Mumbai’s Great Construction Circus

In Mumbai, happiness is so hard to find, it’s like a cabbie that goes short-distances. As a city there are roughly two things we can get excited about, and one of them just said he’s played his last IPL.
The only other thing that thrills this city is the opening of a new transport link. We now have the Eastern Freeway, that’ll get you from Fort to Ghatkopar in 25 minutes. On an ordinary day, you can’t get from Fort to Fort in 25 minutes. This road is going to change lives; People will get home early, they’re going to tuck their children into bed and eat dinner with their families, and watch this fabled “Arnab Goswami” they’ve heard so much about for the first time. But these betters lives will have to wait. Because nobody important is free to inaugurate it. But it’s just another part of the circus that is The Life-Cycle of Every Infrastructure Project in Mumbai Ever:

Stage 1: Hope
A report appears on the front page of a newspaper about a new project that will cut my commute by six hours (each way). The report has shiny graphics in which the distance between Vashi and Colaba is a 2 cm dotted red line. This new project will build a twelve-lane highway in the ocean with exit-ramps and “decks”, and its piece de resistance will be a “cable-stayed bridge” that leads to a tunnel that will go through the moon and end at Nariman Point. Phase 1 began yesterday and will be completed two minutes from now by Kajol. Oh, and it only costs 6,00,00,000 lakh crore (USD).

Stage 2: Bureaucratic b%$#h-fighting
It emerges that whoever came up with the project didn’t actually run it past the environment ministry. Or the people who live in the slums that have to be scorched “for progress”. Or the World Bank. Or any bank. In fact, he didn’t even run the idea past his mom. His mother doesn’t even know who gave him the crayons to draw it. The project will now take two days. Oh, and Kajol’s out, Om Puri’s in.

Stage 3: Floating of tenders
If the term “tender floating” brings to your mind an image of Kabir Bedi and Sonu Walia in a pool in that song from Khoon Bhari Maang, you are probably CEO of the company that won the bid to build our next infrastructural marvel. You don’t know a damn thing about auctions, but you know more and enough about the way this country works. You’ve won, it’s time to get to work; Om Puri’s history, Sonu Walia’s in. Because now I can’t get that song out of my head.

Stage 4: Construction
Work begins. You build a pillar, someone else files a PIL. Because you still haven’t told the slum-folk, have you? The project goes into cold storage for three years, everyone associated with it leaves. Your lead actress gets pregnant, you have a falling out. Somebody else steps in. It flops anyway.

Stage 5: Delay
(This phase of the column is awaiting clearances from people who haven’t been sufficiently bribed yet, and should be ready by 2017)

Stage 6: Media attention
Your project is in disarray. A crane fell over and killed two people because what should have been your safety budget is now in somebody’s Swiss bank account. The media comes in and breaks news. Your financial practices are probed, and your links to people examined. It emerges that you once played cricket in your building. You are immediately arrested for links to Dawood. Every journalist in the country goes home and bathes in a bucket of rum. The project will not finish until the next continental drift.

Stage 7: Completion
Your project is ready! Except for the signals, lane-markings and the 200 meters that would connect your road to the rest of the city.

Stage 8: The naming
One political group insists the name end in “Gandhi.” A second insists it begin in “Rajiv”. A third beats up cabbies, because it’s Tuesday.

Stage 9: Delay (Again)
No VIP is available to come open your masterpiece. Hungover and crabby after their rum bath, the media chews you up and spits you out again.

Stage 10: GRAND OPENING!
YOUR ROAD IS OPEN! Citizens throng to it because that’s how starved they are for new infrastructure. Your dream comes true, your road changes the city forever. With the longest traffic jam in the history of its existence, caused mostly by people stopping in the middle to take photos.

Stage 11: Failure
Like a fat person in denial, Mumbai tries on the road for size, only to find that it doesn’t fit, it never fit, it wouldn’t have fit 15 years ago. You are cast aside like the broken little piece of elastic that you are. But the next day, a report appears on the front page of a newspaper about a new project that will cut my commute by six hours (each way)…

Hey terrorists… quit it already.

At the outset, I’d like to congratulate the people who carried out the bombings in Boston and in Bangalore. You have succeeded in your mission, assuming that your mission was to ensure that all advanced alien life ignores us until we’re extinct and only cockroaches and the non-biodegradable bits of Shilpa Shetty roam the Earth. If I were an enlightened alien life-form, like ET, Spock, or Rahul Dravid, and I had to sell Earth to a prospective buyer, I don’t think I honestly could.

