pamphleteer

De, Vinod Mehta, & Masala

2012-01-30T22:10:00.001+05:30

After reading Vinod Mehta's memoirs Lucknow Boy last week, today I read Shobhaa De's review in India Today.

Why did India Today hire De to review the book? Simple: Mehta runs a rival magazine; and De finds an unflattering mention in his memoirs. I loved Lucknow Boy, and I find De's hatchet job -- she calls the book "dull" -- very disappointing. There is bragging, but no masala in the book, she says.

No masala? Mehta writes that Vajpayee, our beloved, bachelor ex-PM, was never short of female company. Is this not masala? OK. Sample this: Captain Satish Sharma, Rajiv Gandhi's chamcha, was annoyed by some anti-Govt pieces carried by the paper which Mehta edited. What did Sharma order the owner to do? No, not to sack the editor, but to get rid of the paper itself. This was happening in Rajiv Gandhi's India, not Putin's Russia, mind you. The owner, who was an industrialist and was at the mercy of mai-baap government in those license raj days, had no other option. This is no masala? Or Mehta writes that another owner once gave him a list of persons who shouldn't ever, ever be offended. Because their wrath could damage the owner's business interests.

It included two people who are still news-makers: Sharad Pawar and Amitabh Bachchan. Still not masale-dar enough for you Shobhaa De?

Secondly, there is no bragging. Mehta talks about how he launched publication after publication, but he doesn't gloat. He writes about an episode where he had to apologize. Writing about his personal life, he tells us how he impregnated a girl while in UK, and refused to bring up the child. There is no touch of bragging in that sad account. You may pass a moral judgement on him (very guilty, is my verdict), but he does not seem to have whitewashed the facts.

De, in general, shows a sound judgement in her writing. Here she is in a vengeful mood. Ignore her review and read the book.

A Murder in Mumbai

2012-01-30T16:45:00.001+05:30

TOI:

A minor brawl over using a public toilet ended up in the death of a 26-year-old man in Mahim. The deceased, Simon Lingeree, was a resident of the Devaji Govind Chawl at Mahim Causeway. The police has arrested one Santosh Kargutkar( 40)....

....On Saturday at around 7 pm Lingeree went to use the public bathroom in the area. Kargutkar was standing in queue to use the loo and started to grow impatient....When Lingeree finally came out of the bathroom, the two got into a heated argument....

It ended in murder. Kargutkar is in police custody.

शिक्षा

2012-01-26T10:06:00.000+05:30

मनुष्यबळ विकास मंत्रालयाची आजच्या पेपरातील जाहिरात:

"शिक्षा: कधीही, कुठेही"

जाहिरात साक्षरताप्रसाराविषयी आहे.

घोषवाक्य वाचून, साक्षरतेची आपल्या देशाला खूप गरज आहे हे मला ताबडतोब पटले. प्रसाराची सुरवात मंत्रालयातील मराठी भाषांतर विभागापासून करायला हवी.

Barring Hotels

2012-01-23T12:33:00.001+05:30

Laws, especially the moralistic ones, always get gotten around. In the process, some ingenuity is triggered. Vikram Doctor writes in ET:

When Theodore Roosevelt was police commissioner of New York, he enforced a highly unpopular measure called Raines Law, designed to cut down on drinking by banning the sale of alcohol on Sunday -- the most popular day for drinking.

The one exception was for hotels which could serve alcohol with food or in rooms, and almost at once bars started opening 10 rooms -- the minimum number required -- and turned into hotels. Of course, the bars were not averse to the rooms being used in any way. Very soon a huge boom in prostitution took place.

Unread Verses

2012-01-22T12:16:00.001+05:30

Salil Tripathi in Mint:

Reporting on Satanic Verses controversy, I had some surreal conversations with the mullahs and ulemas in India. They warned me how incendiary and mischievous the book was, and how it hurt the sentiments of millions of people. When I asked them about specific passages from the novel, it was immediately apparent that they hadn't read it.

At the time, the late Pramod Mahajan was an MP in Rajya Sabha for BJP. He had heard that I had a copy of the novel and he wanted to know if I would lend it to him so he could wave it around in Parliament, to protest the ban. He hadn't read the book either, but he said it should not be banned.

The Satanic Verses controversy, I feel, was one of the things that led the middle class Hindus to sympathize with BJP. It broke in 1988, and had been preceded by Shahbano issue, where, fearing Muslim resentment, government had superseded a Supreme Court ruling. So the ban on Satanic Verses must have felt like another instance of Muslim appeasement.

The ban was unfortunate for the Hindu society too, because it must have boosted the competitive offence-taking. If Muslims can take offence, and be entertained, so do we.

En passant: Naipaul had this to say about Khomeini's death sentence on Rushdie: It is just "a harsh form of literary criticism".

Waster Of Film

2012-01-17T13:24:00.001+05:30

1. Shekhar Gupta wrote a very warm tribute to Dev Anand after the latter's death last month (I stumbled on the piece only last week). Gupta writes that Dev loved talking to him, listening to anecdotes from Gupta's story-ful career as a journalist. This is unique; we wouldn't normally associate such curiosity with a man of Bollywood. It shows that Dev was a better person than our average Bollywood star.

Once, Gupta writes, the star told him that he was a going to make a film with journalist as its hero. The hero, like Gupta, would be witness to many of the big events that roiled India post-1975: insurgencies in the North East, Bhindranwale, Indira Gandhi's assassination, rise of LTTE, etc, etc.

I asked him, cheekily, who will play me?

"For the younger phase, Shekhar, we will have to find somebody. Lekin thoda senior hone ke baad," he said, of course he would be playing that lead role himself.

