Billy Joel: Always a Woman To Me

This post started its life as a political rant.

I was at the club, meditating on a cappuccino, while the kids were at tennis class. Muzak played in the background. Billy Joel floated up on the Muzak track, singing:

She can kill with a smile,
She can wound with her eyes,
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies,
And she only reveals what she wants you to see,
She hides like a child,
But she’s always a woman to me...

I noted that the saddest thing that can happen to art happens when music turns into Muzak. This does not apply to made-for-Muzak specialists like Yanni, Norah Jones or Richard Clayderman. But when the work of real artists, like Jim Morrison, Neil Young or Bob Dylan is stripped of its emotional heft and piped around supermarkets, to people hearing without listening, that is profoundly sad.

Point noted. Billy still banging on:

...She carelessly cuts you and laughs while you’re bleeding,
She brings out the best and the worst you can be...

Maybe I just was not in the mood to sympathize with unrequited love. Billy, I asked myself, as he built up to the crescendo...

And the most she will do is throw shadows at you,
But she’s always a woman to me.

...what exactly would happen if she did not remain a woman to you? What if she stopped being a gorgeous babe who kills with a smile, who causally throws shadows at poor besotted Billy? Would she turn into a flitty, flighty, fluttering, fairy? Would she turn into a hag, or a fire breathing dragon?

A tautology like “always a woman” is worth stating, even in a pop song, only if it has another layer of meaning, a layer in which it isn’t obviously a tautology. For instance, when Crosby Stills Nash and Young sang, “A man’s a man who looks a man, right between the eyes...” they were pointing to an ideal of manhood, of integrity, that boys should aspire to but seldom achieve. Billy's tautology implies that the only women worth the name are babes, deadly babes, the sort of babes who promise you more than the Garden of Eden.

What about my buck toothed, bespectacled second cousin who chain-reads Agatha Christie? Or my caftan-clad maiden aunt, who is excessively proud of her almond burfi? Neither of them is a crush-worthy babe. Neither of them is the flirty type who might throw shadows at Billy. But surely, they still are women. This is so unfair.

This is what Noami Wolf called the Beauty Myth, feminism's last great battle-front. Women have shaken off many myths of womanhood, expectations which once bound their lives. They are now at liberty, at least in my circles, to walk away from purity, chastity, motherhood, servitude, delicacy, vulnerability. "Frailty, thy name is woman", would not have occured to Hamlet if he had seen watched Serena Williams wallop a forehand crosscourt.

Yet, after all these victories, women are still bound by one final myth, the expectation that a woman must be beautiful, desirable. This final myth leaves women vulnerable to countless soul-destroying insecurities, and open to exploitation by men, and by the market. Besotted Billy's lyrics, unknowingly, are reinforcing this nasty myth. Stupid Billy.

As it turns out, this post is not a political rant. It is about the value of even a little research. I had totally misunderstood the song. Billy gets the shackles imposed by the myths of womanhood, and is on the right side of the argument.

Wikipedia tells me, authoritatively as usual, that this song was written for Billy Joel's first wife Elizabeth. She had become Billy Joel's business manager at a time when his life and his finances were on the rocks. Elizabeth sorted out his finances, became his wife, and managed Billy to platinum albums like Piano Man, The Stranger and 52nd Street. She was considered "unfeminine" in the industry for being a tough-as-nails negotiator. Billy wrote this song as a rejoinder to that "unfeminine" label. "She only reveals what she wants you to see" is not about her decolletage, it is about her negotiating style. Regardless, she's always a woman to Billy.

Another song in The Stranger, I Love You Just the Way You Are, was also written for Elizabeth, and expresses the same sentiment, without the delicious ambiguity.

Unfortunately, Billy and Elizabeth divorced, and Billy doesn't enjoy either Always a Woman or Love You Just the Way You Are anymore. He tries not to perform them. So this John Lewis' Christmas advert, which I think captures the open-hearted spirit in which the song was originally written, has vocals by Fyfe Dangerfield. Enjoy.

Rafael Nadal the Educator

The Rafael Nadal Foundation just opened a primary school in India, in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh. I am especially delighted because Rafa’s name is now linked with education, because, to me, Rafa epitomizes what education ought to be about. Its not really about multiplying matrices or solving differential equations. It is about being educado.