Yes, great location, and yes, 5,490,232,704,000,000 square feet of space (super built-up) and yes, you get thousands of dolphins. Free. If you buy now you get a panda with your booking deposit. But unfortunately, like the flaw weavers put into an otherwise perfect carpet, the planet also has humans on it. And the problem with humans is that you’ll be sitting at home one day, and one of them will attempt to kill you in a horrible way. For any aliens who may intercept this communication, understand this. Humans kill other humans for several reasons;

1. Someone wrote a great piece of fantasy fiction thousands of years away, and well, you know how geeks get about this stuff. (“NOOOO BUT IN THE BOOK TYRION LOSES HIS NOSE. WHERE’S MY VEST?”)
2. A female said something that was not “Yes master” to a male.
3. Someone has tried and failed to covert you to their way of thinking. So they must now convert you into little pieces.
4. Tuesday.

All those reasons have one thing in common; they’re not very good. And now, with the events in Boston and Bangalore, we’re faced with the specter of one of our favourite ways of killing people; terrorism. In our brief time on Earth, human beings have created many daft things like stuffed toys, earphones that tangle up if you so much as look away, and Kardashians. None of them are stupid as terrorism.

Terrorism is an exclusively human problem. Dolphins and bonobos have sex for pleasure, but humans are the only species that engage in terrorism. It may or may not be a coincidence that we’re also the only ones that have religion. You will never see a cat fly a plane into another cat. This has never happened. If it did, it would get eleven billion hits on YouTube, but that’s a different conversation.

I’m sure terrorists want something. Whatever those things are, I’m also sure they’re important. Maybe they want to be heard. Maybe they don’t want to be shot at anymore Maybe they want the Delhi Daredevils to not be such little girls. The problem is, now you’ve turned me off.I no longer care what you want. I’m not overtly inclined towards listening to people whose first instinct in an argument is “You know what’ll solve this? Hellfire.”

Terrorism allows the actions of the few to bring judgment on the many. The FBI released photos of the suspects in the Boston bombings revealed that the bombers may, for once, not be brown. It may seem petty to bring that up at this point, but given that initial reports after the bombings were quick to paint the suspect as being brown, it’s massively pertinent to stress on the fact that they’re not. Now is as good a time as any to contemplate the fact that terrorism isn’t the sole preserve of brown people (something that people conveniently forget). Al Qaeda was formed in 1988, but the Nazi Party in 1920, and The Ku Klux (latin for “If we wear bedsheets, they’ll think we’re badass”) Klan in 1865.

So whether you’re white, brown, yellow, black, or whatever colour Lady Gaga is this week, I don’t care. If you’re a terrorist, I urge you to stop (Wouldn’t it be awesome if real life worked this way?) Do something respectable with your life, like cooking crystal meth or joining Indian politics. My point is, give it a rest; some of us actually like this planet. It’s hot, and dirty, and there’s too many vegetarians for my liking, but it’s home. This is our backyard, this is where we live and play, and we got a good deal on the superbuiltup area. So bugger off, dear terrorist. You’re a bully. Whether you’re a bully in a government suit, or a bully in a cave in Afghanistan is irrelevant. Nobody likes a bully. 

The Jumbo Circus

The IPL is back. For those who may not follow cricket (Like Goans and IB students) the IPL is the Indian (but not Pakistani, or if you’re in Tamil Nadu, not Sri Lankans, [AND ONLY SOME RETIRED AUSTRALIANS, but NO ENGLISHMEN or Zimbabweans {because if we pay them 1,000 dollars, they’ll go back home and declare themselves King and break the economy by trying to pay for one apple}]) Premier League.  The IPL is the most entertaining event on the Indian cricket calendar, and the only event on Preity Zinta’s.

I don’t really watch the IPL. I much prefer going out to restaurants and bars, where you can do different things, like watch the IPL. And this year, it’s bigger than ever.  It has 72 league games, following which the top 4 teams enter the “Play-Offs” which is sporting parlance for “What the f**k was wrong with semi-finals?!”. The play-offs go on for another 39 matches, and their fate is decided by a Super Over, which is a normal over that was born on the planet Krypton but sent to Earth by its parents when the planet blew up. After the Super Over, you have an Eliminator in which the losing team is eliminated and the winning team goes on to the final in which they’re auctioned off to some new idiot with money to burn because the current owners are broke.