As the sans serif blog points out, Gupta was then 46, Dev 80.

2. Gupta's anecdote surely makes for a good laugh, and some warm feeling for the departed star. But what it actually should highlight is a pathetic side of Dev Anand the man. It was great that he was curious about things witnessed by one of the best living journalists of India. It was also great that he dreamed of using those grand situations as settings in a film. The pathetic part is that he refused to accept, to his last day on the planet earth, that 1. he was too old for too long to play even a man in his 50s 2. he was, from the start, a non-actor, and a talentless filmmaker..

One of the reasons I think very harshly of Dev Anand is Guide. It was based on R K Narayan's novel. It, believe me, is Narayan's best work. I love Narayan for his plots, and Guide takes the cake. And I believe that any Narayan fan should hold a life-long grudge against Dev and Vijay Anand for what they created. Guide the films has wonderful songs, with both Lata and musician S D Buman at their respective bests. But what about the story that, in the novel, captured the essence of an eccentric country called India? What about essaying of Raju, Rosy, Marco? It was a tough challenge, and a far better lead actor, a better director were needed, not the divine music. Guide has a grand narrative, and Guide the film shows both Dev's virtue and his failing. Virtue: he recognised the ambition behind Narayan's book. Failing: he himself had the ambition to be an auteur, but no talent at all.

At least, Guide wasn't directed by Dev Anand. His brother could make a somewhat respectable film out of the book. In the later years, they fell out. Marathi columnist Shirish Kanekar has narrated this exchange somewhere: Dev was asked, as the films directed by him were all bombing spectacularly, why he didn't let Goldie direct the Navketan films. The reply: If Goldie directs, what would be there for me to do? This, Kanekar writes, was like saying what would Dev do if S D Burman was to compose the music.

Comparisons are odious, but when I think of Hollywood, I feel aggrieved: they have very old and very creative Woody Allen. Or Clint Eastwood, who left his western days far behind to become a respectable director.

We got Dev Anand. A very decent man by Bollywood standards, the people who know him say.

Winters

2012-01-03T19:27:00.000+05:30

Here's an interesting bit of info: In the old English language (which existed before Shakespeare's time) years were counted in terms of winters. And days in terms of nights.

Allan Metcalf writes on his Lingua Franca blog: Beowulf the Great, hero of the Old English epic, boasts of his victory in a swimming contest: "We two together were at sea five nights, till the flood drove us apart.

In the second part of the poem, we are told that Beowulf became king back in his homeland and ruled for 50 winters. Then he had to fight a dragon that slept for 300 winters. The dragon, in turn, was protecting a treasure hoard that had been buried for 1,000 winters.

According to Metcalf, this was so, because the ancestors of the tribes which brought English to British isles lived in northern Europe, where winters and nights are long, and, which "made a great impression" on them.

On reading this, I immediately thought of the Marathi way of describing passage of years: `Mi tujya-peksha don paavsalae jaast paahile aahet' (`I have lived through a couple of more monsoons than you, you see'). Does this phrase exist in any of the other Indian languages? I am curious.

Relaxation of Morals

2011-12-21T12:28:00.001+05:30

First Impression Consulting Pvt Ltd, an image management firm, has put out advt in an ET supplement. Among other things, it tells us:

Three critical situations when image management is required:

1. ...............

2. Casualisation: As predicted in the 1995 publication "America is going down the tube in a T-shirt', continually relaxed dressing leads to relaxed manners, relaxed morals, relaxed productivity and loss of individuality.

Hell! I often wear T-shirt to the work. One of my friends, when he bicycles down to the office on Sundays, wears shorts. We are in a mortal danger of having our morals relaxed!

About relaxed productivity I do not worry. That's my boss' headache. He may think of giving me `formals allowance' if the need be. And whatever is loss of individuality?

After reading the advt, I am also worried about the Hon. Shri. Union Home Minister. Veshti to the workplace! Imagine! Internal security is going down the veshti!

Eventually It Closes

2011-12-20T19:59:00.001+05:30

I always suspected that there was something amiss with door-close button in the lifts. A Newyorker article throws light:

In the old system -- board elevator, press button -- you have an illusion of control; elevator manufacturers have sought to trick the passengers into thinking they are driving the conveyance. In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button does not work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. (It does work if a fireman needs to take control. But you need a key, and a fire, to do that.) ....That the door eventually closes reinforces people's belief in the button's power.

Double Rainbow That Touched The Earth

2011-12-20T10:56:00.001+05:30

Kim Jong Il, the North Korean dictator, `the dear leader', died sometime over the weekend.

From NYT obit piece:

Mr Kim is believed to have been born in Siberia in 1941, when his father, Kim Il Sung, was in exile in the Soviet Union. But in the North Korea's official accounts, he was born in 1942, in a cabin, Abe Lincoln-like. The cabin was in a secret camp of anti-Japanese guerrillas his father commanded on Mount Paektu, a holy piece of land in Korean mythology. The event, the official Korean Central News Agency would often say, was accompanied by the appearance of a bright star in the sky and double-rainbow that touched the earth.

PS: Hindustan Times editorial mentions that the malnutrition in North Korea -- a consequence of socialism and the departed Dear Leader's policies -- is so severe that an average person in the North is a foot shorter than his counterpart in the South.

The West Coast

2011-12-16T13:15:00.001+05:30

1. Starting December 4, over thirty of us bicycled down from Mumbai to Goa. The organiser was Youth Hostels Association of India. It had provided us the bikes (Trek 3700). Two vans carried participants' luggage, cooks and the cooking paraphernalia.

We took the coastal route, night-halting at Alibag, Dive Agar, Harnai, Velneshwar, Adiware, Malvan. Goa was reached on the evening of 10th.

