Their Third Anniversary

One of the weakest and lamest governments and certainly the tamest cabinet that India has ever seen has completed three years in service and tonight when they will sit down and prepare the annual report cards they will have to work exceedingly hard searching for some positives. Given the master contortionists this gang is, they will flex their muscles well and in an act acrobatic awe they will pull out a few success stories from a damning year’s performance by a rudderless and uninterested government. The nation is tired of their acts and words of jugglery, we  are tired of a government that refuses to communicate and placate fears let aside act.

Three years into the Manmohan Singh government the arguably historic mandate that UPA 1 received has effectively evaporated and the government stands sans any political or moral authority, as they totter and drudge the nation prays these men who carry the burden of sycophancy of the lady-might and the pressure of the aspirations of the heir apparent leave the driver’s seat and rest. Lest they may drive the nation into a pileup, and they will place the blame on the European Astors, the Audis and the BMW and in reverence with the nation they come from the Ferraris , the Lamborghini and the Fiat shall escape the incrimination. As I write this, I am logged off, as the program closes before me I could only think “This wasn’t a cartoon.”

As the computer shuts down with a daunting finality, I find the old and accented doctor approaching me, he gets angry and he is revered.

“What went wrong?”, asked the doctor.

“I thought it was you who would tell me”, I retorted half marveled at the question.

“Well something is wrong, let’s try austerity”. 

“Austerity?, and Why?, I am ailing and you talked of some morning yogic practices last time”

“But, my advisor has lost faith on Yoga’s ability of curing you, he believes your present status does not allow reformative yogas, he believes the time is note rife and he has stated so in public.”

“Ok, I must agree, you are the doctor aren’t you.” “and what should the austerity be like?”

“Oh, that, You could travel cattle class.”

“But isn’t that a cliche and a taboo at the same time?, Anyway your boss was a proponent of yoga, he has been so for two decades now. Why change the cure now?”

“You have your grammar wrong kid, she is a she. Oh Oh, that, ya I got you, I have his approval, don’t I always have?”

“I saw him leaving,he had a tracking back and he was trudging along as if rehearsing a walk on the hill”

“So, are you travelling too? I shouted, almost impolitely.

“I don’t know, they have some plans” he said, “preparing for eventualities.”

“You don't carry much weight though, If its a mountain it must be distant”

“Its a hill and its close by”

“And what about the investment?” I shouted again, convinced he was not listening.

And as he disappeared his charming rotund waist and the little gait made him resemble those lovable cartoon sketches in the morning newspaper.

“The idea of a cartoon can mislead you my dear”

“Oh hi, well, I presume I like them, I prefer a humour that leads me to some loss over the one that promises zero loss,” He gazed at me with a wistful smirk, “what’s a smile without a price?” I continued.

He overlooked my jibe and in a confident patronising tone stated “They tell me that your ailment is misinformation.”

“But the senior doctor, pray he doesn’t retire, tells me I am profligate.”

“So you are, your profligacy is all misinformed, and we need to fix this.”

“I think I will be better soon, I am cutting on my transport bill, fuel bill, entertainment bill and the food bill”

“Boy you must not cut on the food bill, understand?” “Better prune your internet expenditure”

“And I even bought a cheaper tablet, sir”

“That is good, Oh I will run, I have my hundred day report card waiting, see you”

“I may not see you again, shower some word of wisdom, will you?”

“Wisdom? I am a poet, I would rather offer poetry, but if you must, then remember : Never Concede a Loss. ”

“Was it bad grammar or bad poetry?”

Just when I was wondering where am I? he came ponderously, dragging a dagger along. He is silent and muted. A few stains of ink on an otherwise bright white attire, he doesn’t speak anything. I remember for the last few months he has been quoting scriptures whenever he speaks.

“I read saint Thiruvallur after you quoted him in every budget speech you made, this is one of my favorites :

To say unpleasant things, when we have nice ones,

is like eating unripe fruit, ignoring sweet ripe fruits

But I lack the wisdom now,what do I do,I do not have the nice things to say?”

“Budget? Ah” he thought for a while and broke into the Mary Hopkins song

Those were the days my friend

We thought they'd never end

We'd sing and dance forever and a day

We'd fight and never lose

“Ya ya those were the days, oh yes those were the days” I interrupted, “They say You did a lot that you shouldn't have been doing then”

“If you think so, oh if you do really thinks so take this dagger and dig it into my heart.”

