VADRA WHO?

Yesterday when I went to the Grand Hyatt, for my usual work out, some Ritesh Deshmukh was getting married.

Today using 5 stars hotels for marriages is in vogue but what peeves the regular guests, is disruption of their routine. Too many visitors, and too many photo-ops and of course chaotic parking.

And, all with aggravated severity if the context is of a VIP. And that it was, as the next day I saw the coverage of the marriage and all the celebrity invitees. The clown happens to be the son of the Ex CM of the Maharashtra.

There were about 100 pot bellied Maharashtra policemen lolling around in the lobby and entrance. They matter in numbers, as the purpose is not so much the security of the protectee, which actually they are not trained for. The objective is flaunt value and ego which the teaming number completely fulfill. If they were trained to protect, NSG would not be needed to handle just 5 Paki terrorist holed up in a hotel on the fateful 26/11. The entire Mumbai police witnessed the spectacle and in the process lost 2 brave officers without firing a bullet.

Today, Vadra's bike rally was stopped and the officer who committed the faux pax or let us say crime was promptly transferred. Who is Vadra, a small time Moradabad trader. And a CISF cop at the airport once told me, he has exemption from being frisked, and also immunity from his baggage being screened, a privilege reserved for heads of states. The President of India tops this list and it closes with Vadra at number 31, the latter being the total number exempt from frisking and the usual drill.

Woman raped in Orissa, and 4 months no FIR and no punitive measures taken against the erring officialdom. But in the same country, stop a VIP read Vadra and transfer is spontaneous. Shame on us!

If Dig Vijay Singh would read my blog, the stooge would order all departments to book cases against me. In minutes the income tax/excise, police or all that you can imagine would be chasing me and persecution would see a new high.

What I with particular poignancy regret is not about VIPs acting haughty contempt of rules or ultra vires to all principles and norms, the shame is about the people who jump with alacrity more than they show anywhere else to persecute on behalf of those who want to in some way or the other preserve their power.

Ironically, those who execute on behalf on their masters come from average and not VIP families. Yet they stop identifying and are not able to connect to the same background that they themselves hail from. If they could, perhaps they would never execute with brazenness and impunity, illegitimate demands of those who be in power. And this tacit resistance would eventually dissipate the demands put on them for meritless action.

How much longer will it take India to change.

THANKSGIVING

The Americans are good people. They kill Turkeys for Thanks Giving. Not horses or elephants or goats. So this confirms that they are good. Slaughtering goats is primitive and muslims do it and therefore Americans can’t.

Having worked with some Americans, I know, they are very systematic and really follow calendar.

As per that calendar, there is a day they earmark for remembering family and that they call Thanks Giving. So even if they don’t remember family for the rest of year, there is redemption. I pity the multitude of Turkeys slaughtered while they professes love for kith and kin. Now they are also getting more specific with Mothers day, Fathers day, and I am sure there will sisters’,cousins’ etc day following soon. Trust the merchants who find these days an opportunity to vend their wares.

I wish they pull a fig leaf from some more culturally evolved parts of the world and stop killing animals for emotional benefit.

But just before one of my puritan readers corrects me as much to write thanks giving as I have written to thanksgiving as it must be written, I must say, I mildly detest the way they maul language for their convenience.

This is one country, where they have a scant regard for grammar and yet have a multitude of Grammar schools.

Will a Mormon be the next President of USA?

I did argue with Nmemosyne, on why she did not endow me with better faculty. But she just smiled.

Long back, I did read about the Mormons. But forgot. Nmemosyne to blame squarely! Had it not been for Mitt Romney, I would never have remembered who Mormons are and what this sect is all about. It is indeed amazing to see, how such sects exist even today. Fidelity and chastity in marriage are founding principles of Mormonism. Also, polygamy is practiced and allowed amongst mormons. To me fidelity and polygamy are mutually exclusive. If they are not, it is hypocrisy. I wonder how such sects exist legally under the constitution of United States.

We need Jobs

I am not a great fan of Apple. All its inventions, human kind could very much live without.

But it is true, Jobs was a high achiever. Had he applied himself to more path breaking discoveries, a person of his creativity and manic perseverance, could well have changed the destiny of human kind for good.

If I were to cull out some of the diachronic contradictions from the life of Jobs, they would be a foster father, his knowledge of the same, and his obsession with the smartness of his father over the years as he grew. It was not that he was no longer attached to him after having learnt he was adopted, nor did he find his dad any less enchanting as he grew to realize that he himself was so gifted and smart. He continued to admire his foster father Paul Job while he excelled in his own new world.

At the cost of repetition, I reiterate, I am not a fan of the inventions of Jobs and believe that man of his drive and talent wasted himself in bringing to the world what he actually did, but I do know and with a certainty that leaves little to doubt, that more and more such people are needed in India, if we as a country must lead in some fields.

We need a Jobs in agriculture, where growth is dreadfully stagnating. We need a Jobs in supply chain which is perhaps the most inefficient in the world. We need a Jobs in power, the quality and condition of which will ensure, we are never a super power.