What I love about the IPL is that teams have exciting names. It was so exciting to watch The Mumbai Indians play the Delhi Daredevils in a game that was won by Shikhar Dhavan’s histrionics. Or to watch the Pune Warriors play the Rajasthan Royals, in a game that was won by Aaron Finch’s classy 64. Or to watch the FICCI Fekus play the Pappu CII’s in a match that was won by people who like making jokes on Twitter.

It’s not just the teams that have exciting names. Basic cricket terms get revamped. A six is a “Yes Bank Maximum”, a wicket is a “Citi Moment of Success” and a commentator is an “I miss Richie Benaud.” But since we now live in a time of great equality, and everyone has a right to be belittled equally, the sideshow also includes women. Now some of you are going to call me a sexist and demand that I apologize to the Attorney General of America, PETA and Amnesty International. But hear me out. The truth is, I respect chicks, I think babes are amazing, and I think all maal deserves rights. I don’t have a problem with items covering cricket. I do have one with the broadcaster’s choice of women though. They women covering the IPL are so clueless that they make Ten Sports’ Champions League panel look like the core team at CERN. And Ten Sports’ Champions League panel could fatally injure themselves with a band-aid.

This is how most on-field interviews conducted by women during the IPL go:

IPL Lady: SO TELL ME, HOW DID THE MATCH GO?
Cricketer: It’s always a tough fight, especially on a track like this, and they gave us a bit of a scare, but we won, so all’s well that ends well.
IPL Lady: I’m sorry you lost, good luck for your next game
Cricketer: No, we won
IPL Lady: HA HA, so cute. So tell me, how are you enjoying your stint in India?
Cricketer: Dude I’m MS Dhoni, I’ve been here my whole life.
IPL Lady: Well good luck for tomorrow’s game, I hope you score many goals! 

But then again, the IPL isn’t about cricket. It’s a muscle-flex by the good men (and N Srinivasan) at the BCCI, a giant gash torn into the middle of the cricketing calendar for our entertainment and broadcast money. Is it fun? Yes, but so are butter chicken and vodka shots, and too many of those will kill you in the end. And yet, there it is, bludgeoning you into submission every night for the next 50 days, so you either change the channel or sit and watch the gravy train go by. Either way, know this, the BCCI does not give a jhumping juck. 

Dear Manoj Kumar (And Bollywood as a whole)

I hope this column finds you in good health. If it doesn’t, I would be happy to send you (for NO FEES) a cassette player with fresh batteries and a recording of “Kadam Kadam Badhaaye Ja” because as you taught me in Clerk, that song cures everything, including heart trouble, terrible acting, and the need for logic.

In your career you earned several awards, and the nickname Manoj “Bharat” Kumar. This was due to films like Shaheed, Kranti, and Upkaar, all of which were steeped in such blind patriotism that they make Sunny Deol look like an ISI agent. For the sake of keeping things civil, we’ll ignore the fact that you then joined the Shiv Sena.

Besides, I’m more interested in a legal matter that you were involved in this week. You’ve sued the makers of Om Shaanti Om for a scene which, according to you, makes fun of you. I must confess that my first instinct when I read about this was to facepalm (or as you call it, “Patriotic Gangnam Style”). In case I infringed any copyrights while doing so, please tell me where I can mail you a cheque for the required amount.

You’ve sued the makers of this film before, and now you’re suing them again, because the film released in Japan with that particular scene unchanged. I feel your pain. I also feel the pain of the millions of fans you have in Japan, who must have been shattered to see their idol so cruelly mimicked. In fact, I asked one of your Japanese fans what he thought of the entire issue, and he said “私は大きいお尻が好きです、嘘はつけません” which translates to “Did you know Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot is now available on DVD?”

My first question is, what is your grievance exactly? Is it that they made fun of you? And my second question is, so what if they did? I’ve seen the scene in question, and it plays on one of the oldest comedic tropes of all time; parodying an iconic gesture in a context that acts as comedic homage. If anything, that scene was a compliment. It doesn’t portray you in a negative light. In fact one could argue that you’re more likely to be seen in a negative light if you, as a grown man, act like a hyper-sensitive little girl about a perceived slur to your reputation. Besides, if you really want to hit Shah Rukh Khan where it hurts, do a movie with Salman Khan where you stand with your arms outstretched the whole time. (OR become brand ambassador of the Mumbai Cricket Association.)