“umm.. I fear sin”, I said and he replied “But the dagger is all yours”

“And the security men all yours”, I thought,and for once I feared being bugged. I feared talking and I shivered, “where am I?”

He spoke in his saintly yet strangely spooky voice, “The professor is a liar.”

“Oh yes he is”, I said, I didn’t wish a discussion anymore “and where am I?”

And I heard her say, and I heard him say, she is precise and concise, he is mild mannered, soft spoken and articulate, with beard like the snowflakes and I heard them say,

“Into the fourth floor, you are still in the third floor.” 

“Into the fourth floor, still two more to go?” Did I shiver?

I was all sweat and wet. I got up to the night, oh so that was a nightmare, I thankfully prayed to the Lord, and for a while contemplated why do I have this recurring dream lately? It was early morning and I decided to study a bit, found an incomplete piece on my computer, something about a weak, rudderless government deleted it and forgetting all about studies I jogged off for the morning air.

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the Manhattan Legacy

This Blog has remained inactive for too long to my comfort, but as ideas and articulation continue to elude me, I pick up something I had written a year back. It was a response to an innocuous conversation right when the occupy chorus was at its height, with a year gone I look back and feel this needs a space here, and what better time than a period of acute intellectual stasis. At the least this keeps me in the game...

As the Occupy Wall Street chorus grows louder in and across the US, I barely managed to avoid an entirely unrelated argument on the symbolism that I believe Manhattan is. Any mention of the skyline in the US awes me and the exorbitant cost of living is the least of the factors, the extravagant bankers making box full of profit is not the lure either. The statue of liberty that overlooks the New York sea is the representation of all that is great about the Manhattan Skyline.

Many good meaning, well intentioned people see money-making with certain distaste and disregard any appreciation of the money makers as gloating at times and immoral inspiration on others. The argument that I avoided was following exactly the same lines, and I suspect the dislike for the greed and the profiteering was accentuated by some form of strong nationalistic discomfort on the unabated glorification of an entirely foreign symbol, representing a tradition arguably far too immature for our great civilization.

So how do I answer the question? A question of huge significance, I concede. It’s easy to answer it on the physical levels, the money this place makes, the inspiration it generates for innovation, the speed it adds to our life, and the consistency with which, this symbol of capitalism for some and of human will for others, has dictated the growth of the planet. As far as the naïve argument that, there are many manhattans across the world, I would rather state that this statement is false. There’s no way there is another empire state building, no way that there existed any other pair of twin towers, no other banking street catches the attention of the entire planet. It’s not about the height of the towers, it’s not about the business they make, its how these structures become a part of life of many, and how the place inspires people towards a more prosperous world. This address on the visiting card is not just a posh address to show off, it’s the place that remained the fountainhead of innovations and growth of the mankind for around a century, scenario may be changing, but that does not take away the legacy. Let’s shower praises where praises are deserved.

And now the philosophical, more complicated part of the story, but the part that clinches the definitive stand on the argument for me, that leaves me without doubt, that the place rightly or wrongly criticised for various reasons, is a necessity and cannot be overlooked. Ask it do anything; do not ask it to slowdown. So for the records, I am a quasi-spiritualist, unsure of the unknown, invisible, but certain about its existence, not exactly religious, but believing that man’s religion is to do good, that every faith demands man to grow every minute of every day of life, that being human is a blessing and man’s effort and toil are the only justification to being human. Every single act of human development in the last few years have emanated from the corporate houses, money has driven novelties, it has helped man defy nature, unravel the mysteries of the universal physics, every discovery, every invention pushes the human creed a few notches up, every idea raises the human beings further higher. Universities get there research funding from these corporate houses, the technology companies find their demands here, for whatever reasons these firms have supported medicine, astronomy and science at different levels.
For the one who idolize, human desire, his efforts, and his every single victory, Manhattan is the unmistakable pilgrimage. The phenomenon that Manhattan is has made man powerful, it has made him stronger, all is not rosy about the place but all’s not bad either. And certainly, it just cannot remain unmentioned and unacknowledged. 

PS: Praising Manhattan is not awe for the US or capital, it’s a bow before human spirit that changed the way human lived. It’s like being awed by the Silicon Valley for what it gave us over the years, it not about a nation not at all about India.  