This excellent New York Times article on Rafa describes what I mean:

The Nadal personality stories that circulate among tournament fans are all variations on a single theme: the young man is educado, as they say in Spanish, not so much educated in the formal sense (Nadal left conventional schooling after he turned pro at 15), but courteous, respectful, raised by a family with its priorities in order. Nadal may have the on-court demeanor of a hit man, as far as the party across the net is concerned, but you will never see this champion hurl his racket during a match...

“It’s about respect,” Toni (Nadal, Rafa’s uncle and coach) told me. “It’s really easy for these guys to start thinking the world revolves around them. I never could have tolerated it if Rafael had become a good player and a bad example of a human being.”

What I love about Rafa is that he is lit up not by divine inspiration, but by the fire in his belly. He is not a J Krishnamurthy-esque other-worldly idealist, contemplating the beauty of the morning sun lighting up a dewdrop on a blade of grass. He is not a Christ-like figure who will turn the other cheek. Rafa is not a saint, but a man; a very decent man.

Once upon a time, sport played a central role in education, because it helped produce people like Rafa. Sport makes it easy be educado, precisely because it is fierce, physical and competitive. Decency is not about sappy moralizing. When sport is about being educado, it is not just for elite athletes, it is for everybody. Playing with gumption, respecting the game, playing to win, never passively accepting defeat, its a part of being educado, at every level of play.

Once upon a time, Aussies exemplified these values. Don Bradman, Ken Rosewall, Richie Benaud, Rod Laver, Mark Taylor - all educado. Clive Lloyd's Windies were such great champions not just because they won, but because they were educado. Boys from PG Wodehouse's Wrykyn would know exactly what I am talking about, without needing explanations. Somewhere along the way, something important got lost. Punter Ponting and his punks were congratulated on their "ruthless professionalism" as long as they kept winning, but are despised by the cricketing world now that they have stopped winning. Tennis is exciting again not just because Rafa and Roger play so well, but because of the way they play, re-capturing a spirit which should never have been lost.

And so, will the good people of Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, take to hitting a furry yellow ball around a geometrical grid? Will they imbibe the spirit of champions past and become educado? I couldn't blame them if they were more concerned about landing a job in an air-conditioned software office in Hyderabad. But, heck, hope springs eternal...maybe the good people of Anantapur will write better software because they are educado, like Rafa.

Sachin Tendulkar on Dvaita and Advaita

Sachin Tendulkar and Cheteshwar Pujara

Cheteshwar Pujara, looking back on his test debut, remembers that “ he (Sachin) told me that God has given you this chance to play; he will help you score runs, don’t worry.” 

Pujara’s words give devout Sachinists a rare insight into Sachin's religious thought. To Sachin, it is clearly self-evident that God exists, and that God is merciful and kind. Sachin also seems to be describing a God who is out-there rather than in-here, the Dvaita God rather than the Advaita God. He is not asking Pujara to search for the spark of the divine that dwells within, he is asking Pujara to trust in the Almighty, a power distinct and different from Pujara. 

Sachin’s advice worked. Pujara kept his cool and made a fourth inning 72 to steer India to a memorable series win against Australia. That is good evidence in support of Sachin’s theology. 

Spiritual faith can’t be evaluated for truth, because its truth or falsehood can never be empirically tested. Spiritual faith can only be judged, if it can be judged at all, by the yardstick of usefulness: does this faith result in better human behaviour or performance? Pujara’s experience suggests that trusting God, and therefore freeing up the mind and spirit to be present in the moment, does improve performance. 

Sachin believing instinctively in a God-out-there, in a higher power than man, feels natural. He is so gifted he could make an atheist believe in God. 

Radheya and his Guru Parashurama

Yet the Gods are capricious. They can be cruel even to the devout, even to their most favoured sons. The gifts the Gods give so liberally they can take away, especially when they are most needed.

This happened to Sachin at a pivot point in history. After he was player of the tournament in the 2003 World Cup, he was touring Australia with Saurav Ganguly’s team in 2004. India were going toe to toe, eyeball to eyeball, with Steve Waugh’s team, the greatest cricket team since Clive Lloyd’s Windies. India were playing with courage, conviction and skill, matching the Aussies’ every move. Dada, Rahul, Laxman and Viru had all scored career defining centuries. 