I live in the so called Millenium city of Gurgaon. In our residential complex we have a 24x7 power backup. Sometimes there is a change over 5 times in 5 minutes. This is ridiculous, and something needs to be done about it. Yes something will be done, the councillors will go to Bangkok or New York to see how their city councils manage their power distribution. That is how our system works.

We need a person who is as tough on others as he is on himself. Who sets himself to kill mediocrity, and would not take no for an answer.

SHADES OF SHELDON

Courtesy Chuck Lorre, I no longer feel that my elder son is weird. He just shows shades of Sheldon. Science and all that is esoteric excites him no end. Jostling with abstractions stimulates him more than anything else.

He also has similar sense of humor, guffaws at the bizarre. He vacillates so simplistically between the most vulnerable and most audacious. Sometimes he connects to instantly, and sometimes his aloofness seems to stifle the most earnest. When I saw the 4 napkin regimen of Sheldon at Dinner table, I was once again reminded of my pressingly persnickety son.

So it seems Sheldon is not a figment of imagination of a sitcom creator, but exists in shades in some people, and then of course there is a creators’ pardon, that can explain the concomitant exaggeration, but clearly it is that very exaggeration that engenders the punch in the prank.

But on one hand, while I quite like the Big Bang Theory, I find Mike and Molly or Two and Half Men, quite intellectually jading. All of them have one thing in common and that is their creator.

Come to think of it, Chuck Lorre, probably a failed guitarist, straddles a wide spectrum in sitcom direction. But notwithstanding, the merit I attribute to others, Big Bang Theory, is clearly to me a culmination of creativity for this director. One post-prandial ritual that makes me laugh. And the actor who plays Sheldon, does that to an emotive perfection.

Can't Diffuse it, Confuse it

We are masters in obfuscating issues. And we do this till the issues succumb to our softer skill of engaging in diversionary tactics.

Today, the age controversy of the serving chief of Army staff is hogging the headlines. The media is giving it an importance that I did not expect that it would. Luckily or unluckily, for the General, there is no bigger news that would eclipse this one for the time being, so he must smart in the public or media gaze, which will deny him and the government the opportunity to cut a clandestine side deal to close this murky issue.

So today, to retire or not to retire in May, that is the issue. While the General seeks subterfuge behind vague yet exalted ideas like honor and dignity, the government too is confusing the issue in bureaucratic fine print – in your letter you had agreed you will not rake up the age issue, you have given this in writing to the Defence Secretary, you had agreed that you will align your ambition to the Military secretaries records and relinquish the post of chief to whom we dole this to next as per your earlier DoB etc etc and etc.

But the main issue as to what is the correct date of birth, and why and how the mistake was made in some records, why over 40 years it should not be corrected and that he should retire as per the correct date of birth, regardless of whether he serves less or more than he was originally supposed to.

Well the matter is at the doorstep of the SC and mostly, its judgments or advisories to the government are comprehensive, aligned with highest standards of jurisprudence even if there is a tint of judicial activism sometimes.

Women in India

The fact is, we are still struggling to fulfill the most basic needs as per the Maslow’s need hierarchy. The lower social strata are struggling for two square meals. The middle class is capering to malls and markets, heaving a sigh of relief from the queues that they saw their parents make for a telephone, scooter, car or even a cooking gas connection. The higher class has it good now just as it had it then. How many times I would have heard, 1 pct of the population of the world has commandeered about 99 pct of its resources. Such is the stark reality, ready to stare you in your face, should you pause and ponder.

Given this, India is quite consumed with itself. There are enough things good and bad in this country that need to be highlighted. There are enough things good and bad in all other countries that need to be highlighted. Take any documentary made by BBC/CNN or any other news agency on India, highlighting an ill or something good, which has been made by an Indian. Such documentaries are always made by foreigners. That being the case, India is seen by the world never through its own eyes but through always the eye of the foreigner.

I saw a program on CNN once, where they were showing how sanitation is addressed in villages. I saw another program, on how maverick the traffic is in the country. I have also seen documentaries highlighting superstition in India. Such a list is unending.

I have never seen an Indian making a documentary on the growing number of peadophiles or rampant superstition in US or the perversion piling in the churches, or the increasing sexual harassment in American work places.

It is not that Indians lack creativity or entrepreneurial aptitude. It is about their being engaged in fulfilling still the basal needs.

Last time when I was in Poland I saw a local Polish channel air a program on the state of women in India. To my mind, in India women are more respected than in the west. Husbands are happy to feed them fat, mothers are taken care of no matter what. People don’t detest women being in positions of power and authority. Look at Sonia, Jaya, Maya, Rabri, Mamta.

In India I have never known a woman loose to a man for her gender. There are umpteen cases, where the woman opts out despite competence in favor of family, but not for gender bias.

Contrarily, Margaret Thatcher was called names. “Ditch the bitch” was a rhyme that echoed when she struggled to keep her second term . "Hilda", pejoratively, as her middle name did reek of her middle class parentage. Would anyone argue, one of the reasons that went against Hillary was her gender. Apparently, in competence she was no less than her president husband. But the stigma on India continues, as none of our tribe is venturing to discover the true west. While the westerner’s quest for the east stays unabaited, there is wool on our eyes with regard to the true west. It is time we got up to participate and even conduct the affairs of the world with confidence and celebration than be merely pranked upon.

