India buzzing …music, films,football, cricket, fuel crisis and 24/7 media · Global Voices
Kamla Bhatt

For a third week in a row there appears to be no respite for Indian bloggers.  We had various stories vying for our attention: the fuel hike, the Rahul Mahajan case, Cricket in West Indies, the World Cup…and given this constant stream of stories is at any surprise that there is yet another collaborative blog from here? And guess what Bollywood fans are no longer confined to the Indian community….there appear to be more takers for them at the International level.  Then there is IT with IBM and Motorola announcements, Apple pulled out of India. But, wait I am not covering the developments in the IT sector. Phew! Bloggers certainly had a lot on their plate.
But, before we begin on a serious note, why not start on a lighter note and segue into the more serious issues? So let us begin with some naach/gana or song and dance …
Here is  a video clip from YouTube on a Indian version of the famous Beatles song, “I wanna hold your hand.; Thanks to Asia Pundit for this. This clip has been making the rounds in the blog world for a while now. This song clip is from an old Hindi film with the Indian Elvis Presley/Jerry Lewis: Shammi Kapoor, an actor famous in the 1960s and 1970s. Here is a link to Shammi Kapoor's website, who was one of the first Indians to jump on the Indian bandwagon many moons ago. Whoever said tha globalization is a 21st century thing? Note: Google Video is not available in India, so YouTube has emerged as the default video tool of choice in India.
Let us stay on the same topic and move to the entertainment  choice for many Indians: films.  And, here we will look at Bollywood (Hindi films). This is a topic/subject/theme that appears to unite bloggers online and bring them different parts of the world.
Bollywood:Digging around the digital world it appears that the interest in Bollywood is seeing a steady increase. These pot-boilers, as Indian reviewers like to sometimes label Hindi movies, have got some international fans who can't seem to get enough of all things Bollywood. There are two Bollywood blogs in German. Michael Langhans's Bollywoodblog is a dedicated Bollywood lover and faithfully covers and the major trends and new films in the Hindi film industry. And here Babasko from Vienna, Austria with his Baba Aur Bollywood blog in German. A Bollywood blog in Dutch, and even though I cannot read Dutch I read in-between the lines and looked for familiar sounding words or phrases. I spotted Surinam and connected the dots, and I suspect this blogger must have some connection to Surinam and maybe the Indian community in Surinam. En ought of my deductive skills. Even if you cannot read Dutch do go and see the vivid and colorful Bollywood posters.
Peter Grossman has a blog that is semi-automated and multi-lingual (German, Portuguese, French, Italian, Japanese and Chinese…phew! that is a whole lot of languages there). You can check out Peter's blog titled Bollywood Rumors and catch up on the latest news and gossip.
Rahul Mahajan:Live TV and sensational TV coverage has arrived in India. No questions about it, but many viewers are not sure if they like this new trend that MSM is pushing on its viewers. The big story everywhere from blogs to MSM was the Rahul Mahajan case. All other stories were put on the back burner for a week. Rahul is the son of a well-known politician Pramod Mahajan, who died last month after his brother shot him. Mahajan senior was a political strategist and a major force behind India's BJP party. Last week Mahajan junior get together with his dad's secretary and others took a horrible turned and turned tragic. Drugs and alcohol are the supposed substances that killed Mahajan senior's secretary.
Bloggers reacted, and my how they did! The underlying theme appears to be why is MSM obsessively covering this event?
Here is what Sudheer Narayan of SN Times blog has to say on the subject and questions why the media focused so much of attention on this event. Amit Varma of India Uncut is also had it with the saturation of this story by MSM, and read his blog to find out why. I too pitched in my views on this subject. That old familiar feeling of the Anita Hill case, OJ Simpson coverage by US media came back to me as I watched this terrible whodunit unfold on live TV. And I wondered if MSM had run out of stories in this country of one billion people?