Biking was a wonderful experience, thanks to the bike (seven speed, broad tyres, lightweight), the clement December sun, and the scenery. Climbs up the winding ghat roads were hard. Straight, non-winding upslopes were harder. But at no moment I regretted coming along. (One of us, a girls, took a fall on a steep and rocky down-slope at Palshet. She was badly injured; and had to discontinue. But by the next morning, the mishap had been behind the rest of us.) Konkan does not have big rivers, and much of it faces water scarcity after January. The green drains out. But not so in the coastal area, it is evergreen.

Winter would be a great time to visit coastal Konkan if you want to see birds. The creeks, wetlands and mangrove-lined marshes must be attracting the birds. I resolved to buy a binocular and visit again.

2. At Dive Agar, there was no water. There was no electricity, the pump could not be worked. Around 5.30 in the morning, three of us went to the sand to shit. It was dark, and occasionally a flash of light from a boat swept in our direction. My friend said it was a Customs boat. The tide was low, the water was much farther down. On the previous evening, I had seen a young man riding a motorcycle down the beach: there were several furrows along the beach's length, giving it the appearance of a long strip of a ploughed-up land.

The experience of shitting in the open, facing the dark sea, wasn't really worth it: Nothing to write about, except that going out to the water in the low light makes one nervous

A dog, a stray, had followed us. It sat nearby while we did our thing.

What bonds the dog with humans, I always wonder.

If you ever happen to visit Dive Agar beach, think of me. Ask the dog, if he is around, about the three men on the beach.

3. To me, the Konkan hasn't changed much. The nature is intact. Branded drinking water and chips dominate the shop-fronts. Every house is a potential hotel. You don't see poverty. (Tribal communities do not live along the coast.) Tourism has brought money to even those who do not own alphonso orchards.

Kids always greeted us with `hi'. Occasionally a `how are you'. That intrigued me: did they think that we were foreigners? Or they wanted to show off their English? Only once a small girl said to me: `money, money'.

People were curious, and always helpful when asked for directions. Only one encounter left a bad taste in the mouth: A young man on motorcycle (another riding pillion) said, in Marathi, while passing me: `Hey mother-fucker'.

4. I stopped to give directions to those behind me at an intersection on the outskirts of Ratnagiri. Municipal elections were due after two days. A rickshaw-driver was telling another driver: "Guess what, there was flaw in those voting machines, initially. Whichever button you may press, Congress would get a vote."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It was there in the newspapers. Now they have fixed the problem."

5. Our penultimate night-hault was at Malvan. The lunch that day was to be cooked at a house in a village called Hindale, and brought downhill to another village through which we were to pass.

But the hosts insisted they would make us hot bhakris (our stock lunch was just rice-dal-vegetables). As a result, we had to ride up a steep climb. The house stood on the plateau, some distance further after the climb ended. The guys were totally washed out before reaching there.

Bhakris were welcome. Post-lunch, one of us said: "Tonight I am going apply Moov (the muscle-relief cream) to my bum.

A big laugh.

Then some unspeakable things -- about how the body-parts in the nether region were faring -- were said. Hilarious.

6. YHAI's objective was to promote cycling. Most of us enjoyed the trip, and some of us might invest in a high-end bike, like the one we used.

How many of us would afford the luxury of riding a bicycle (as a slogan goes: one car less on the road) to the work? Very few.

Still, if you can spare twenty thousand rupees, buy a bicycle. Its a marvelous contraption. Better than the BMW.

7. On the train back to Mumbai, my seat-mates were two Muslim men. They talked in Marathi; I placed them in south Ratnagiri. Both were probably skilled labourers: the plumber/electrician/carpenter type.

They talked about visa, passport, wages in dollar. I guessed they must be the veterans o `Gulf' countries.

Then one of them said `LIberia'. I became more curious: Liberia! Somewhere in west Africa!

He spoke the name of another place. I did not catch what he said. Then, perhaps describing the location, he said: "It's the west coast. Like Gujarat is our west coast.

Two simple men of Konkan , who also talked about results of Ratnagiri Municipal Corporation election (about how votes were purchased for Rs 2,500 apiece), who probably had no English, had been to, or at least had heard of, the countries on the west coast of Africa.

Svetlana Singh

2011-11-30T09:36:00.001+05:30

Lana Peters passed away in United States on November 22. She died of cancer.

She was born Svetlana Alliluyeva, and her father was Joseph Stalin, the `comrade' ruler of Russia. The death was reported on Monday. As NYT says, she led a life that could lend itself very well to a Russian novel.

She should interest us Indians; but for the opposition of the Russian state, Svetlana Alliluyeva could have been Svetlana Brijesh Singh.

Brajesh Singh was an Indian aristocrat-turned-communist, who was living in Moscow in 1960s. He belonged to a princely family from Uttar Pradesh. His brother, Dinesh Singh was a minister in Indira Gandhi cabinet.

They met in Moscow, fell in love, though he was critically ill. But Russians did not allow her to marry Singh. (Stalin had passed away long ago, it is difficult to surmise how he could have reacted to the relationship. In 1040s, she had been in love with a flimmaker, a Jew. He was dispatched to Siberia.)

Singh died in 1966. Svetlana was allowed to take his ashes to India, to be immersed in the Ganga as per the Hindu custom. In India, she approached the US embassy, which gave her political asylum. She was flown to USA. There she became Lana Peters, denounced her father as `monster', denounced the Soviet state.

Scent of Dead

2011-11-26T21:20:00.001+05:30

In his yesterday's Mint column, Dilip D'Souza recounts a fascinating experiment carried out by Edward O Wilson, an authority on ants.