Gen VK Singh

Well what triggered my previous blog? Of course it was Gen VK Singh, my namesake. His date of birth is a controversy that is hogging the headlines. And of course I don’t like him, for earlier when you would google for VK Singh, you would get some lines pertaining to me. Today he hogs the first 5 pages of the search, relegating me to anonymity.

He is a good thinker, plain speaker and bold officer. This is enough to make in not so popular. this is also enough to make him un-deserving. Besides, he is smart. He has a swagger about him. He carries himself in a manner befitting a 4 star general. He is not perpetually obsequious toward the political masters.

A son of an army officer, a Rajput by caste, an honors graduate from the Staff College, and Colonel of the Rajput Regiment, as my mother says, करेला और नीम चढ़ा.

So he swaggers. But in India, people are afflicted by what you can call the bechara syndrome. Take the example of our PM. He is very intelligent, very brilliant but looks like a bechara. He will secure one position of influence after the other. Gandhi perhaps would not have been as powerful, if he had the looks of Mountbatten or Gregory Peck. Indians like such bechara looks. They like to support becharas.

So despite the fact, that we have after 20 years maybe, after Gen Sundarji, a smart general, who carries himself well, he does not go down well with the all powerful bureaucracy nor the political pavilion.

So he will lose the case of the date of birth controversy. The media will not support him. They will underplay the episode actually. What a pity.

Hierarchy of Scorn

I have never been able to comprehend, the history and historicity of the scorn and hate relationship between the bureaucracy and brass.

I think the contempt is mutual and perhaps primordial. But today, the bureaucracy particularly the IAS is pretty much unionized. Operates as a bastion not easy to breach. On the other side, the quality of officers in the army has degenerated to such an extent, that they are unable to reciprocate the contempt in any significant measure. They seem to be destined to play the permanent second fiddle, till a revolution that calls for their leadership, rejuvenates their organization. In the battle in which the bureaucracy is gaining ground inch by inch, the brass seems to always lose.

Even in the vice-regal council, there were continuous conflict between the military member and other civilian members. Clearly, since the British were in India because of the army, the military member would usually prevail.

The mind of a typical army officer approaches a situation by attempting to identify patterns and then applying tactical solutions that maps best with the pattern that they see in the solution, minimizing slack, situational discretion, while continuously focusing on not obfuscating the ultimate goal.

The civilian mind world over, more so India, does not work in patterns, in fact it works to break patterns. When I say more so in India, it is because, there is a peculiar situation here. The brown bureaucrat stepped into the shoes of the white bureaucrat, on the midnight of August 15, about 60 years ago. The white one was exploitationist and the brown one inherited that mentality. But he was cast as a public servant. Eventually he morphed into becoming a political servant from public servant. But the politician was accountable to the public. So the bureaucrats job stayed exploitationist, but he was expected to make all irregularities appear completely regular. This makes the whole situation completely hypocritical.

I remember, my father narrating an anecdote to me. Entry without an ID card was not allowed at the IMA. It was no other than the commandant Gen Pandit, in uniform and official car, who had been stopped by the sentry, as he was not carrying the ID Card. The sentry informed the general, he had orders from the Subedar Major to not allow anyone without an ID card. So he wouldn’t. The sentry was rewarded. But that is how an army mind works and must work. But we all know, the civialian mind will never work. The civilian sentry would have found a clause under which he could have allowed entry. And the civilian superior would found a clause under which to fire the sentry for challenging his VIP status. Both minds would have worked to breach patterns.

Also one more reason could be, even though, as individuals, the military personnel may not qualify to be the best, but the systems that they run as a team, are indeed far superior to the civilian systems. More robust, more resilient, more dependable and with lesser leakages. This makes the situation really dichotomous and clearly one that would breed contempt.

Why do we move on??

Just as I was harping in one of my previous blogs, how one news or mishap in India eclipses the previous one. Calcutta fire got eclipsed by Lokpal, and the theatrical manner in which a insincere government skillfully contrived a midnight adjournment. Just before the tale of this gory Calcutta hospital asphyxiation could possibly get etched on public memory, there were about 65 deaths from the Thane Cyclone. Then came the mother of all, the death of 14 children in a bus accident in Ambala. Each story was more sordid than the previous one, and did the work of the making the previous one look small and incidental. And some stupidly eternal optimists call this moving on. The country moves on. Of course it does, as an apathetic people we don’t stop to fret.

There are some people like me, who clamor indefatigably that corruption is not unique to India and go to any extreme to not make their country look so stupid in the eyes of the world, trying also to in some measure banish the already so prevalent fatalism in the people. There are also some like me, who keep drawing from history tales of our past glory and how we are just poised to realize it once again. But each time I read about an accident like the one involving school kids of Ambala, I get too despondent to not eschew my trademark optimism.

It is easy to blame the system, but who makes the system. When we are supposed to elect a city counsellor, his commitment to work and country, his experience are last things that we see in the resume of the person.