Hari Sarvanan wonders why MSM still continues to cover this story and says: ” Please do not flash Rahul's arrest in 1st page and report President's action in Page 10. Please discourage negative publicity and encourage good stuff…for a difference!”
Here is Siddharth Vardarajan, a MSM member, of Reality, One Bite At A Time, take on on the subject: But, Siddharth has narrowed his focus to address the issue of live confessions on TV. Is this a print media vs. TV issue?
Fuel Hike:
The Indian government increased the price of petrol/gas by Rs. 4 per litre. This increase has created a heated debate about the pros and cons of the Indian government's fuel policy.
Here is Niraj's take on India's’ oil price and the long-term impact. ” Living in the United States, I bare the brunt of increasing oil prices. Honestly, it has changed my behavior…But as long as India continues to shield its people, in a futile attempt at paternalism, from rising oil prices, it should remember it is only postponing the inevitable. There will be a day of reckoning.” And Manish from Hoshiarpur in Punjab looks at this entire fuel crisis on a lighter vein. I have not seen many bloggers from this part of Punjab.
Carpooling seems to be next logical step and Sreejit talks about what appears to be India's first online carpooling website. Go commuters!
Sports:
Two sports had Indian bloggers pre-occupied: cricket and the up-coming world cup. Watching and reading sports-related blogs reminds me of the change in the sports season in the USA: when the baseball season comes to a close and the football season starts. Indian sports lovers are gearing up for a month-long world cup football bonanza. But, first let us look at cricket.
Cricket: The touring Indian cricket team put up a great fight against the West Indies at Antigua. First, here is Kartikeya of Cricketing View, who labels the Antigua match as a memorable one, and read his blog to find out what else he has to say about this particular match. The game had its high moments when the current poster boy of Indian cricket Mahinder Singh Dhoni was declared out under some interesting circumstances.
Read Chirag's take on the Mahinder SIngh Dhoni episode. And, then there is Sakshi Juneja who shares her take on the subject of Dhoni and the West Indian cricket captain Brian Lara. Nothing unites Indian bloggers like a good game of cricket and here are some more bloggers sharing their view on the subject. Amit questions the way the game ended and says:: ” Staying awake till 3.30 am for two consecutive days only to see a winnable test match ending up in a draw, is not a good feeling. And you feel even worse when you see that the captain of your team is not sad for not being able to win the match…” Read on to find out what else he has to say on this subject. Ankur Nagpal shares his thoughts on what is turning out to be a much-talked about cricket match.
Football: The world cup in Germany has generated quite a bit of excitement. Bloggers have built a feverish pitch to this month-long celebration of the sports. Iyerospace prefers not to call this frenzy as “football fever,” but as fahrenheit. Read why he describes it this way…it is a pretty humorous post.
Indians are the biggest viewers of the football cup says Paavan from Ahmedabad.
Here is Pratyush Khaitan of Sportoloysis who blogs exhaustively on all things sports in his blog. Predictably this sports addict has lots of entries on football and India.
Dreamchasers has a post on mobile phone service providers and how they are tapping into the world cup mania in India.
Babita writes in her blog on how she is gearing herself up to watch the world football cup. She writes: “Today is the first day of football (soccer) as it is called in india world cup 2006.i am gonna try and watch every match since i have taken a pledge to enjoy my vacation to its best.”
Dilip D'Souza shares some interesting tidbits about what drives drives a female football and his quest came to an abrupt end when he clapped his eyes on a Times Of India article, hold your breath, Football Goes Bust.…and has dashed off a letter to the newspaper asking for some more information on this subject. Read for yourself on what he has to say.
An Indian fans wonders aloud in his blog, appropriately titled Reflections: “When, oh when will we see the Indian flag flying atop a pole during a world cup soccer match? I hope in my lifetime! “Finally to the last thread in this post: the latest collab blog from India. This one is called Hafta Magazine , which translates to mean one week (that is one meaning and there are others) and every Monday you can expect to see new posts on various subjects. This collab blog is more like a magazine. Go check it out.