Ants secret different kinds of chemicals, called pheromones, for various purposes. When an ant finds food, and wants to direct others to it, it marks the route with a particular pheromone.

At an ant-colony, when an ant dies, it obviously lays motionless. But that's not enough for its mates to figure it out. The death registers only when, after two days, the corpse releases another kind of pheromone. Then the `worker' ants (they have a caste-system!) pick up the body and dump it in a place earmarked for the dead.

Wilson wanted a corroboration of this mechanism. He sprinkled the particular pheromone on a live ant's body. Lo and behold! Immediately its mates picked it up, protests notwithstanding, and threw it onto the dumping yard for the dead ants. The ant returned to the colony, but colony was convinced that it was very much dead, and it was taken back to the dump. Only when the scent of pheromone faded away, it was accepted back.

(Could not locate link to D'Souza's piece.)

Hostage To The Fast

2011-11-20T21:37:00.001+05:30

Three men launched a fast-unto-death in Maharashtra in the last few weeks. Raju Shetty, MP from south Maharashtra, was seeking hike in the procurement price of sugarcane. Government yielded after five days. Ravi Rana and Girish Mahajan, both MLAs, went on a fast to demand better price for cotton. Again, the government yielded.

It seems that fasts-unto-death are now in vogue. Certainly, this has to do with the resounding success of Hazare's two fasts early this year. I do not know how effective the Jan Lokpal Bill would be. The triumphs of Shetty, Rana and Mahajan would lead to tangible and immediate benefit for farmers.

There could be hundreds of burning and worthy causes in this country. What happens if the government is faced with fast a month?

Anna Hazare must answer this question. You started the epidemic, Anna. Or should one blame Gandhi?

In the aftermath of Kandahar hijacking, the government passed a resolution. It said that in future, as a matter of policy, demands of hijackers would not be conceded. May be another policy decision would have to be taken now: demands of fast-ers would not be conceded, whoever be the fast-er, whatever be the cause.

Preemptive

2011-11-19T11:49:00.001+05:30

From Anthony Summers's biography of Richard Nixon:

(During his 1968 presidential campaign) Nixon's television team controlled him, controlled the atmosphere around him.....Control was exerted right down to the party symbol, the elephant. A Republican rally in 1960 had been spoiled when an inconsiderate pachyderm defecated pungently in front of the speaker's platform. In 1968, a printed manual instructed Nixon advance men to see to it that all performing elephants had preemptive enemas.

Neti, Neti..

2011-11-12T10:11:00.001+05:30

From Malcolm Gladwell' s piece in Newyorker:

Even within Apple, Jobs was known for taking credit for others' ideas. Jonathan Ive, the designer behind the iMac, the iPod, and the iPhone, tells Isaacson, "He will go through a process of looking at my ideas and say, `That's no good. That's not very good. I like that one.' And later I will be sitting in the audience and he will be talking about it as if it was his idea.

Jobs, in other words, was a good editor. Interestingly, I see a parallel for this talent among the Bollywood directors. Raj Kapoor, it is said, had a fine ear for music; the music of his films was always brilliant. Shankar-Jaykishan duo composed music for other fillm-makers too, but their work for RK was outstanding. The same could be observed in the case of Rahman and Mani Ratnam. In my not-so-humble opinion, Rahman is at his best when he works for Mr Ratnam.

And the process would be the same as Ive describes: the composer running hundreds of tunes by the director, the latter saying not this, not this, oh- play that again...

As they say in Upnishads, Neti, Neti...

इतिहासजमा

2011-11-09T14:41:00.001+05:30

पु.ल देशपांडे इतिहासजमा झाले आहेत काय असा वाद कोणीतरी सुरु केला आहे. रवी आमले यांनी चिडून जाऊन असा प्रश्न कोणाला पडतोच कसा, पु.ल. इतिहासजमा झालेले नाहीत, असे लोकसत्तेत लिहिले आहे.

मी पु.लंचे बटाट्याचे चाळ हे पुस्तक सहावीत असताना वाचले. त्यातल्या लेखांमागच्या `प्रेरणा' तेव्हा माहित नव्हत्या. उदाहरणार्थ `गच्चीसह चाळ झालीच पाहिजे' या धमाल लेखामध्ये `मुंबईसह संयुक्त महाराष्ट्र' या घोषणेचे विडंबन आहे हे माहित नव्हते. पण भरपूर हसायला आले. हे पुलंच्या अगणित विनोदी लेखांच्या बाबतीत माझे झालेले आहे, याचे कारण म्हणजे पु.लंची अभिजात विनोदबुद्धी आणि अप्रतिम भाषा-प्रभुत्व. आणखी मागे गेले तर चिं.वि जोशी यांच्या कथा, आणि अत्र्यांचे झेंडूची फुले, यांबाबतीतही माझा अनुभव हाच आहे: लिखाण जुने असले तरी विनोदाचा आस्वाद घेता येतो. झेंडूच्या फुलांमध्ये ज्या कवितांचे विडंबन केले आहे, त्यातील एक रामदास स्वामींचे मनाचे श्लोक सोडले तर बाकीचे कोणतेही काव्य मी वाचलेले नाही, तरीही मला अत्र्यांचे विडंबन अत्यंत आवडते. स्वतः अत्र्यांनीच प्रस्तावनेत उल्लेख केला आहे की त्यांच्या माहितीतील काही लोकांनी आयुष्यात एकच कवितेचे पुस्तक वाचले आहे, ते म्हणजे झेंडूची फुले.