  

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When the Memory Mutates..

The ticking watch speaks in the sound of the silence, occasionally overtaken by the visceral decibels. A long phone conversation followed by a few text messages had muddled the inside and the outside. Sometimes the impregnable unwillingness to concede is subtly infiltrated and words forfeit an adamant stand in an unending tussle, the reality remains as it was but once the reality is certified by the sound of words, the unease is concretized forever.  Habitually, I lie down allowing pictures from past to run through, some muted, and some with sounds.

Is this an incomplete memory? She thought, pondered around it for a while, and then as if arguing against her own instinct, she dares herself with a more fundamental question, what is an incomplete memory? Is there one?

I remember the birds and there puffed up wings on the cold Monday morning, the chill that morning was biting, the fog and the frost had whitened everything around. The muffler and the shoes danced with their reflections on the kaleidoscope, and I can hear knocking the door of the friend and listen him speak dreamy and dazed. I had kicked myself off the bed and I kicked myself in the present. Hadn’t she asked this question for long, and I had regularly stonewalled it. Did she fill into the incomplete memories today? I had never remembered the winter, or the uneasy damp January chill, I had long forgotten the hasty breakfast that morning. With her shrewdly spelt Freudian slips and my sophomoric yet dangerous affirmations my memories coalesced and reformed.

I had thought the fluffy sparrow was beautiful. I had assumed the early worm had fulfilled the warm and assiduous bird. As that morning grows staler and the snow white fog turn pale depressing white, I can think of the bird shivering in the cold, pushed off its nest and I remember the cold dog that refused to acknowledge me at the hostel gate. The recollections realign and I see a new memory forming, a memory torn to shreds lay in desolation and the scraps add together to knit a counter narrative.

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What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true? -Salman Rushdie

There have been many losses in this last decade but the loss of the easy return to India has been for me an absolute anguish, an inescapable anguish. I feel as if I've lost a limb. I am very anxious to bring that period to an end.

-Salman Rushdie(1997)

Weeks back when I was told that “The” Salman Rushdie will speak at Jaipur in a literary fest I was all pity for myself, I lamented being at Hyderabad, lamented the absence of a literature festival in the city of the IT boom and IIT aspirants, I even contemplated a weekend in the desert state. Thankfully I never formalized the plans.

Zembla, Zenda, Xanadu:

All our dream-worlds may come true.

Fairy lands are fearsome too.

As I wander far from view

Read, and bring me home to you.            –Salman Rushdie (Haroun & the Sea of Stories)

In Jaipur for now, Salman Rushdie is off the plates, period. The country that banned his book with a fool’s alacrity, decades back has cautiously gagged him on this occasion. The nincompoop fatwa-wallahs who, characteristically are offering decorations to shoe throwers, and a chickening government assured that one of my favorite authors shall not be allowed to speak his mind in the country where offence is bought at the price of peanuts. The agitations against the Satanic Verses started in India weeks before the book was released based on an article in a weekly, and this time around the Deoband asked government to deny visa to Salman Rushdie when he doesn’t need one to travel to India. The whole business of sensibilities is being dragged too far, the piece of literature in question was banned years back, and now, for no justifiable reason the author’s freedom of movement and conversation is being compromised.

While some religious clerics have repeatedly displayed incredible unease over varying interpretation of theologies and philosophy, the government has matched in its unwillingness to stand up for the right of expressions.  While I hoped that the government would show some spine on this occasion I had always feared it won’t, and it didn’t.

The clergy shall continue to take offence at anything remotely uncomfortable, they will typically retort with the whimsy impulse of the possessed but common sense will prevail in this nation of argumentative.

… India is not Iran, it's not even Pakistan, and I thought good sense will prevail in India because that's my life experience of Indian people and of the place.   –Salman Rushdie (to India Today)

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Wishing Objectivity in The Land of Gullible Subjects

The world is always changing, steadily and subtly and times come when subtle changes translate to radical demands for the overhaul of an existing system. In acute cases the effort is at dismantling the foundation on which the society sits because that remains the only way out of the non-reconcilable inequity. In times such as these, emotions and facts, ideas and reality, actions and posturing and sometimes even right and wrong blur closer together, ideas compete and either the most powerful or the most romantic survives, and the competing ideas swing from being powerful to romantic and back and fro. Any revolution that sustains itself thrives by the perfect mix of romanticism, and hard logic. The clever pioneer on the front knows what is what but is equally romanticized by the idea of the romance.