What really bugs me is the fact that you (and most of Bollywood’s “senior” citizens) walk around like the world owes you some form of respect that borders on fealty. This is real life, not an episode of Game of Thrones. You demand respect like a petulant child demands ice-cream, and you respond to perceived slights with frivolous cases like this, the equivalent of lying on the floor and kicking about.

Is nobody else sick of award-show photographs of young actors and actresses touching the feet of older Bollywood people? I have nothing against the touching of feet as a gesture of respect, but in that context, it always looks more like a gesture of obligation than respect. Why does Rekha still get front-row tickets to every award show? Does she even leave the venue, or stay in her chair at the end until they build everything around her the next year? If Steven Spielberg asked Ryan Gosling to touch his feet, George Lucas would probably roundhouse-kick him in the face with a leg made of lightsabers to shame him.

My point is Mr Kumar, it’s an industry. Treat it like one. Am I suggesting that respect is a bad thing? Not at all. But if you want it, Mr Kumar (and everybody else), don’t demand it, command it. The sooner we stop treating it like some sort of feudal patriarchy, the better.

Regards
Rohan

PS: Please check out Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot on DVD, that show is even better than Clerk. 

Link

My Mumbai

The folks at Mumbai Boss asked me about my Mumbai. And here’s what I told them! 

Fitness? Freak

The thing with humans (and M Karunanidhi) is that it is in our nature to covet the things we will never have; like an amazing performance by Katrina Kaif, or a clean Indian government, or Ferrari’s latest, the La Ferrari (Italian for “We’re really lazy with naming cars. It was either this or Rupesh”). Some of these goals are so unrealistic that eventually we give up on them. I may one day own a Ferrari, and some day with enough courage and physiotherapy, maybe Katrina Kaif will recover from the stroke that rendered her that expressionless, but we’ll never have a clean government. There is one other unattainable goal that I haven’t given up on though; six-pack abs and a great body.

(I’ll continue when you’re done laughing)

(Done? No? I don’t blame you. Breathe.)

(Okay now you’re just being rude.)

(I hate you)

(Seriously, stop. Think of something sad. Okay; your dog just died)

(What? NO NOT BECAUSE I ATE IT. You know what? Go to hell. And YOUR MOM’S a fat-ass.)

I began my quest for the pot of six-pack gold by looking for a gym to join. This was tougher than I thought it’d be because gyms aren’t what they used to be. In fact, they’re not even gyms anymore. They’re “Fitness centers”, unless you’re willing to spend Rs 50,000, a kidney, and a child sacrifice (per month) more, in which case they’re “Body Sculpting Studios”, attended by actresses who look like they came there straight from a whole different kind of Body Sculpting Studio.

These Body Sculpting Studios offer different packages, like the “Standard Package”, which costs Rs 12, and involves dying in a pool of your own blood when a dumbbell falls on your head as nobody pays attention to you because you’re the cheap bastard that took the Standard Package. And you have to die between 11 am and 6 pm, because before and after that, it’s the more expensive “peak hours” which are only for people who took the “Deluxe Pro Weight-Loss Gold With Cheese” package. Besides, you don’t want to work out with these people anyway, because they’re made entirely of muscle, protein shakes and Being Human t-shirts, and may accidentally bench-press you.

After I signed up at the gym 360 Degree Wellness Laboratory, I was first assessed by a dietician, who asked me to list my daily food intake on a piece of paper so she could prescribe me a healthy diet plan. When she was done crying, she informed me that TV was “not a food group” (bloody quack), and that I had in fact died six weeks ago, and what I thought was my life was just the remnant of the sugar rush from the super-sized 4 liter cola that had killed me.

I was then sent out to the workout floor, where more surprises awaited me. Gone are the days of dumbbells and barbells. Gyms Holistic Physiological Workshops are now full of machines with names like The Arc Trainer, which is great for cardio, or the TRX, which was amazing in Jurassic Park.