As a people, we are so obsessed with authority figures, that we find it extremely difficult to question much less challenge. Did the parents of the children of the Ambala Bus accident not know the type of safety conditions in which there kids were being ferried to and fro from school. If they did not, they are fools and if they did, how many questioned the bus owner or the school. How many wrote to the school about the apparent cavalier manner that killed their loved ones. If in an exceptional case a maverick parent will question, the rest will side with the authority-figure who in this case could well be the driver of the bus or the school transport coordinator.

Making too much fuss about a non-issue, is the usual refrain of the pacifist Indian, but when tragedy befalls, he resorts to chest beating and wailing, but then moves on. He actually moves on another tragedy.

Why is the SP Traffic not suspended? Why is the counsellor and mayor booed out? Why is the principal of the school not arrested? Because the people don’t want it. Why is the resignation of the transport minister not demanded? If they would, they will participate in the process and make this land less hostile to normal living.

Each time there is an accident involving a school bus, the media goes hysterical about the Supreme Court guidelines not being implemented by the school. But what are the Supreme court guidelines? They are not about preventing an accident? They are a hotch potch of lay man thinking.

There is no training school for drivers. Almost anyone can obtain a license sitting at home. Brokers specialize in such service at door step.

I live in the so called millennium city of Gurgaon, where some office buildings are indeed samples architectural excellence, but the roads don’t have names, they are not laned, footpaths don’t exist, the pot holes on the roads emerge no sooner the roads have been completed, red lights don’t work, even big car owning educated people don’t respect even simple traffic rules.

In most countries the obtention of a driving license is so difficult, and one failure results in the date of grant being delayed by 3 months at least.

We are casual but who suffers. Not the children who leave the world. They are our children and we suffer. When would we get serious about our societal obligations, our duties toward our nation, which included demanding good governance? To me this question is best left unanswered by the self serving Indian.

Whither Lokpal or Wither Lokpal

I am in favor of a strong and effective Lokpal, but even if we get one, I know, we as Indians excel in destroying and debasing institutions and making them defunct.

Lot of thought has gone in the drafting of the Lokpal bill. There is a version of the civil society and there is a version of the government. The two versions differ but are clearly not dichotomous. Of course the Governments version makes the Lokpal less effective and process of prosecution more tedious and iterative.

But I can tell you, Lokpal is not a panacea for the lot of India. No government, no bill, no measure even of unforeseen authority or independence can cure India from the abjectly abysmal state of systemic rot and dys-functionality that it has reached. I can tell you, only two people can bring about the needed change in this stinking system, one is you and the other is I.

The Constitution of India is one of the best in the world, but what have we made out of it. One of the very unique articles of the Indian Constitution is the Directive Principles. Our constitution enshrines this set of exalted values in addition to the Fundamental Rights, the latter finding a place in most constitutions of the world. But what have we made of them.

The institution of the Governors was purported to be equally exalted. People of eminence, completely non - partisan were supposed to grace this office. The office was accorded all possible immunities to ensure such non-partisan discharge of duty. The office was also integral to the federal architecture of the Indian polity. Look at the stately mansions in which they are housed. Look at the perks that they are entitled to. But what have we made of this institution. This gubernatorial assignment has been reduced to being a stooge of the High Commands, regardless of who the high command of the party in power at the centre is.

Don’t go far, look at the President of India. The largest democracy of the world. The position of the President is so tall, that even the most maverick mind has not demanded to bring it in the purview of the Lokpal. A person of extremely high stature, station and scholarship was supposed to be appointed to this position by an electorate well defined by the Constitution. How are our presidents appointed? Who are appointed? Who appoints them? How independently do they function? All this is a matter of record and may not merit any greater discussion than what I have done here. Pratibha Patil, does India deserve such a controversially tainted president?

We have the uncanny knack to sabotage the sanctity of any institution without much effort. Such is the tyranny of our post independence political acculturation.

Very soon you will see, if the UPA is in power, Rahul Gandhi aka voice of the chairperson will be appointing the Lokpal. The beautiful process enshrined for such appointment will merely adorn the book. If it is the NDA, another coterie could be appointing the Lokpal. May be Ranjan Bhattacharya. The Lokpal will have clearly understood loyalties.

The answer to this is national character and nation building. Two ways that can help us do this, inculcation of good values at home and at school and call to serve the nation before self either by way of an enriched NCC program or something else, that captures the imagination of the children while their value system is still being conceived.

Joining Politics

Joining politics was Faustian. This was the impression that most of us grew up with. Our parents gave us to believe, we must work hard to get good employment, stay away both from police and politicians.

But the Babalog (the scions of political families) not withstanding, there are some good young smart people in local level politics today and this tribe we hope will grow. There are MBAs from good universities abroad and in India who are doing exceptional work at village level, as Sarpanches etc. The media needs to highlight their good work and encourage more such people to come forth and contribute. If democracy is to succeed as a method of governance, more and more good people must come forth to selflessly serve the electorate.