So are we there yet? At the point of inflection. I have vented enough cynicism over the last few months over any such possibility yet after weeks and months of restrain, recognizing strongly that I risk sounding snobbish and naive at the same time, I decided to finally declare that a lot of our anger is mis-informed or worse, all the talk about inequity and injustice on the social network is an artificially synthesized, mass opium that has turned into an instant hit in the social networking era which is represented by an ever contracting span of attention and increasing credulity. A friend's status, a 140 character long tweet and a restless blogger have replaced the conventional forms of news sharing as the primary source of informations, and this has fueled romanticism and exaggeration, its not that we are not debating, but we are debating hyperboles and we go on to debate in hyperboles. The modesty of truth is lost in our debates and the splendor of objectivity gone.

On July the 25^th last year newspapers across the country and outside reported an official swiss central bank figures which suggested that India's share in the money deposited in the Swiss banks is  0.07%, the central bank also suggested that this figure on the highest end (compensating for indirect and proxy banking accounts) could be half a percent, even with that we remain in the bracket of average performers, unlike what many proud Indians have been repeating over the last few months. Now, my figures would disappoint many and they will instantly look up Google (most of them will never return to this blog to read on) for “Indian money in Switzerland” and find 2006 figure of $1,456 billion, original source:  some “Swiss Banking Association”. Now Google that (to chase away who came back the first time), what do you get? Nothing substantial, in fact what is substantial is “Swiss Bankers Association”, and even here our ever so excited patriot netizens would not realize that “Banker and Banking” are two different words, some would argue what if they are different?  At least the Swiss is common!

Sloganeering and sensationalization has for long been the hallmark of a protest, those involved in a protest are easily offended and are willing to believe tales that substantiate the rightness of their protest. As a nation we have been in a protest mode throughout the last year and the protestor as we call our self has been playing to his traits. Recently when an ailing Anna Hazare was calling off his fast, he spoke  with great vigor to a crowd that had come down to express solidarity. “India used to be the golden bird” he said, and right since independence these treacherous politicians have been consistently betraying us, so much so that, “today we mortgage our gold.” Earlier speaking on the FDI in retail he had said “FDI in retail is an invitation to another East India Company.” Given the vast experience of the man, and his indubitable understanding of the country? I can only draw that his rants were clever metaphorical statements which were never meant to suggest a truth. But many believed that both these statements coming from a prodigy were undeniable truth.

Credulity by its very nature is contagious. It turns virulent if the breeding ground provides for a week, ineffective government, for the entire 2011 the government fanned distrust, and distrust on one voice leads to trust upon the opposing view. Sadly the parliamentary opposition remained confused and inconclusive, and the vacuum of trust was occupied by voices similar to “Occupy the Wall street” sounds from the US. The year saw an increasing acceptance of Subrahmaniam Swami who not long back was at best recognized as a charlatan (not many remember the tea party hosted by this president of a one man party, a decade and half back.), it saw the news and views dissolving and the profligacy of tweets in news.

Though it generated an atmosphere that bordered on “sab Chor Hai” syndrome, the credulity in relation to team Anna and corruption did do some good to the country on many levels. But the inexcusable gullibility in southern India is a reminder that susceptibility of this nature can effectively derail the engine of the nation. Government in Tamil-Nadu threatens to cave in to a mass misinformation campaigns run by organizations with theological leanings. The effort is at stopping an undertaking that senior scientists (including people as respected as Dr. Kalam) believe is harmless and more importantly is a critical project. In a strange show of defiance the protestors in Kudankulam have now pledged using CFL to conserve electricity, as if that would be good enough a compensation for stalling a major nuclear power plant based entirely upon unfounded fears which reside more in the minds of propagators of such myths than reality.  When Kalama and other observer's report which sited that the Kudankulam nuclear plant is one of the safest in world, was presented before, SP Udhayakumar, Coordinator, People's Movement against Nuclear Energy, he aped the goal post shifting techniques of the Team Anna but for a terribly misdirected campaign. Replying to questions he said “We are not just worried about the safety of the reactor, we need to know about the waste issues, the decommissioning issues, the overall freshwater issues. There are so many other issues that have been left unanswered until now.” Well just for records the agitation goes on and primarily because the security fears are yet not allayed. The protestor just doesn't wish to listen, fearing what if he is wrong. The BJP's reaction to the controversy suggests why they never filled in the vacuum that ideally they should have. It is the duty of the government to allay the fears, if there is any truth or unfounded fears and assure the nation on the safety of the people," BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar told reporters. "Kalam is a respected scientist. But we cannot comment, as we have not seen his 32-page report on Kudankulam."