To help me with these machines, I was put under the care of a trainer, who asked me if I had ever gymmed before. It’s very important to answer these questions honestly, because it gives your trainer the opportunity to ignore your answer and put you through exercises that’d make Arnold Schwarzenegger cry. However, I’d highly recommend getting a trainer because they get you to exercise better with motivational banter like this;

Trainer: ONE! TWO! THREE!
Me: It hurts
Trainer: FOUR! FIVE! SIX!
Me: No wait, my nipples just flew off my chest from the strain and are now stuck to the ceiling.
Trainer: SEVEN! NIN… Wait, what’s after seven?
Me: enters cardiac arrest
Trainer: No seriously, what’s after seven? I quit school to join the MNS.

My gym Commando Training Institute experience peaked an hour later, when, dizzy from the pain and looking for a restroom to throw up in, I accidentally wandered into an aerobics class. I was the only man there, and I found myself doing steps that even the guy from Gangnam Style would be ashamed of. For half an hour, I did a series of high-energy steps that make Farah Khan’s IPL dance look like the Nutcracker. This went on until a particularly ferocious kick-step routine, during which the lady behind me gave me an actual Nutcracker, and I crawled out in defeat.

I have now decided that six-packs are overrated. The effort required to attain one would outstrip the actual joy of having one. I shall not prescribe to society’s ideas of the ideal body. I am my own person, and I am beautiful. Also, my Standard Package has expired, and I can’t really afford to renew it after I paid for my new TV.

The Union Budget 2013 Demystified

 

The Union Budget was announced this week, and like all budgets, it raises many questions, like “What about taxes?” and “Will inflation go up?” and “Where can I get the drugs that make Meira Kumar look so blissed out?”

Pablo Escobar is my fraaaannnnnnd

Usually, budget analysis is a mix of jargon, confusion and a sense of wonder about the sheer size of Udayan Mukherjee’s head. But I’d like to cut through the hype to demystify things for you, so let’s begin:

Who presents the Budget?

The Union Budget is usually presented by the Finance Minister at a high-profile event in the last week of February. This year, the honours were done by Seth MacFarlane, creator of the popular animated series, Family Guy. He wasn’t great, but he wasn’t as bad as previous hosts like James Franco and Pranab Mukherjee.

What is the purpose of the Budget?

The budget serves an extremely important purpose; it gives newspapers the chance to show their “creativity” in assorted front-page spreads which feature P Chidambaram in a series of garish, ugly caricatures including the Gangnam Style, James Bond, and P Chidambaram.

 

These are from one edition of ONE paper.

Why does the Finance Minister pose with a suitcase before the budget?

Because Prem Chopra has kidnapped his daughter, and he has to stop off in 1974 to pay the ransom before going to Parliament to read the budget off his iPad.

What does the P in P Chidambaram stand for?

Palaniappan, which is Tamil for “Looks suspiciously like Stewie Griffin

       

P Chidambaram

Stewie Griffin

People tell me that this was an “Election Budget”. What is that?

An “Election Budget” is the money a Chinese man puts aside for Viagra. 

Dude. Seriously?

Sorry. An “Election budget” refers to the budget presented in the year just before elections. It’s a softer, please-all, rock-no-boats sort of budget, with an eye to not annoying people voters before the 2014 General Elections.

Wait, we have elections next year? What are my choices?

Yes, we do. And in all probability, you’re going to have to choose between Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi.

My choices are poop and vomit? Who should I choose?

Euthanasia

How will this budget affect my life at home?

If you want a new set-top box, it just got more expensive. If you want new marble floor-tiles, they just got more expensive. If you want a new cellphone, it just got more expensive. And if you want a new imported SUV, you’ve clearly never heard of global warming.

Did the budget have a massive impact on the stock market?

Yes. The stock market was less than impressed with the budget, and the Sensex, which is the key indicator of Gujarati blood pressure, dropped 291 points.

Wow, 291 points? Why?

Partly because the budget was bearish about growth in India, and partly because the FM announced a 10 percent surcharge on individuals who have a declared income of over Rs 1 crore. Companies that earn over Rs 10 crore will also have to pay a 10 percent surcharge.

What’s a “surcharge”?

A charge that was knighted for its service to queen and country, of course. Don’t be an idiot.

Wait. According to the FMs speech, only 42,000 people in India claimed to have a declared income of more than Rs 1 crore. Wouldn’t adding a tax surcharge to that make even less people willing to declare their income? So isn’t that counter-productive and daft?