Also, we need more people like Subramanium Swamy in the younger generation also. And the moment I say this, I would invite the wrath of many pseudo intellectuals, who feel impelled to react both with outrage and indignation on his essay that touches such aspects like illegal immigration, purportedly anti-muslim. The voice of these intellectuals will hereon resonate as Havard too has removed Swamy from visiting faculty. But it may be noteworthy, that in 1987 Swamy fasted unto death demanding enquiry into killings of Muslims by police in Meerut. A fact that has received little media coverage.

Deny it if you can, but truly, if India was saved of the PM Ship of Sonia Gandhi, it was due to singular achievement of Swamy. He was also the one to expose the lie about Rahul Gandhi being an alumnus of Havard. It does not matter if Mr TOM DICK HARRY lies about being from Havard. But clearly, if Rahul the PM in waiting or any parliamentarian for that matter lies about his credentials, it should get a treatment worse than perjury. It is quite possible if Swamy's claims about the KJB connections of the Maino family could be overstated. But the fact is, and we all know, politicians of all hues, survive on the tested principle of I scratch your back and you scratch mine. Both their jibes and vendettas are reasonably well calculated and neither the ruling side nor the opposition truly want to expose each other. In hindi it is quite well said -एक ही थाली के चटटे बट्‍टे !

Nobody is right all the time. Nobody is perfect and everyone may not agree to all that Swamy says, but that is not needed also. He can dare those who are in extreme power right in the face. And those who can do that is clearly a dwindling breed and that breed we need to nurture, propagate and bring forward.

Merry Christmas

We booked it because it was cheap, but the hotel that I stayed in Lugano turned out to be a heritage building of late 1800s vintage. The staff too was warm and cordial. The lady at the reception was a German origin polyglot, though the city fell in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland.

Overseeing the lake ensconced in the mountains, the hotel spoke of all that is serene about nature, and being right by the side of the railway track it also bore testimony to ruckus that man has created in his zeal to exploit that nature. Regardless, the room that I had was good size, which itself is a luxury in Europe.

Indeed I am talking about the Continental Park Hotel close to the Train Station of Lugano.

On the eve of Christmas, the mood was surely festive, the sunny weather too did banish a depressive somberness that descends generally during this time of the year, but clearly the absence of snow would make this Christmas not so usual.

Hamburg too, which was the previous halt of this hastily planned troubleshooting trip, too was warmer than what is usual for this part of the year. Though the evening hot wine seasoned with herbs and spice continued to be savored at the Christmas markets with unabated fervor. Luckily here too our hotel Europaeicher Hof was reasonable in price and conveniently located opposite the Main Train Station.

In the city centre of Lugano, every 30 mts was a Christmas show, using projection systems to run animation film on Santa and usual Christmas stuff with carols in the background.

Surprizinly, for the all quirky modernization of the west, and all sexual emancipation that that brings in, all the stories of broken families, with more people living with dogs and cats than human companions, the west has not yet evolved disco version of their religious celebrations. So they don’t have lurid Bollywood numbers like we play during some of our festivals. While the Indian middle class is casting-off ven its most rudimentary connection with the past, the western middleclass seems to preserve their connection more than ever in the past and with ever increasing vehemence.

While we are assimilating all the garbage of the west, like promiscuity in relationships, utter disregard of age and station, impudence and brazenness in public conduct, the west is purportedly imbibing the good elements from the east, like the exalted philosophy of Karma and physical and metaphysical import of Yoga no matter how seemingly esoteric or transcendent for them. Who then is smarter?

Infralapsarianism

Yes this word exists. It has not been coined by me. If this could be true for the Augustinians. This could be true for USA also.

USA is withdrawing from Iraq, and had plans to withdraw from Afghanistan. So its penchant for war, better touted as need for preserving balance of power, actually policing of the world, should seek a new geography for the same.

Hugo Chavez has been lately chattering a lot. Something which only Americans claim to have the right to. He is even trying to collect some of the ‘truant’ countries together under an umbrella – CELAC. Interestingly, China is increasingly figuring as a friend in to many of these rogue republics of Latin America. India as usual is in deep slumber, playing parochial politics of caste equations, while a strident China seeks a larger role on the world stage.

China is doing similar things on our NE Frontier. Since the British left, India has not really been able to integrate this region into mainstream India. The efforts too have been half-hearted and shoddy. Corruption is another factor that delimits the stray measures that a government may take to bring that region into the realm of India. The customs department abets and assists those very activities that they are supposed to reign in. They assist smuggling of drugs and currency both, along with all other contraband. The illegal immigration from Bangladesh is happening in connivance of the BSF. The police, wherever it retains control from the over arching reach of the military and para-military forces, propagates subversion of the very law it is supposed to uphold. If the region is geographically under Indian control, it is because of the plenary presence of the army, which is actually a shame for a democracy.

Should a bipolar order re-emerge, it could well be China against a decadent United States. Perhaps, both would do well to quell each other’s ambition of gobal hegemony.

While Churchill sauntered around on his intermittent successes in war, there was a resurgent USA stealing its place under the sun. While the Americans bandied their military prowess, there was a China controlling the American debt.