As a new year starts, the nation proud of its liberal character will strongly counter any suggestion of censorship. But here's a little wish going into the new year, in-spite of the 29^th or 30^th  December in Rajya Sabha, in spite of the Rajneeti Singhs, the government must regain some trust, and the opposition should absorb that “It is the duty of the government” cannot be a perennial mot juste. A liberal country just cannot allow theological arguments to take center-stage just because of too much liberalism.

PS:
**Though I doubt there is something like too much liberalism.

** The image fascinated me enough to stop writing anything in relation with Mullaperiyar Dam

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Shades of the Color of Soul..

As the battery of the Lap-Top threatened to die down, I switched off the music and turned down the lid, the power was gone for long and the evening was getting darker. In the lonely silence of the purposeless evening I lay on the cool floor as the rains and winds gathered outside my window. The leaves swayed and their dark shadows swung by my window, repeatedly sending the room into momentary grayness before restoring the diminishing twilight illumination. The enslaving lethargy curled me on the floor and I peeped underneath the bed, into the fathoms of the darker shade of gray. While the black concentrated, I rolled into a story.

The hills patched with the shadows of the long pine trees, the shady, healthy deodar and the needles spread through the silence of the slope. The bright sun filters through the vegetation and the hill resembles a messy chess board. The two talk loud and there echoes fill the valley, the brook on the foot of the valley shines and the late afternoon sun falls steadily. The green handbag in her hand creates a shimmering illusion on the road as the sun filters through it, and then they go quite. On the next turn is a temple, a small structure right over the hill lock, facing the west, the sun illuminates its unimposing modest entrance, the interiors are darker and the shiv-ling is serene and cold as ever.

In the easing silence, one speak to the other, not knowing what is being said and then the words “I hear more when the words go out” silence again. clouds, bright and expensive float over the blue sky and the stately sun. The winds go cooler and the sun more gold as the mountain on the other end turn darker, an army of determined cumulus clouds move from the Mediterranean, the temperature will drop, next few days shall be cold. As the clouds took control of the sky the sun    appears through the crevices. “Its getting darker” he said. “Ya, It certainly is, and we have a long way to walk.” So they walk again, a rucksack at the back and carrying the handbag.

“The sun feels like a silver disk, behind the clouds. It looks cold and see its enjoying itself.” The sudden drop in the temperature envelopes the road along the hill in a still silence, sporadic vehicles honk and grunt as they drive past, otherwise the silence is as pervasive as the fog that is slowly settling into the bottom of the valley. “When we are silent, we speak a lot more”, she suggests for the second time in the hour. And he replies, “So does the sun shiver, when there are clouds all around ? ” Another smile and the lights come down by another level, though it remains comfortably bright. “I have been thinking of these shades”, he says while pointing at the rock grey and black on the roadside, “I look around and its all bright or dark in varying measures”.  “Its all black and white in varying measures, no other color, no other shade exists.”   She replies, rather abruptly and conclusively, like a well rehearsed line of an act from the stage. And as she pulls her hairs back, the crumbling hairs reflect the slant rays of the evening sun, they were black, dark and glowing.

In  the room the twilight had already faded, the shadows had disappeared and all that stood pretended to be a shadow of itself, I am lazy enough to have got up and searched for some illumination, the power was still off. In a particularly silent evening, the winds sounded like conch shell placed on the ear.

The evening winds on the mountain road has settled and the dark clouds continue marching in, finding space for themselves in the dotted sky as the blue black of they sky is being slowly overtaken by the grayish gloom of the evening. It would rain tomorrow, he thinks. “And may even snow” she says, drawing a string from an unsaid communication, “So, where are we going?”

“I am not very certain, we may have to wait in a lodge for the night”

“Do you expect a lodge anywhere nearby?”