वुडहाउसचे उदाहरण घ्या: तो ज्या जुन्या इंग्लंडची खिल्ली उडवतो, ते इंग्लंड त्याच्या स्वतःच्या हयातीतच परलोकवासी झाले होते. पण त्याने काय फरक पडतो? त्याची पुस्तके लाखाने खपतात. चार्ली चाप्लीनच्या ग्रेट डिक्टेटर या सिनेमाची प्रेरणा अर्थातच हिटलर (व मुसोलिनी) आहेत, पण हिटलर मरून सहा दशके उलटली तरी तो चित्रपट ताजा आहे. (हिटलरच्या कर्तुत्वाची ओळख असेल तर मग चित्रपटातला विनोद दाहक बनतो.) आज कदाचित एखाद्याला त्यातला हुकुमशहा पाहून गदाफिची आठवण येईल.

(हे मात्र खरे की शोकांतिकेइतके दीर्घायुष्य विनोदला लाभत नाही कारण समाज पूर्णच बदलला तर काही-काही विनोद अनाकलनीय बनतात.)

पुलंच्याबाबतीत मला भीती एकच आहे: त्यांच्या विनोदाचा पुरेपूर आस्वाद घेण्यासाठी वाचकाचे मराठी उत्तम असले पाहिजे. "विस्तारभयास्तव -- लेखाच्या, लेखिकेच्या नव्हे -- इथेच थांबतो" यातला विनोद कळायचा झाला तर मुळात विस्तारभय हा शब्द एरवी लेखक मंडळी कसा वापरतात हे ठाऊक पाहिजे. "Hindi is shrinking" असे जावेद अख्तर म्हणतात. ते मराठीचेही होत आहे: जुने-जुने, समर्पक शब्द लोकांना माहित नसतात. किंवा शब्दांचा नेमका अर्थ माहित नसतो. शब्दच इतिहासजमा झाले, तर लेखकांचे काय वेगळी गत होणार?

Haiku: An Indian Who Reads NYT

2011-11-06T23:31:00.001+05:30

I read New York Times every day, yes peruse that daily I do,

So you say Republicans and I think Bush Perry Dick Chenney,

And not Ramdas Athawale Jogendra Kawade Ambedkar

As Mines of India

2011-11-06T23:26:00.001+05:30

India figures in Shakespeare's plays. All fringe references, but it is there. Gopalkrishna Gandhi must be thanked for bringing this to the attention of Shakespeare-illiterate people like me.

An excerpt from Gandhi's yesterday's HT column:

In Henry IV comes the memorable lines:

In faith, he is a worthy gentleman;

Exceedingly well-read, and profited

In strange concealments; valiant as a lion,

And wondrous affable, and as bountiful

As the mines of India.

Gandhi then adds: Only a self-absorbed Indian metallurgist or a PR agent of the Bellary brothers would crow over this quote...

Beyond The Temple

2011-11-06T23:05:00.001+05:30

1. Yesterday, Nitin Gadkari, BJP president, was interviewed at a conclave in Goa. One of the things he said, talking about self, was: "I do not go the temple. I do not even perform puja."

My colleague, the PTI reporter in Goa, wrote a separate story on this: BJP president says he does not go to temple. It was a good story, underlining the fact that the man headed a party which indulges in communal politics.

I was not surprised to hear that Gadkari doesn't have much of a faith. I was delighted, being a faithless creature myself. (What was -- a little -- surprising was that he chose to confess that on a public platform.)

Gadkari, I believe, fits a particular type of BJP leaders. These leaders, though they swear by Hindutva, are found to have little religion personally. Think Advani, Vajpayee, Arun Jaitley. If they have faith, it never reflects in newspaper photographs. I remember a Sujata Anandan piece some years ago, where she had written that someone once gifted Advani miniature gold figurines of Hindu deities, and later he had them sold. She was shocked. The late Pramod Mahajan had once said in TV interview that he does not believe in conventional idea of god, though he believes that "there is some power out there". In this, these Sangh-born leaders are almost Nehruvian. Our first prime minister wore his lack of religion on his sleeve. But politics of their party had Jinnah-sque inspirations. Jinnah himself did not care for religion in the personal life; but his politics, post-1925, was only religion-centric.

On the other hand, Digvijay Singh, that great saviour of Congress-brand secularism, makes annual pilgrimage to Pandharpur on every Ashadhi Ekasdashi. Pandharpur is hundreds of miles from his constituency, so it must be out of genuine faith.

This would seem like a paradox; but it is not. People confuse religiosity with communal feelings. These are two different things; one can be irreligious, and harbour a strong affinity/bias for one's own religious group. Or one can be secular, and have a strong faith. Think Gandhi.

2. It the above discussion was a tad heavy/ dry for your taste, read these excerpts of Vindo Mehta's forthcoming autobiography. The book is going to create a ruckus, I tell you. Sample this:

Vajpayee was no saint. He liked to drink moderately and eat non-vegetarian food less moderately. Being a bachelor and a political star (Henry Kissinger: power is the ultimate aphrodisiac), he was never short....

Elsewhere, Mehta has written a couple of times that Vajpayee read Debonair, the magazine that Mehta edited. For those who were born before the era of internet porn, this magazine published (still publishes) pictures of nude models. It contains some asexual writing too. So its readers can be given a benefit of doubt.

IFS Girl in Bhiwani

2011-11-02T11:13:00.001+05:30

Varinder Bhatia reports in today's Indian Express:

The family of an Indian Foreign Service officer has received threats and faced protests from her caste group and a section of the village panchayat in Haryana's Bhiwani district for her decision to marry outside the caste.

...tension has been brewing in the village over the past few days over her wedding plans. The Brahmin Sabha active in Bhiwani issued directions to Sharma's father, a retired PWD employee, to restrain his daughter...