Do you want me to set Kapil Sibal on you?

I mean, WOW, WHAT A MIRACLE IDEA! P CHIDDY IS BEST!

That’s what I thought. 

(This column was originally published in the Mid-Day On March 2, 2013, and can also be found on their website)

IIPMSing

Much has been written about Professor Arindam Chaudhuri, O.B.E, M.D, L.O.L.J.K, and a lot of it negative. These stories paint the portrait of a fraud, a charlatan, a conman. But I think it is important that we also see the portrait of a great, legendary, statuesque man who has changed lives. To do that, I recommend that you Google “Mahatma Gandhi Portrait” instead of reading this. But to counter all this negative press about Admiral Arindam Chaudhuri, Esq, I would like to come out in defense of the man and his institute.

Count Arindam Chaudhuri, B.A.L.L.B, is the greatest man to have ever walked the Earth. In fact, he has also walked Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and was about to set foot on Pluto, but it was so terrified of his magnificent footstep that it decommissioned itself from planet status to avoid the privilege. Pope Arindam Chaudhuri MCMXVII has also written several books, like “Discover the Diamond in You” (a searing saga of a Marwari man whose necklace comes loose), “Count Your Chickens Before they Hatch” (published in Greece as “F**K YOUR WISDOM AND ITS MOM, AESOP”), and The Bhagvad Geeta.

King Arindam Chaudhuri The Lionheart has also been responsible for producing several classics of Indian cinema, as such as Rok Sako Toh Rok Lo, which features Sunny Deol as Physically Impressive Punjabi Man. The film’s Wikipedia page suggests that Darth Chaudhuri made it to show how “the principal of management can help reduce wastage of money in the film industry.” The film achieves this by showing you Sunny Deol on the poster up-front, so you don’t pay for a ticket and thus reduce wastage of money in the film-industry. The INS Arindam Chaudhuri has also made the National Award winning Do Dooni Chaar, which was described by critics as “a fluke”.

Dr ChauDre has also been responsible for the flourishing of IIPM, the Indian Institute of People Who Pay Lakhs of Rupees For a Free Laptop And Dodgy Degree When They Could Have Bought Both (With Great Specs) For a Lot Less. IIPM is an institute that dares to dream beyond equipping you with valuable life-skills, and has produced distinguished alumni like Socrates, Cristiano Ronaldo and Albert Einstein.

“But wait, IIPM wasn’t around when Einstein was!” I hear you naysayers naysay. You are correct, but iArindam Chaudhuri 4S invented time-travel to combat that very problem, and then went back in time to tell Einstein to count his chickens before they hatched, to which Einstein reportedly replied “Dude seriously? Sunny Deol?” If you do not believe this version of events, ask yourself, who but Princess Chaudhuri could have convinced Einstein of the merits of such an atrocious hairstyle?
But IIPM offers students more than being part of a list of illustrious alumni. It also offers them a chance to learn from other places, with tie-ups with foreign universities that teach courses on “How to manage a situation in times of adversity, like for example, when you discover that the foreign university tie-up you were promised doesn’t actually exist.” It also offers students a chance to go abroad and learn through the (I am not making this up) IIPM GOTA program, which stands for Global Opportunities and Threats if you’re you, and something completely different if you’re my brain.

But the most remarkable achievement of Mount Arindam Chaudhuri’s career is deluding himself into believing that he can muzzle free press and a journalistic investigation into his dealings with the flick of a wand. This is because HTTP Chaudhuri has clearly never met the internet, a hydra-like invention where ten heads grow every time you attempt to cut off one. McArindam With Cheese has failed to realize that if you tell the internet they cannot say something about you, it only makes them say it ten times as loud, to a hundred times as many people.

Because nobody, not even Pandit Chaudhuri, is perfect, he has also failed to glean that there has never in history been such a thing as a person with 100 percent positive press. Not Jesus Christ, not Lord Krishna, not even the Korean guy who invented Gangnam Style. Perhaps it is time that Kung-Fu Chaudhuri dared to dream beyond his own nose and recognized that if you’re going to call yourself a professor, the first thing you’ve got to be ready to teach your students is that opinion is free, fair, and not subject to the whims and fancies of a businesswolf in sheep’s clothing. Though to be fair, I don’t know a single sheep who’d be caught dead in that ponytail.