The moon appears and disappears, far from being the poetic silver it is more golden yellow, like a dying flame. The evening darkens and they look for a shelter, the night promises to be cold. “I told you its all black or white, look at the mountains, the trees and the houses, and look at these clouds and look at the moon that goes white every minute, with the sun gone the self consciousness is gone too and here you see the true colors”

“You may be right, we need a place to stay” and he shows her toward a mercury bulb glowing like a distant fire about a kilometer away.

I rolled my hands over the five o'clock shadow and thought of the shades of the countenance, I sensed as if revisiting that old question once again, “are these colors, or are they just a deceit?, these shades playing around me” The rains had subsided, winds continued the howling and I imagined myself on the roof top. Looking at the houses around, the occasional dogs barking, and the voices of the insects, on a night when we walked a lot and had to take an unplanned break, I sat contemplating “So was it a good day or a failure”

“Does it always have to be a good day or a bad one, or even a day with varying shades of good and bad? Is there anything midway good and bad?”

“I don't know, or may be I don't have to. Though there are things further from them, absolutely good and absolutely bad ”

 They sit down on the roof top, looking into the setting moon, the clouds cover the east and the day is just beginning, the shades of dark and bright are giving way to the green, blue, red and gold and they look at each other, he walks down the stairs pulls his rucksack, she picks the green handbag and her baggage, the green does not shine for now its not bright, the sun may not come out. The clouds will color the blue sky with their shades, and she will ask “how does this transition happen, from bright to somber and somber to bright” “and, what do you like the bright afternoon sun or the somber looking cool clouds of the midday”.

As I stepped out of my room the evening had turned dark blue, winds had blown away the clouds, while some scattered around the horizon and I looked into one of them. 

They step out of the overnight shelter, she points towards the east “Look there, look at that bunch of clouds, they are red like ember.” And did she listen him say “wait for the lights to take over it would be a white crystal."

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Come On! Capture and Occupy the Rhetoric or I vs the 99

I have been nagged by this for too long, just a bit too long. This year seems to be an unending year of over the top rhetoric, rhetoric which has snowballed into mass euphoria, who's drugged the world? Or as I always ask, am I too much of the “status-Quoist” (I picked this term from a pungently rhetorical TV debate)?  Minutes within reading the we are 99%,  I knew I am in a wrong wrong place, or as I always ask, am I too much of a wrong wrong one?

It starts closer home. I have had so much for the incredible revolution of the Modern Bharat. The summer was still moving in and the spring of the west Asia continued to remain romantic, amidst the sluggish governance and the inflationary graft, et alia the country osculated another freedom struggle. And I was Like...WHAT

Freedom, boy, Freedom, you won’t understand“d”, sixty years, 15 presumably fair elections later, we are in for freedom struggle. You are young you won’t understand. Hei, you read too much, you won’t understand. Now I tell you kiddo, the issue is about how the country has lived for the last 65 years. Yaar, Why do you drop history into a youth moment. So I never understood the Freedom struggle part, and somehow sat back with naivety. I was the 1% then, the lonely 1%.

Well it’s still hospitable, I thought. The laws I understand are still understood. Oh the broken mirrors, the burning stores, now now now, that’s not for real. For all their apparent crazy weaknesses they are a decent law following bunch. What? They looted their neighbour because he had a bank balance, the other was beaten for his employment.  The bottle of Champaign did have a lot of fuzz. Now, I was not the 1%, but do you have to be the 1% around this madness, goodness a game of cricket was played and a few donkeys were sited. And while everyone decried the hooligans, the hooligans were in for fun and a BBC interview. And the eccentrics called themselves esoteric!

And in my snake and ladder game as I travel from 1 to 99, I dare not speak of the Greek tragedy, or the Austrian romanticism, but I would gladly spank the obdurate Germans. So, I moved on and witnessed an election next door, vote him, vote her, vote him-not, vote her-not, oh no, not me there, why do you ask me to be there, you are a crook, a perennial mala fide , you offend me. Look “I won”. Hang on, where were you? “You never understand do you?, Here I am.”

