A Victory for the Corrupt but Pyrrhic one

I have more often than not criticized the Indian Media, particularly the English Media for drumming up support for frivolous issues like the story of racial slur for an muslim ex army major.

More relevant and actually burning issues like Anna and Kejriwal’s fast against corruption or the turmoil brimming in the NE go under reported. Today most channels particularly the English ones, have been reporting the comparatively feeble support that Anna’s fast is getting this time. This conclusion is drawn from the crowds which are not teeming this time, as compared to last time.

The media is projecting this as a failure of “team Anna” or even their fading lure and popularity. How can this be deemed as failure of team Anna? Anna is fighting against corruption. If support of the people is dwindling, then it is defeat of the people, it is defeat of the fight against corruption and it is also a pyrrhic victory for corruption. The latter being usual for an India congenitally (birth in 1947) plagued with chronic corruption. 

Rahul Gandhi's Special Observer for Shopping Malls

I have been very verbose about the culture of VIPism so rampant in the country. And one of its most obvious manifestations is the beacon light on the car. Particularly in the NCR, adorning the car with a red beacon light is a disease symptomatic of a exploitationist political system poised to eventually collapse under its own weight.

MPs / MLAs mount these red beacons mostly without entitlement on their cars’ roofs, and emulating them, smaller wannabe ranks like Sarpanches of villages do the same. What advantage it fetches them is clearly beyond my ken.

Today I saw a red light on a Skoda Yeti HR 36 R 9799. This car also prominently displayed via a computer generated paper sticker “special observer deputed by Shri Rahul Gandhi”. I took a picture of this car, as I found this hilarious. And I am impelled to share this picture with you. One must have a disdainfully low IQ to be able to flaunt a signage of this sort on a car.

I believe, this is one of the many queer ways in which the Gandhi family could be rewarding unalloyed loyalty. But I only hope, Rahul Gandhi is aware of this observer who is already basking in the glory of such appointment. We saw this car parked prominently without a driver at the Spencers Mall in Gurgaon and then in Ambience Mall again in Gurgaon. It seems Rahul Gandhi appointed an observer to observe shopping pattern and habits of weekend mall trotters.

Barkha Spare Me.........

Just as an adulation starved star struggling to come to terms with the sun setting on his stardom, bid adieu to life, the press went in overdrive revving up un-foreseen nostalgia on television prime time, with chat shows hosted in admiration and honor of the dead actor.  I wish that the poor fellow who longed for this attention while he lived, should have had at least 2 more days of life, to experience that what he longed for - when it did finally fall his way.

What is interesting is that the media specially the supposedly suave English Media went ga- ga over the passing away of the star. It took this as an opportunity to revive the faded stardom, and of course in turn to resurrect its own TRPs.

The media is going berserk these days. I won’t mind living with Gabbar till  someone can save me the trauma that Barkha subjects me to through her high pitch anchored programs. Barkha Datta gets on my nerves. Yesterday, she took a harrowingly long program on Major ……  Muslim (who is clearly not a terrorist), who apparently faced racial slur from an airline.

We all face discrimination and all the time. We call it discrimination, but it is profiling. We call it profiling, but it is actually generalization. We call it generalization, but it is just human quest to seek patterns, and patterns that help us cope with or simplify complexity, and when you try to do this you generalize, and when you generalize, those who don’t fall in that general pattern will always feel persecuted, and that is what happens with some well meaning muslims. Brahmins may discriminate against others, hindus against Sikhs, whites against blacks, the black dominated government in S Africa against whites, the English against French, the latter against Germans.

I am sure, if you give 5 different ethnicity names to a group of muslims and ask to choose a name that could possibly be a terrorist, with a handsome reward for the correct answer, a majority from them would choose the muslim name. Not because they hate muslims, but because, they are humans and their brain also is continuously looking for patterns in behavior.

Again, if there is group of people, and from among them, you have to choose the Indian, then perhaps the one with brown skin will be chosen as Indian, which may not always be right, but that is how, in lack of prior knowledge, a person reacts.

Hear ten voices, and the ones high in pitch, will perhaps be the womans’, and would you call it profiling. What is the probability that a car reverse parked after many attempts was driven by a woman? High, is it not. Which does not mean there aren’t good women drivers. How can you deny, Islam is more aggressive than Christianity or Buddhism or Hinduism.

Why do then Barkha and her likes create a ruckus about issues of the army major type.

Can some one save me from her??

WHO WANTS TO COME BACK

I have done too much of travel in the last one month. Been out 3 weeks out of 4 and am flight fatigued. It is after many years that I embarked on a multi-country Europe trip, types of which I used to undertake as young business developer. But things are much simpler now, than then. Hotels can be booked via internet, you don’t have to depend on clients and agents. With the exception of the UK and Switzerland, you carry and use one currency – Euro, you monitor one Visa - Schengen. In the mid 90s, a 5-country trip meant as many visas and equal number of currencies. 

I was also traveling to eastern Europe after many years. When ever I am in eastern Europe, I feel more comfortable than I am when I am in Europe. The people look more relaxed. The architecture is syncretist - old communist with an abundance of red on the exterior with a fleeting presence of the Venetian as style journeys to the modern European, and the buildings are not yet monstrously sky scraping, people are smiling, the landscape verdant, mildness in mien - the body language is polite, and more than anything, there is hope in contrast to anxiety and anticipation that is writ large on the visage of the west European.

Well this was Slovenia, where I was for a day for a business meeting. And the architecture was a pleasant contrast to the heavy business architecture of Shanghai, where I was just 2 weeks ago. It seems the short Chinese want to make the tallest buildings. But that is China.

