unfortunate urchins, who are determined to play and succeed regardless of conditions or dangers. Of course it cant possibly occur to the five-star advertising fraternity or Nike to question why poor children have to play in such hazardous conditions. Yet even if the countrys usually brain-dead ad men cant show any compassion on this issue, Indias new player-millionaires, especially those who made it to the top despite abysmal playing conditions, could contribute a fraction of their obscene incomes towards purchasing/leasing play-grounds in their home constituencies for children to play and learn the game in half-decent conditions, as is the norm the world over. One would have thought that would be natural for those who reach the top the hard way, to make the path easier for those who come after them. But that might be expecting too much from our neo-rich player-millionaires with experience of socialism Indian style, whose mantra is kiss-up, kick down. Wasted life When former Union human resource development (HRD) minister Arjun Singh passed on in March, your editor had made a mental note to comment on the life and unlamented death of this career politician who according to some knowledgeable insiders of the Delhi durbar had come within a whisker of being appointed prime minister after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and the general election of 1991. During his long innings in Indian politics, this unapologetic loyalist of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty was given many opportunities to rise and shine, but he never quite rose to the occasion. In 1980 he was handpicked by Indira Gandhi and appointed the youngest ever chief minister of Madhya Pradesh where he blotted his record book by building himself the huge Kewar Dam palace outside Bhopal with money from unaccounted sources. Later in 1991 he was given charge of the important HRD portfolio in…