But where was our best player? Sachin was missing. 

It was as if Sachin was Radheya in the Mahabharata, the greatest archer in the great war at Kurukshetra, who lost his skills at the war’s most crucial moment. In the first three tests, Sachin had managed scores of 0, 0, 44, 1 and 37. Worse than the scores themselves was the way he was batting: scratching around, groping for the ball, hanging his bat out to dry. 

Now, even Sachin was a mere mortal. 

As the series reached its climax, Sachin responded to his mortality by reaching within, by discovering that he was man enough to make his own destiny.

For the final and decisive test match in Sydney, Steve Waugh’s last match, Sachin turned his game upside down. He did not put his trust in God. He did not trust his God-given instincts. He did not play at anything outside the off stump, an area which had been so productive for him over the years. He did not drive at half volleys secure in the knowledge that the Gods would guide the ball to the cover boundary instead of into second slip’s hands. 

Sachin playing the shot
he denied himself in Sydney

He completely cut out his favourite offside shots. He didn't score a single boundary between point and long-off. He made the Aussies bowl on to his pads, batted all day with VVS Laxman, remained unbeaten on 241, and took India to a position from where Australia could not win.

This was unquestionably Sachin’s greatest innings, and it was completely unlike anything Sachin had ever played before. It wasn’t about incandescent, outrageous talent blowing away the opposition. It was about character and craftsmanship, grit and determination, the gifts of the God-found-within as much as the God-above. 

Sachin did not turn his back on the Gods. He was not bitter that the Gods had abandoned him. He accepted God's  wrath as graciously as he accepted His munificence. But Sachin was no longer solely dependent on God's munificence; he was now twice-born, having given expression to the God-within as well as the God-above. 

On his test debut, Pujara discovered that the Gods can be kind, the Gods had given him a chance to play for India. He found out that the Gods can be cruel, like with the grubber from Mitchell Johnson that got him LBW in his first test innings. He discovered that faith in God can be useful, like the faith that kept him calm during his match-winning second innings. But the longer he plays, the more he will discover that he needs to find the God-within to join the ranks of India’s great players, like Saurav Ganguly, Zaheer Khan, Anil Kumble, Sunil Gavaskar, or that ultimate fighter, Mohinder Amarnath. Or like Sachin Himself.

Altoids: On Britishness and Capitalism

This post was born from the frustration of an unsuccessful shopping trip. I wanted Altoids. I checked the local supermarkets - Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda. None of them had it. My local independent pharmacy used to carry a few tins, but alas, no longer. As I made peace with poor substitutes like Fox's Glacier mints and Starbuck's After Coffee Mints, I reflected on the irony that such a quirky, idiosyncratically British brand was so popular in America - it was not unusual to see colleagues carrying Altoids tins from meeting to meeting back when I worked in the US - but was unknown in Britain. Perhaps that reflects British identity, which, like India's unity, is more apparent from without than from within.

However, after a little Google powered research, I was left reflecting not on the subtle ironies of Britishness, but on the brutal nihilism of business. Altoids are no longer British. The red and white tins no longer proudly say Made in Great Britain. The factory in Bridgend, Wales, which used to supply the entire world with the curiously strong peppermint has been mothballed. Production has been moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, so that the product is made closer to its biggest markets, which are in America.

I am generally a fan of globalized, optimized supply chains, but this is ridiculous. It is like moving the Jack Daniel's distillery from Tennessee to Nanjing province so that the whiskey is made close to Shanghai, the world's largest market. It isn't Jack's if it isn't from Tennessee.

The advertising is no longer edgy or self-mocking. The official web site claims that: "Altoids honours the authentic - people who stay true to themselves no matter what. Those who are confident, honest and unwavering. Those who are CURIOUSLY STRONG."

Like, for instance, Altoids honours people who contribute to a blog about beautiful coffee. "For most people, coffee's just a morning beverage. But to the contributors of this blog, it's high art. Dedicated to looking past coffee's buzz, they find a subtlety that other's simply miss. Filled with striking imagery from the world's best latte artists, this cup of Joe is almost too beautiful to drink"

Altoids also honours Cameron Adams, who writes a blog called The Chattanoogan: "highlighting street style in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Cameron Adams' blog focuses on the well-hidden gems of a small town. Why, you might ask? The innocence and spontaneity of the images that capture the residents' local flavor seems to answer, why not?"