Just when I thought I have resolved all, and thought I am anyway with the 99 I realised I was chucked, the Norris said “Some of the most miserable people I know are some of the richest people in America, they are the most miserable individuals I've ever seen.” So we go occupying, gheraoing, and honking(check the link) and we go doing so against a centennial sin, we  decry democracy, we call for a revolution, revolution to occupy, occupy what? Oh, the occupation is symbolic, the protest symbolic, the honking symbolic, Abei ye bataa “for real” kyaa h?

Ok, then he is beaten, right beaten well. Well, the anarchist sees the anarchy hurting back. Where’s the right to expression. So he was beaten for calling a referendum, not exactly he called for a call to referendum. Well the assaulters could have considered his love for referendum, and should have told a higher percentage than those who agreed to him at Chandni-Chawk would disagree to him this time. I did place the suggestion, but I refuted, would an anarchist understand any language but anarchy. And the groaning from the kicks and undoubtedly manly hands had yet not faded, that a Bhatt immersed from the prison and started a season a new rhetoric, he called a sadbhawna prone CM a criminal and in the typical honesty of the charlatan pleader, he promises justice. Justice In this age makes quite a din before being delivered.

“Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits. ” “President Bush DID have a sure fire plan to end the war in Iraq, However Chuck Norris was busy that day.”  “Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.” Come on stop this, Where’s the sobriety.

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An Infatuating Disagreement

An idle self is a dangerous self, the devil's workshop makes little sound but it does fuel imagination. The nation goes revolutionary and an unforeseen spectacle folds before me, the self in its confused ambivalence sits before the computer screen with little to do. I had just heard a former IPS lady, definitive and loud in all her enthusiasm. I think I disagreed with her on a lot. Now in the idle cogitation the self concedes that the differences are bridgeable, there are many in the country whom I disagree so much more, and is not the alter ego so much enamored by these differences?

There are so many of them, they appear on the television and they appear on the news paper columns, I am tempted to listen to them and read what they say, how much do I want to hear them speak and how much I wish I could tell them they are so definitely wrong. Every time they are around they exhort me into imaginary debates.

The leisure leads to an innocuous act, I list them all, a countdown of those with whom I am infatuated in my disagreement. They are quite a few equally deserving, equally equal and than there is one the first amongst the equals, the one who undoubtedly leads the pack. The leader shall be talked about but lets venture into the ones who are still the equals. For now this list does not have an order of appearance, but that does not mean there's any denying the desire countering them whenever they express.

On the geographical top of the country is the lady carrying indefatigable eloquence of rigidity that effectively hides the politics in her utterances. Her father is a former chief minister and she can so well disguise politics for sentiments and disgust, rights and aspirations, and not just this she can do the vice versa equally well, the sincerity of her anger, the heaviness of the voice never gives away in an argument, but some like me remember that after all its an argument, a political argument.

Then there's a crusader, a prime conspiracy theorist, a professional letter writer, president of an one man political party, this professor from Howard has an uncanny knack  of throwing important tea parties. He is objectivity and contradictions personified. One of the most audacious of all Indian writers, he claimed the constitution will be overtaken in a couple of years (just to assure you: that never happened) and then on a government change claimed that the nation is already under a planned  foreign seize. His unique information and there equally queer sources, makes him the Swamy of Indian underground detective agencies. He is more thrilling than an Agatha Christie novel, somehow I can not agree to him.

It takes less than the first line of the Times of India article to get exasperated by the idea, yet I read it right to the end. Those hilarious pieces that I rarely give a second thought to, by the author of “the Second Thought” often claim to understand India, so often they fail utterly. A rather unilateral socialite version of India do little to cheer the spirits of the self. But the sincere effort at expression and the unarguable love and concern for the country however in contrast to my understandings does find a space somewhere, space enough for me to read her column's next edition.

I am tempted to talk of the first amongst the equals, so lets quickly get past the equals, the cancer surgeon with a indomitable devotion to the Lord and the Lord's birth place, the one who moved on chopper from place to place in the west of the country urging a cleansing. Being a surgeon he has a surgical precision to facts. Arguably the facts are often operated and sterilized before use. Also the famed Shaayar of our political class who has lost a lot of weight overtime, but remember his hay days and remember the couplets, somehow the insincerity gives away the person yet pulling out an argument from the pockets before him remains a wish, he would soon get a political party to perch upon. Some are still Diggyng there way into this list and some deserve a passing mention. The bartenders of morality in Bombay, the light on the left who seems to be too afraid of the US, the perpetually angry party spokesmen etc. Etc because one can never absolutely complete such lists and its easier written than etcetera.