Dinner was at an Indian restaurant. An Indian couple travelled to Slovenia, and set up a restaurant there. The man came back after 4 years of living there, the woman stayed back, and re-married a Slovenian. The daughter / girl who runs the restaurant was born in Slovenia, and speak fluent Slovenia.

This story is not uncommon in immigrant familities, I can tell you. The man wanting to return to India and the woman wanting to stay back. I think we as a society give our women respect, but deny them on many counts their freedom. And this denial could manifest in multiple ways depending on which section of society she belongs to. For example, in the lower sections, you may force her to work in the field, but admonish her working in a public place. In the middle class, the man may work extra hard to provide for her, but disapprove her assigning priority to professional aspirations.

Besides, the very eco-system in India makes them lean on men for daily needs. The traffic snarls are so appalling, you need a lion’s heart to venture out to drive. For most women, reversing and parking being their Achilles heel, the over zealous parking attendant persisting to squeeze into the crevice of a parking space 2 cars where there is space for barely one is truly a nightmare.

And of course, the maze of relations and extended family and concomitant obligations are all very well to honor once a year, when you return to your country for a vacation, than to live in the whole year long.   

Have you heard of Khudiram Bose ? (Uday Vikram)

Yesterday, I stumbled upon a poem that my elder son, Uday Vikram, has written and since some of my friends wanted to read it, I thought of uploading it on my blog. I was myself amazed at the sentiment that urged him to pen this poem on the birth anniversary of Khudiram ----what I wish and pray for is that such feelings live in this lad as he grows and the reality of the world does not kill this zeal and sentiment. 

Have you heard of Khudiram Bose
(Uday Vikram)

Have you heard of Khudiram Bose?

He sure has heard of you

Gave up his life with no remorse

To end your servitude

Lively as they say he was

A sharp and hungry mind

Troubled with the thought he was

Of enslavement of our kind

Orphaned at the age of six

But Bose had no regrets

Because the mother whose love he so relished

Was clearly under threat

Vande Matram, he screamed

A young boy of fifteen

Vande Matram, he screamed

Calling out to a nation asleep

A call that shook the tyrants

A millions laathis fell

But it took a lot more than violence

To have her sons quelled

Vande Matram in the town

The streets it did fill

Young boys scuffled around

Distributing hand bills

Have you heard of Khudiram Bose?

He sure has heard of you

Gave up his life with no remorse

To end your servitude

In  Medinipur, 103 years ago

Assembled a crowd of youths

Cast they maddened looks around

But the air was free of hoots

No hues, no shouts

The morning lay in peace

But in came, to drive them out,

Goons of the police

Blood stained the court of guns

Merciless, the laathis came

But up stepped a loyal son

Sushil Kumar was his name

He snatched the weapon from the brute

A boy not older than me

The coward trembled in his boots

While the crowd cheered in glee

He beat the scoundrel black and blue

Before his screams were heard

But our young hero was captured too

And produced before Kingsford

With each stroke of the whip he yelped

But not for help or for himself

Vande Matram, he cried

After each blow was dealt

And to everyone who shed a tear of pride

The fire so fierce had not yet died

For now each drop of teenage blood

Was building up a freedom flood

Have you heard of Khudiram Bose?

He sure has heard of you

Gave up his life with no remorse

To end your servitude

Kingsford feared his death was near

To Muzaffarpur he fled

But to the sons the aim was clear

Sushil must be avenged

Summer’s April 1908

The Jugantar leaders met

Chose they Bose and his mate

To reap the creeper’s death

Prafulla Chaki was chosen too

To repay our beloved mother

Whom they both were loyal to

And thus set out the brothers

The bombs and guns coincidental

To free the mother they both strove

Where only the eyes and heart proved essential

To find the path they roved

Bihar, the home of countless legends

Had given birth to yet another one

With teeming talks of Marx and Lenin

But his mind was ruled by none

Ninth grade, when he first rose

To the service of his mother

And then the anger just explodes

And conquers like no other

A sense of wrong and right

Was all that was required

To bring them all to fight

And leave generations inspired

Have you heard of Khudiram Bose?

He sure has heard of you

Gave up his life with no remorse

To end your servitude

The duo reached the town

With no shoes on their feet

After days of following Kingsford around

They planned an ambush on the street

Around 8.30 as planned,

The judge’s carriage was spotted

They bombed it and ran

They thought they had got it

But Alas! What a disaster!

The carriage contained not the judge

But the wife of a barrister

Who with her daughter was struck

They both ran in different directions

25 miles of running

Before Bose stopped at Veni Station

A sight quite stunning

Clothes unkempt, bare mud -caked feet

And at once police became suspicious

Grabbed him from behind, the cheats

But not against his wishes

Grinned he mysteriously

As the traitors bashed him around

The pistols flew out of his pocket

And Vande Matram out of his mouth

Have you heard of Khudiram Bose?

He sure has heard of you

Gave up his life with no remorse

To end your servitude

Meanwhile, Chaki received some help

A civil servant with regrets

Felt it his duty to treat him well

Gave him shelter, did his best

Mokamghat station

Chaki was discovered

And with no hesitation

He uttered a salute to the mother

And shot himself dead

The English stood in consternation

But they did cut off his head

And sent it home for confirmation

A pity he died among knaves

A great warrior and son

But if we can produce someone even half as brave

The battle is already won

Bose appeared before court

Death was to be his fate

And on the train of martyrdom he climbed aboard

11th August 1908

He smiled as they marched him to his death

What a grievous loss!

But while lived he fought with every breath

And so should you with yours

Have you heard of Khudiram Bose?

He sure has heard of you

Gave up his life with no remorse

To end your servitude.