While this should happen, India must build its competencies, resurrect its pride, strengthen its institutions, control corruption, prime its economy that now clearly needs a second resuscitation and silently torpedo its way to where it was 300 years ago. In that alone will be its redemption.

WHY THIS KOLAVARI DI

Why this Kolavari Di?

This is a very true reflection of the Indian ethos and mind set. Kolavari D! Which I think in ancient south Indian Language – Tamil - means excessive rage.

Today, 88 people died of asphyxiation from smoke in a Kolkatta hospital. The grassroots special Didi reached the spot earlier than any Italian origin national leader, or dalit messiah or any of the octogenarian rickety gaited yet more virile than any trotful teenager, CM could reach.

The onwers of the hospital, who I believe are also the founders of Emami, were arrested. The arrests would fray tempers temporarily. Then time is a healer. More than time, it is Indian fatalism. Indians take pride in moving on, and they will. Americans did not move on. They got stuck in the wedges of 9/11 and solved it.

Of course hospital owners and authorities are responsible and should be arrested. But what about the fire authorities who would have taken money to certify the hospital fire-safe despite zero compliance? Why should the chief fire officer not be arrested just like the owners were?

It is a fact proven beyond doubt, that private enterprise is profit driven. It is meant to be. Left on its own without regulation, it would turn a nelson’s eye to any measure that would impact its profitability or cashflow.

Union Carbide / BP / Enron all MNCs and all exemplifying culpability for a common reason – compliance - bear eloquent testimony to my claim.

And now my favorite refrain - people get the governance they deserve. The Americans felt that national security was paramount, taking primacy over all other concerns, and re-elected a president who sanitized the country and did not allow another 9/11 to occur on American soil.

When have Indians elected a government which would secure our border or work for economic development or resurrect national pride? When have we chosen politicians who would accord precedence to national interest over petty parochialism. So many educated readers of mine would already start calling me ‘fascist’, ‘rightist’ or overly jingoistic. That is how our mind works.

Mahipal Maderna got a village midwife killed because she was blackmailing him. What impunity? And it was cautioned that his arrest after a furore raised by the media, would upset the Jats. It should have been the Jats who should have disowned such a scoundrel than standby him in support. But in India politics is a caste equation. Admittedly, everywhere in the world, politicians have their vote bank and protected constituencies, but in India, this reality is accentuated.

The rich have always had it good in this country, be they under Moghul or British rule. The poor have always struggled for 2 square meals regardless of who holds the reigns of the nations destiny. So why should they care. The attitudinal callousness is not making of one day, but of generations of misrule, mis-governance and consequential cynicism.

The media would run the hospital fire news bytes incessantly for 24 hours with a high pitched maniacal fervor. An hysterically animated Barkha would hurriedly conjure a panel, comprising a poker faced retired health secretary, a verbose hospital manager, a strident khadi clad NGO/human rights activist to debate real time on how norms are ignored at the cost of human lives. However, the next day it would be a different story brutalizing our sensibilities and dignity - possibly of blast or a rail accident. TV screens would show bytes of another wailing mother being pacified by her sobbing husband!

The next day it would be another story that would rule the byte world. The people also forget. This frailty of public memory politicians recognize all too well, and the bureaucracy of course is cast in a steel frame and escapes any accountability whatsoever. What a scourge?

The peoples’ ire against the politician can still be felt, but the same against the bureaucrat is unknown. Queasily, I wonder why he always goes scot-free. The power that he enjoys, due to our British legacy is enormous. But he just would not use that power against the “people who matter”. The handful few who do, get marginalized by their own creed. Who should we blame but ourselves for this attitude?

A friend of mine narrated a story to me. He went to file an FIR to a police station for theft of his car side view mirrors. The SHO gave him such a sob story about understaffing, and frivolous deployment of his force, and how such things can be prevented by deploying private security, that my friend felt guilty of having wasted time of a helpless state mandarin and came out sympathizing for the force instead. But should he have contacted one of the “people who matter” to put in word to the SHO, his mirrors would have been not only recovered but replaced.

WHY this Kolavari D.

Birthday of Lakshmibai

Khoob Ladhi Mardani…. and the rest of can be completed in chorus by all without any assistance from Subhadra Kumari Chauhan. We know who we are talking about, the Rani of Jhansi - Lakshmibai. And yesterday, it was her birthday.

We celebrated it too, with my son writing a poem on her, as an ode to a valiant warrior, and to a woman who can be held up as an example to generations and to a mother who nursed her child till her grave.

I would grant it to the British, though such occasions were much too rare, when they would admire certain values that India stood for.

Such stellar was the Rani’s courage and such stark her valor so Spartan her lifestyle, so all of which she displayed with characteristic defiance till the last that she breathed, that Gen Hugh Rose who took the surrender of the forces of Jhansi post Indias first war of independence in 1857 was impelled to acknowledge at her grave – “here lies the woman who was the only man amongst the rebels”.

But such words of praise never came from any Muslim ruler or man of influence for anything that was indigenous. They, despite having imbibed a lot from the country, continued to deny all that was good and stable in that civilization.