This should shock us, but I would not lose sleep over the report. A social change is happening -- intercaste marriage in the hinterland -- and some rumbling is to be expected. Ten years down the line, such protest/bullying would become passe, even in Bhiwani.

But the irony is striking: The girl is in the foreign service, and a panchayat is trying to dictate to her.

Prince Rahul of Amethi frequently dines at dalit houses in UP. A noble thing to do, but I would like him to go to Bhiwani -- not far away -- and declare support to the girl.

Family Planning

2011-11-01T19:15:00.001+05:30

Mosquitoes are being modified, genetically, to tackle diseases such as malaria and dengue. What they are doing is to splice a particular gene into lab mosquitoes, males. They are then released into the wild with the hope that they will mate with female mosquitoes. The gene ensures that their offspring don't survive. Gradually, it is hoped, the modified ones would edge out the normal male mosquitoes in the wild to the extinction. The species will terminate.

Tests are on. Link to the BBC story is here.

Student of Drawing

2011-10-29T23:31:00.001+05:30

He is, or was, a student of drawing. He loves animation. "I would have loved to go to USA and become an animator." He talks, with genuine fondness, about a film on the life of Moses. (The film -- Prince of Egypt -- hadn't released in India.) He describes the scene of the sea parting to make way for Moses and his followers, with a passionate enthusiasm of someone who has enjoyed the work of art. "As the sea parts, the water gushes skywards, you feel its force...you see a shadow of a fish...

You have to think of all that...Animation starts on paper, not on computer screen. Computer can not create the original image. It's all about drawing. In the West, at the animation institute, they make you perfect your drawing first...."

That was Raj Thackeray, the son of a cartoonist-musician father, nephew of a cartoonist uncle. Kudos to Nikhil Wagle: His Diwali special interview with the MNS chief focused only on this side of latter's personality.

I have seen two other memorable Wagle interviews of rank politicians: Sharad Pawar and Chhagan Bhujbal. He made both of them reveal things which were not unflattering, but were by and large unknown. Wagle is someone who openly possesses views. He has got beaten up for giving offence quite a few times.

But I used to think that his weekly interviews ("Great Bhet") on IBN Lokmat became goody-goody, when the interviewee was a politician. He did not interrogate them, did not ask hard questions, I felt.

Now I feel that his approach is right. Interrogating a politician is pointless, unless it is a real trial. Karan Thapar does that very well, but then a Narendra Modi can simply walk out in a huff. End of the interview. A politician can not always afford to be grilled. (Forget politicians, how many of us, ordinary men and women, possess the absolute candour?)

Raj Thackeray, first and foremost, is his strong communal sense as a Marathi-speaker and his ego. (Ego and communal/xenophobic feeling go hand in hand.) But there is more to him. He is a fan of Walt Disney and Prince of Egypt. Thanks to Wagle, we know that now.

Caste of Pizza Deliverers

2011-10-27T22:59:00.001+05:30

Apropos Mayavati's Rs 600 crore park, where her own statue (too) stands tall, Economist quotes a survey on changing dalit lives:

The researchers tracked stark new consumer, dietary...habits among Dalits. In one district, where only 3 per cent dalits had used toothpaste in 1990, 82 per cent did so by 2007. Those who ate tomatoes rose from 3 per cent to 57 per cent. In another area only 23 per cent of dalits reported sitting with guests of other castes at weddings in 1990, but, by 2007, 91 per cent did so.

....such trends in fact describe a rapid weakening of caste identity, says Mr Prasad. He praises the arrival of "caste-neutral" jobs such as delivering pizzas...

Chandra Bhan Prasad is a dalit scholar, based in US. He was a part of the team which designed this survey. Here, he is paying a huge tribute to industrialization, which entails destruction of self-sufficient village economy. Post-1990, people on the left started lamenting the urbanization and migration of hundreds of thousands of people from villages to cities. But from dalit point of view, this should be celebrated. Pizza delivery is a much better job than skinning dead animals. And being prisoners of a status worse than that of animals.

But what about Mayavati's spend of Rs 6 billion? I have mixed feelings. On one hand, one can relate to her rage against Manuvadi society which degraded dalits. We should be able to understand, to an extent, why she wanted that sprawling monument. On the other hand, it is a sheer waste. She could have improved hundreds of schools with that money. And my gut feeling is that even dalits are not going to like her vanity. UP polls are due next year.

ब्लॉग-णे

2011-10-25T11:08:00.001+05:30

प्रिय अण्णा,

जय लोकपाल!

तुम्ही आठवडाभर मौनव्रत घेतलेत व ते पारही पाडलेत! भूषण, बेदी या मंडळींच्या उपद्व्यापांमुळे अडचणीत आणणाऱ्या प्रश्नांची उत्तरे द्यायला लागू नयेत म्हणून तुम्ही मौनात गेलात असे कॉंग्रेसवाले कुत्सितपणे म्हणाले. पण ते मनावर घेऊ नये. ब्रह्मचर्य न पाळणार्यांना मौनाचे महत्व कोठून कळायचे?

पण अण्णा, एक सांगा: एकीकडे तुमचे ब्लॉग लिखाण तर चालू आहे. (ते असेच चालू राहो. देशाला गरज आहे. शिवाय पत्रकारांना घरबसल्या बातमी मिळते.) च्यानेलवाल्यांच्या बूमसमोर बोलणे आणि परुळेकर/कुवळेकर-मुखे तीन भाषांत ब्लॉग-णे यात फरक काय हो?

आपला,

.....

Murders In Ohio

2011-10-20T12:45:00.001+05:30

This is life aping Hollywood. Two days ago, a man who kept around 50 exotic animals on his farmland in Ohio, USA, shot himself dead. Before doing that, he opened the pens, so lions, Bengal tigers, bears, cheetahs and other prisoners were out.