Now the first amongst the equals, and this one is easy, The author of one of my favorite books sits right on the top, in fact she was the only one I could think about for minutes. Her articulation, the brilliant vivacity of her writing, the red cheeks that she compares with the Kashmiri apples (the apples shall be bitten into), her strange Gandhians and her proud adamancy lure into listening to her. She is not just strange, she is a compulsive confrontationist, not many take pride in a negative reputation bordering on notoriety. How does one debate with a person who throws a party at the slightest increase in disapproval ratings, whose self righteousness swells in direct proportion to the hate mails received. Give me a chance I would stand to her polemics, with the God of all words on her side she would say “It was a time when the unthinkable became thinkable and the impossible really happened” and I will debate with reason and without fiction and I know she would be comically good and outlandishly credible only to augment my marveling disgust, and consoling me, unable to resist the urge she would now say, “Some things come with their own punishments.”

As TV anchor shouts into the mike I ponder whether I am adding him to my list? “Not yet, It needs a sustained effort” said the self.

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Damn the Version, let me speak

Any goon on the street has the right to protest, and no government, no authority can pre empt an action on whims. We have often heard stories of how the autocrats impose purpose to actions that seemed even remotely uncomfortable to the regime, early morning today (infact late night yesterday) police in the capital of the country started detaining people and on a rainy day in New Delhi when the morning walkers were still returning back to have there breakfast an old man who claims to be a Gandhian was arrested. He had planned to protest against corruption.


Another version, No government can allow its authority to die down, no government can allow the legislations to be dictated from a parallel moral authority. If a group of self righteous man however moral come together with the demand for a Frankenstein that may undermine every institution (however imperfect) we have nurtured for the last six decades, than somebody needs to put his foot down and say “this is not done.”


Damn with the versions, a day after the independence day, in fact the end of morality is here upon us was known right since yesterday, a ruckus was played on the streets of the country. Sadly the ruckus was played at the democratic values that we so gleefully wear on our sleeves. The government, spineless yet obdurate decided to prove that it matters, probably this was a statement for those who talked of the governance vacuum too often for the incumbent’s patience, or was the government undoing the supposed sins of the RTI? or was the Delhi police really deciding things for itself and for once they turned virtuoso and acquired the so elusive efficacy? In the peacocks den as the clouds came down, the police, the administration and there big bosses acquired the grace of the dancing peacock and the wings grew over their backs. The wings glittered with pride which reeked of adamant insolence, and could anyone ask the obdurate peacock to look down at its ugly feet? And the peacock did think hundreds, twenty five hundreds had fallen to it charm following the birds ugly feet into the masters cage.


Speculating again, from the whats to the whys. stop this shameless game of dart board in the dark, there's no board on the wall. There never was one. So when a former boss was picked for a drive to the place she had so much restructured, from right outside the Bapu's resting place, Bapu must have been proud, such equity, such freedom. Was she traveling to Tihar? Asked the peacock in soil and green, who knows? The caravan rolled rather lazily out of the peacock den into somewhere. The water came down heavier and the peacock covered its feet, folded it's wing as they got wet. And the dart board that didn’t exist had holes enough for quite a few swiss franc bills to pass. And whose francs? Oops stop those question, why, what, who. Who cares?


The game-plan for this legal ruckus with all its fathomable might must have been drafted with a lot of work and this morning in that rain feed city, the peacock with its dragon fire strolled through the parks and the river banks, through the surreal corners known for witchcraft and the into the peacock den it went. It screamed, the peacock, ever heard it scream? That foul cat in pain sound at distressing decibels, the sound of the baby under the knife, the grotesque murder of the baby who got up on his feet for the first time, just the last evening. Incidentally the peacock has denied the screaming and has blamed the frogs for it. The frogs? Oh didn't I mention them? The peacock police usually feeds on the snakes, to its credit it keeps away from the bigger and the more dangerous ones but on days of utter emergency, when induced by rains the are around us everywhere, they aught to eaten. They taste nasty, but then they must be eaten.


Anna and his friends share a pie of fault and that must be written about too,but the crisis of governance seems too large, an unimaginative government that talks all law sans sense had invited this from a group which seems adamant on subversion, more later

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