Well this queen of valor, grew up not far from where I studied. Bithoor was where she and Nana the son of the Maratha rulers frolicked as infants, was just 10 kms from IIT Kanpur. this was also the place where she learnt warfare. But IIT Kanpur community chronically gaping in awe and wonder toward the west would rather be mindlessly celebrating Halloween, than be mindful of the birthday of Lakshmi bai. I have never heard the UP Government too celebrate her birthday.

Zero point one

Studies by Jared Diamond a well-known anthropologist revealed, human beings and chimps share 99.9 pct of the genes. It is always the 0.1 pct that makes all the difference.

“Life is a race” said the nerdy dean of 3 Idiots of Amir Khan - in his characteristic and syllabic lisp - and in this race the chimps lost, in what you could well call a photo-finish. Till about 5 mn years ago, they were at par with us.

What I would be very curious to learn is, if humans and chimps or apes could be inter-fertile. May be I should give this idea to Spielberg, and he could drive the world crazy with his creative conceptualization of a third specie - this one a hybrid of the winner and loser ie the human and the chimp.

I remember, a schoolmate of mine, who could have qualified for this hybrid category. One skill that he surely had more than rest of us was of effortlessly climbing trees. He could also neigh like a horse with fidelity enough to smite a thorough bred mare. Although, he could only hem and haw at any question that would be asked in class but somehow his answers usually far from correct, would for sure make all laugh.

In India for sure, the 0.1 pct is well understood by all. The difference between he who tops and he who does not is only 0.1 pct. The difference between who gets selected and who does not is also 0.1 pct. On every significant digit, there are ten rank holders standing.

The Indian education system model is not bad, but the mode and method certainly leave a lot of room for improvement. The latter reeks of a system fighting fatigue and futility. Kapil Sibal is also firing stray or shooting in the dark, and is not able to provide a sustainable recast to the rickety system. Much to ones dismay, he is focusing more on how to flabbergast a baba or foil an anshun.

As a consequence, one would be surprised to note, in a country of millions unemployed, not one industry in the country has access to skilled manpower. They all train people on the job. If you train a person on the job, then he is fit for just the job. Any innovation in the job becomes difficult to come by and the adeptness is more at copying than creating.

The country today is at an inflexion point. Depending on how we do our things, we could go either side. an for this reason the mode and method are more critical than the model. Yet, let us not stop hoping for the best.

When Noise degenerates into Rowdiness

I don’t believe in the caste system. At least that is what I like to believe. I do believe in the varna vyavastha, to the extent it is not hereditary.

But the varna vyavastha is indeed hereditary and hence what I say is indeed dichotomous. But I still clarify as I use the word Baniya in this piece and I am not alluding to any caste in particular.

I say this, quite so much in the perspective of Deepawali. In my high-school, I had read in my book of short essays, that Raksha Bandhan was patronized more by Brahmanas, Dussehra / Vijayadashmi was a festival of Kshatriyas as it symbolized victory in war, Diwali of Baniyas and lastly Holi of the shudras. Whether, the rest belong there where my high school essay book decreed them to be or not, Diwali is clearly a bania festival, not in as much as it marks the onset a new business year of the trading communities as in the flirtatious and flamboyant demeanor of its celebration.

One thing that is very cute about Hindu families is the multiplicity of faiths that live in the ambit of one culture system, one value system and one house. So ours in not an exception, with my father being a devout devi bhakt, my mother a shaiva, I with inclinations toward Ram, but funnily enough, all under the over arching penumbra of Vedic Arya Samaj. So, havan / yagna - invocations with the chanting of mantras around the sacrificial fire is a ritual that is practiced by us on all important festivals and even birthdays.

Today, if you would ask me, I would not know 95 pct of the Indian festivals. Even those that are national in significance and not regional. The only festivals that the generations with higher disposal income (DI) know are the shopping festivals. Nevertheless, I with Gizmo addicted kids (GAKs) do sit down to perform the yagna at Diwali. When we do so, we feel just like Vishwamitra would have with all asuras trying to obstruct the offering by their staccato bursts of fire-crackers and rockets.

The noise element seems to be rising unabaited with every passing diwali. It seems to do so in direct proportion to the DI factor. Despite Supreme Court, which while disposing off a writ petition made pro-bono in public interest set the limit of noise at 140 db at 4 mtrs from the site of burst, and other government directions, the Baniya enthusiasm sees no limits and its noisy expression of its festive mood seems never to ebb.

One rocket landed just 10 ft away from the ritual fire. Rockets are banned by a High Court. But my father leading the chanting plodded on un-dettered, just like Vishwamitra would have, saving the fact, that there was no Ram guarding the yagna from the asuras, and here in our case, we were at the mercy of 100 – the emergency number - at which a festival fatigued force we knew would find the complain too frivolous to respond or even take cognizance of.

In a lately liberated society, the definition of freedom takes a while to evolve. In the times of yore, when India was an advanced civilization, even kings’ rights and freedoms were checked by the council and also self imposed restraints. But in a civilization which is evolving, the definition of freedoms are also evolving. A free for all mindset does not see noise as infringing another persons freedom, but merely as a expression of his own freedom. More than noise, what peeves me is the spontaneous degeneration of this noise into rowdiness. The Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations in Mumbai are a case in point.