Authorities swung into action. They were of course local policemen, not forest officials. So there were either not enough tranquilizers, or they perceived that animals were beyond tranquilizing and putting back in cage.

So far 49 animals have been killed. That includes 18 Bengal tigers.

The dead owner had been charged 11 times for animal cruelty since 2004.

Mr Godse Is Back

2011-10-19T11:44:00.001+05:30

For those who follow `majha pravas' , Mr. Godse has resumed after a long gap/nap.

Dialogue

2011-10-16T21:44:00.001+05:30

Harneet Singh writes about Gulzar's evergreen film Parichay in this week's Express Eye. Sadly, she doesn't mention my favorite scene from the film. I adjudge this scene to be one of the best that I have seen in Hindi cinema.

It's in the beginning. Jeetendra is a jobless graduate.. An old Marwari firm is seeking replacement for its munim (accountant-cum-manager). The owner interviews and selects Jeetendra.

"The age is catching up with our old man. He forgets things sometimes, so we want a young fellow.....Go to him, he will show you the ropes."

In the next room, the old man (emaciated figure, listless, mournful expression) points to two piles of papers.

He is finding it difficult to speak.

"The files which need immediate attention....I keep them here."

"Ji."

"Those who do not need immediate attention....there."

"Ji."

"That's all. There isn't much to it..."

Then he suddenly becomes emotional.

"The malik has been very good to me, very good. I worked here for thirty years, but never once he yelled at me."

"Ji."

The old man breaks down. "My daughter got married some years back....He gave me .....rupees.. Just gave it, you see, just gave it...."

Jeetendra is mighty awkward. And moved. He is not going to steal the old man's job.

I don't know the name of the actor who plays the munim. But it's hell of a cameo. Gulzar's style is minimalist, and the actor does a full justice to it. The scene makes you laugh, and brings a tear to the eye.

Brilliant.

(Caveat: My recollection of dialogue is not cent percent verbatim.)

Samasya

2011-10-16T19:34:00.001+05:30

Count Orlando Mazzotta escaped from Calcutta, reached Afghanistan, and travelled to Germany. Later he got on a submarine, was taken to Cape Of Good Hope, was transferred to another sub. Reached Bangkok.

Who was he?

Don't you google. The answer is here.

Gandhi & Churchill

2011-10-14T22:40:00.001+05:30

1. Arthur Herman's `Gandhi & Churchill' is a thoroughly enjoyable, "joint" biography of the two men who were born within five years of each other.

Let's start with a hilarious Churchillian witticism from the book: ...None would be closer (to Churchill) than Brendan Bracken, a strange young man of no apparent parentage, with granny glasses and thick thatch of carrot-coloured hair who made himself home at Chartwell, and despite Clementine's hostility, virtually a part of Churchill's family. (Clementine: Churchill's wife.) Some even speculated that he really was Winston's natural son, born in adultery. The rumors became so rampant that at one point Clementine confronted Churchill and demanded to know if its was true. "I have looked the matter up," he shamefacedly confessed, "but the dates don't coincide."

2. Herman sees Gandhi and Churchill engaged in an epic duel: One wanted to preserve the empire, the other wanted to dismantle it. No one would dispute that Gandhi devoted the last thirty years of his life to the satyagrah against the imperialist philosophy of Raj. He rejected the argument that the white man has done, and could further do, any good to India. But Herman states that the Raj was as much an obsession with Churchill, in the opposite way. Preserving the empire was the centrepiece of his politics. He was never reconciled to the idea that Raj must culminate, eventually, into a republic.

Another impression that I gathered after reading the book was that Jalianwala shooting impacted Gandhi a lot. Before that, he used to call himself a loyal soldier of British empire. He had even offered to recruit soldiers when the first world war broke out. This warm feeling died in 1919. Afterwards he wanted nothing but complete withdrawal of the British.

We in India believe that every British politician was generally reluctant to grant self-rule/ independence to India. It wasn't so, it seems. Post-1920, the majority of British politicians favoured a gradual transfer of power. The idea was that like Australia and Canada, India would become a dominion; a self-governing member of the empire. But Churchill abhorred this idea.

Herman is unsparing of both the protagonists of his tale. For e.g., he debunks the myth that Gandhi rushed to Noakhali during partition-time riots and stopped the killings. He went there two weeks after the bloodbath started, and wasn't much successful in stopping it, Herman contends. In other words, Mountbatten's `one-man-army' eulogy was uncalled for.

And in 1943, Churchill didn't allow the ships to be diverted for taking food-grains to Bengal, where three million people died due to famine. In fact Amery, a member of his war cabinet, compared Churchill's racial attitude to that of Nazis. (Madhusree Mukerjee has written a whole book on Churchill's policies and the Bengal famine.)

I am in no position to talk about Herman's rendering of the facts. That would need research. One startling contention of his -- from an Indian's point of view -- is that during the 1948 Kashmir war, it was the Indian army which drew the first blood. Our version is that Indian army was air-dashed to Srinagar when marauding tribal gangs from Pakistan entered Kashmir. But Herman says that Indian army landed in Srinagar without any provocation.

3. One has to concede that Gandhi and Churchill indeed led parallel lives. Putting them side by side was a great idea. The book, therefore, works.

Would our times ever see such politicians? We, in India, have adopted a parliamentary democracy. At times, Churchill the great orator would go against the stated position of his own party. He went by his own convictions, and his party tolerated that. Imagine such a thing happening in Congress or BJP. In our political culture, BJP politburo sacks Jaswant Singh for writing a charitable book on Jinnah, without bothering to read the book first.