Why not, indeed. But does shrinkage ever occur?



I had to find out how this train wreck happened. How did The Man destroy Altoids' spirit by turning it into a motherhood and apple-pie candy from Chattanooga, Tennessee? It turns out that capitalism didn't just destroy Altoids, it also made it the icon it once was. Altoids' golden age came after it was acquired by Kraft, following a series of takeovers and leveraged buy outs.

Altoids were invented in the late 1700s, and were promoted for over a century as a "stomach calmative". The brand was owned first by Smith and Company of London, which became a part of Callard & Bowser-Suchard, which became a part of Beatrice Foods, which was bought and broken up by KKR, when Altoids was sold to Terry's of York, which was then acquired by Kraft General Foods of Chicago in 1993.

At this time, Altoids was a tiny brand, but with a devoted word-of-mouth following among the heavy-smoking, coffee-guzzling Seattle club set. A Kraft marketing manager called Mark Sugden, working with Leo Burnett Chicago, the agency which created the Marlboro Man, "got" this Seattle set's devotion, did not get a big advertising budget, and came up with a campaign that was consistent with what the brand already stood for. "We were talking to a cynical, smart, cutting-edge audience, and nothing mediocre was going to sell," says Burnett Creative Director Steffan Postaer. What sold were advertising posters that looked like this:



Market share rocketed from too small to measure to 10% in 1997, or $40 million. Something good had happened. A curiously strong breath of fun from old Blighty had blown into the lives of millions of people.

I guess the trouble with capitalism is that it doesn't know when to say "enough". Common sense says that a brand can't retain its quirky, smart, foreign, cynical, funny, laconic, iconoclastic soul if it gets very much bigger than 10% of the market. But woe betide the poor brand manager who might naively suggest this. Many new variants were launched, budgets were found for TV advertising. I wasn't able to find out how successful this SKU proliferation was; but in due course Kraft sold Altoids on (along with Lifesavers) to Wrigley for $1.4 billion amidst talk of revenue "headwinds" in 2005.

Wrigley closed the plant in Bridgend and increased capacity utilization at an existing plant in Chattanooga. The humour in the advertising drifted from under-stated to over-the-top, from Sir Humphrey Appleby-funny to Borat-funny. Somewhere along the way, the brand name became associated with enhanced blow jobs.

Mars acquired all of Wrigley for $23 billion in 2008. Altoids was obviously not the main point of the buyout. The current Pottery Barn-esque creative platform, wholesome authenticity, looks more like damage control than an effort to build a brand around either the British legacy or the dedication of the Seattle club cultists.

Maybe, though, there is something deeply British about this story, about inventing something that then goes abroad and takes on a completely different character. Like cricket. Or the English language. Or democracy, or capitalism, or scientific method. Altoids is in good company. Maybe I can explain all this to my local pharmacist to get him to import some quirky Britishness from Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Rudo y Cursi y Asif y Amir

Rudo y Cursi is a Mexican film about football, made by the same team as classics like Y tu mama tambien and Amores Perros. My wife and I watched it about a year ago, on an impulse, largely because it had Gael Garcia Bernal. We had the movie theater entirely to ourselves through a Monday 7:00 screening, which was a little odd initially, but that gave us complete freedom to laugh out loud at the many hilarious moments on this rollicking ride.

It came to mind because of the sordid story now unfolding about Pakistani cricket players and their "spot-fixing" (this doesn't give away any more of the movie's plot than the official trailer). How disgusting! Really, how could they? And it hurts just that little bit more because the Pakis look like us. Are we South Asians, and our game, cricket, somehow naturally corrupt?

Rationally, I know that is nonsense. Match fixing has been a problem in many cultures and many sports for generations, yet sport has continued to thrive. Cricket in the time of WG Grace, the baseball world series in 1919, football, tennis, snooker, boxing and sumo wrestling have all been under the cloud at various times.