The local laws of the Montgomery County Noise Control Ordinance imposes “quiet hours”, in which noise prone loading and unloading is also prohibited. But for us to get there, it will take lot of public will and prudent legislation.

The Toddler learns to Walk

Rahul Gandhi is finally walking but sleep walking. He has come of age. At 40 plus he has learnt to read a speech in the parliament. He is genetically programmed to sway sideways for rhythm and empahsis while he speaks. He has also learnt to spend a night in a dalit home, he has learnt to court arrest and he has learnt to blame the opposition for all the ills that his party and government is responsible for and his family has presided on. He has finally learnt, that to become PM or PM in waiting, he does not need to lie about not having a Harvard Degree. It has finally realized – who cares.

So I would say, he is homo-erectus finally, and no longer a toddler crying for milk or pokemon cards or just attention. But he still needs that glance of approval of his mother, encouragement – “we all have done it, you can also do it” - of his sister and strategic inputs of Diggy uncle, Jayanti Aunty, Pranab dada ………………

So he is finally walking but still sleep walking. When he finally made an appearance in the parliament he took a line that was completely tangential to his parties line of which he is also the GS on the Janlokpal Bill. The Indian democracy is robust but not so cruel. But it is increasingly acquiring the ruthlessness or rigor that some of the other modern democracies have. Gradually, it could happen sooner than expected, that his family name, which is also assumed, his grandfather was not really a Gandhi, or his flawless complexion may not get him votes.

RTI in letter yet not in Spirit

There are so many issues that bug me no end and equal number that I wish to write about to vent my disgust. But the moment you delay writing, you actually deny yourself this fundamental right to express – write - as the thoughts are ephemeral and those that you would have liked to crystalize, vaporize. Spur of the moment is key. Such is my experience and wonder about others’.

The fundamental right to expression! Today we take this as a given. We were lucky that our constitution was born in an age, when this right was recognized unchallenged. But the Bill of Rights introduced through an amendment to the Yankee constitution happened in the late 18^th century, and although the yankee version was preceded by the French one during the revolution, the yankee one too gained credence and legitimacy not without struggle and bloodshed.

Compared to that, an equally revolutionizing right to information found its way in India as an act of Parliament in June 2005 relatively peacefully. Similarly, we hope that the Jan Lokpal will find its way into the country, again without bloodshed albeit after half a century of delay and deferment.

But the issue is not of the letter but of the spirit. I don’t think that the government has been able to imbibe the spirit of the RTI although I must admit, it complies commendably well with the letter. The spirit is - as much information as is reasonably possible shall be shared with the people – and mostly suo-motto. The time allowed for sharing this information is very tight and consequence of failing to share the sought information by an officer with the people dire. Interestingly, the procedure for seeking information has been unbelievably simplified. This most un-government like but true.

Nevertheless, the spirit of the act is yet to sink in the mandarins, who even today, try their best not to share than to share. Why? It is the culture of governance that the country has been subjected to from eons of time gave rise and then perpetuated this mentality. If the Mughals were trying to impose their culture as must as governance on to the Indian subjects, the British were trying to impose the most unfavorable economic policies, although not so much culture. But they did fall a victim of what most rulers do, even if not imposing, trying to establish the superiority of their culture over that of the subjugated. This is not only a common mistake but also a misconceived strategy that most hegemonizing nation states adopt – rule by aura and awe of racial and cultural supremacy.

In India particularly, since the British were chased out not alone by the resistance and revolution of the then 30 crore people of India, but also due to the setting fatigue and increasing frailty of the British Empire post WW II, debilitating their ability to hold on to the jewel in its crown – India; the Indians got self governance sooner than they expected. The elite of the society quickly stepped into the shoes of the gora saabs to provide good governance. The governance was seamless, unlike in many African countries where post independence there was anarchy, or as you will see in the Arabic world, where even today the biggest fear will be anarchy after the collapse of the regimes. However, the mentality of this Indian elite who stepped to provide stability and seamless governance post British-era, was not very different from the goras.

Today you will find increasing number of officers in the Indian bureaucracy feeling obliged to behave as the friendly face of the state technically by / for and of the people, the only distinction between them and those they are supposed to serve being a qualifying exam, yet many others sneer upon such colleagues for their lack of officer like qualities – OLQs. These OLQs are precisely not mixing, not being approachable, not being amenable or receptive to logic and embracing 24x7 an air of superciliousness.

So, an RTI application is often seen by the supercilious babus as an act of defiance, as erosion of their erstwhile unbridled and untamed authority and by some of more feudal descent even as increasingly imminent futility of being in the bureaucracy. This accentuates the mentality to not conceal so much, as withhold information. Mind you, the mentality of the minions of government is not to conceal but withhold information, as sharing seems to subject themselves to bourgeoisie scrutiny or Marxian triumphalism, which is unacceptable to their saheb mentality. So they seek refuge in the fine print, like not being obliged to respond to applications in question formats etc. But it is in our hands to change this attitude, and we all must set ourselves to doing so.