But my heart still sees the fall of Asif and Amir, of Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja and Hansie Cronje in vivid technicolour, a vividness that I am unable summon for Nikolai Davydenko, despite being a tennis fan. That is where Rudo y Cursi comes in. It is textured, lively, authentic, funny, good-looking retelling of a familiar tale of simple beginnings, meteoric ascent, the intoxication of the high life, temptation and a tragic fall from grace. The language, music, sport, landscapes, rituals and styles feel unfamiliar, the emotions feel authentic and are entirely familiar.

What to do? We are like that wonley. But we are not alone.

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones

"There was nothing wrong, he reminded himself, in appreciating a bourgeois paradise when every other sort of paradise on offer had proved to be exactly the opposide of what paradise should be."

These wonderful words were spoken by art gallery owner Matthew Duncan of Edinburgh, the kind hearted but unremarkable son of a rich father, in The Unbearable Lightness of Scones. Haven't quite put my finger on it yet, but this sentiment is a big part of the reason why Alexander McCall Smith now occupies such an exalted place on my bookshelf, not too far away from PG Wodehouse.

Avatar: The Worship of Vishnu

Watch Avatar. It’s a great film. If you have watched Avatar as entertainment, I urge you to watch it again, now with a piety in your heart, in the spirit of bhakti, for this is no ordinary Hollywood blockbuster, it is the tale of a blue-skinned hero, animated by a celestial spirit, who was born to save god’s righteous people, and leads them to glorious victory over evil.

Our blue-skinned hero’s people are noble and devout. Yet, our hero arrives among them in troubled times. Many doubt him. Unfazed by the doubters, our glorious hero slays demons, charms the tribal elders, frolics in a scented grove with a beauteous maiden, does battle to save his father’s soul, and rides the skies on a sacred eagle. He is accepted as one of the chosen people, is appointed commander-in-chief, and leads his tribe into an apocalyptic battle that pits right against wrong, good against evil. He leads with courage and cunning in this battle, wins a decisive victory, and restores the natural order of the universe.

You’ve heard this story before, you will hear this story again. In James Cameron's telling of this story, the blue-skinned avatar is called jakesully, the animating spirit is Jake Sully, the righteous tribe are the Na'vi of Pandora, the slain demon is a Thantor, the beauteous maiden is Neytiri, the father figure is Dr Grace Augustine, the sacred eagle is a Toruk, and the evil forces defeated in the apocalyptic battle are the US Marines. In previous tellings of this story, the blue-skinned avatar is called Rama, the animating spirit is Vishnu, the righteous tribe are the Raghuvanshi of Aryavrata, the slain demon is Taataka, the beauteous maiden is Sita (or perhaps Radha is better cast?), the father figure is Dasharatha, the sacred eagle is Garuda, and the evil forces defeated in battle are Ravana's rakshasas.

Other Vaishnavite inspirations are less obvious. Are the floating mountains which protect Pandora's sacred forests inspired by Govardhan? Is the carriage of the Na'vi people, who walk tall and lithe, and swish their tails with pride, inspired by the vanaras of Kishkinda?

Google tells me that these parallels haven't gone unnoticed. Some cranks were offended. Many Hindus, including me, enjoy these resonances. A film maker called Sudipto Chattopadhyay likened Jake Sully to Kalki, the long awaited tenth avatar of Vishnu. One of the beautiful things about Kalki is that every tribe, every culture can locate their own messiah in that placeholder.

The story that you have heard before, that you will hear again, is what Joseph Campbell called the monomyth, the single narrative that underlies all the great stories ever told, the Odyssey, the Norse myths, the stories of Rama, and Gautam Buddha and Jesus. Contemporary mythology - Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Star Wars and now Avatar - follows the same narrative structure, sometimes instinctively, sometimes intentionally.

Re-telling the monomyth becomes interesting because of rich detail which Avatar has in plenty, like, the complete Maori-based Na'vi language invented for the film, or the coral reef inspired jungle-scapes of Pandora. These stories aren’t about surprise endings. They gain meaning, resonance and emotional heft with repetition. The story of Rama is retold every Dussera. The story of Krishna is retold every Janmashtami. Perhaps the story of Jake Sully will be retold every April 22, on Earth Day, to honour the Na'vi's Gaian ethos? Perhaps we will be blessed with an Oscar winning sequel?