And Gandhi: who had the courage to tell the Government of India that it should pay Pakistan Rs 55 crore, because the amount was due, Kashmir and other disputes notwithstanding.

Beating of Prashant Bhushan -- over his stand on Kashmir, what else, -- is just two days old.

Racing With China

2011-10-07T12:40:00.001+05:30

Economist presents a brilliant info-graphic in the latest issue. It compares India and China on various indicators, such as infant mortality, literacy, life expectancy, etc. Needless to say that we are years behind China. But the graphic is brilliant in that it tells us how many years.

For example: Life expectancy in India is currently 65 years. China was there 36 years ago. Now the average citizen there lives up to 73 years. Or take literacy: 63 per cent of Indians above the age of 15 are literate; China was there 25 years ago. Now 94 per cent of the adult Chinese can read and write.

Similar gaps exist on other indicators too. But there is one thing where we don't lag behind much: car ownership. India has 24 cars/1,000. China was there only two years ago. Now it has 36 cars per thousand people.

China, beware. We are catching up.

Faster Than Metaphor

2011-10-06T20:24:00.001+05:30

I liked this line from Manu Joseph's piece on Shoaib Akhtar in Open:

For some reason, the sports journalist in his country could not think of a better compliment than Rawalpindi Express to describe the fastest bowler ever clocked. That makes Shoaib Akthar the only sportsman who is faster than his own metaphor.

It Is I!

2011-10-06T11:44:00.001+05:30

This anecdote from NYT piece on Steve Jobs tells you something about him; also about the country and the times he grew up in.

Mr. Wozniak shared the article with Mr. Jobs and the two set out to track down an elusive figure identified in the article as Captain Crunch. The man had taken the name from his discovery that a whistle that came in boxes of Cap's Crunch cereal was tuned to a frequency that made it possible to make free long-distance calls simply by blowing the whistle next to a phone handset. Captain Crunch was John Draper, a former Air Force electronics technicians. Learning that the two young hobbyists were searching for him, Mr. Draper appeared one day in Mr. Wozniak's Berkeley dormitory room. Mr. Jobs, who was still in High School, had traveled to Berkeley.

When Mr. Draper arrived, he entered the room saying simply, "It is I!" Based on information they gleaned from Mr. Draper, Mr. Wozniak and Mr. Jobs later collaborated on building and selling blue boxes, devices that were widely used for making free and illegal phone calls. They raised a total of $6,000 from the effort....

The story of Jobs' biological parents too is revealing: Father was a Syrian Muslim, mother an American Christian. Much like Obama. But in Jobs' case, he was given in adoption. Later, the biological parents got married, and produced a girl. So Jobs is now survived by his wife, and Mona Simpson, the biological sister.

Because He Wills It

2011-10-01T23:04:00.001+05:30

I haven't seen Dev Anand's Chargesheet. I plan to. The film may be atrociously bad, but it has inspired review writers to writes stuff such as this:

All other accused are in jail. Politician Amar Singh plays that home minister. Wasn't he chargesheeted recently? The casting is ironic. I suppose. But you should expect no less from an active mind on creative viagra such as the one making this movie. Things happen to him because he wills it.

That was Mayank Shekhar, in HT.

Delhisider

2011-10-01T11:21:00.001+05:30

Shekhar Gupta, in today's Indian Express column, provides some insider information on cabinet politics. May be the information is available to outsiders too, but I had no clue. Let's call it Delhi-sider's information.

He asks Congress to assure Pranab Mukherjee that he would be the party's nominee for the President, after Pratibha Patil's term ends. Mukherjee, apparently, is not "at peace with himself". The assurance would do the trick.

That's news: I thought, everyone I knew thought, that Dada's horse wanted the 7 Race Course Road pasture. Seems he has set sights higher: Raiseena Hill. But why? Is it because he knows that Congress would never make him PM? Or because he thinks being a PM won't be such a good idea, considering the agony that Dr Singh is suffering post-CWG/Raja/Hazare?

Strange, still. Posterity doesn't remember the Presidents. Example: What bell, if any, the name `Venkatraman' rings? He was the Prez when I was in school.

Gupta also tells us that Chiddu wants to come back to finance ministry. Perfectly understandable. No one blamed the finance minister (Dr Singh, it was. Those were the days!) when Dawood and Co. bombed the stock exchange in 1993.

By the way: India Today runs a cover story saying that the fight for the PM's post, within NDA, would be between Modi and Nitish Kumar. Interesting. I had said in this space long back that Nitish could be an ideal candidate for NDA, given his secular image.

But if you ask me, or if I were Mohan Bhagwat/Jaylalitha, my choice would be Jaswant Singh. It would feel good to have a PM who has written a fat, controversial book which is not memoirs. Having an erudite guy as the PM may not matter much unless he/she has a Nehruvian mandate, but it would feel good. The way it felt when Dr Singh became the PM.

A Suitable Boy

2011-09-27T23:26:00.001+05:30

Writers sometimes repeat ideas, or themes. I like and take pride in noticing such recurrences. I read Vikram Seth's Equal Music (1999) first, and then A Suitable Boy (1993). One of the central crises in the Equal Music is the pain in the hand which violinist Michael, the male lead, suffers from. It forces him to leave his teacher, and it triggers unraveling of his affair a girl, a fellow musician.

Last month I finished reading A Suitable Boy (over 35 days). One of the minor characters, a sarangi-players who accompanies a singer/whore (a main character) is afflicted with similar debilitating pain in the hand. It means an end of the career as accompanist. This is a very small, sub-plot in this 1300-plus-page novel, but Seth resolves the crisis in a most beautiful, though romantic, way. A vocalist, a maestro, recognises that the young sarangi-player has it in him to become a vocalist himself, which is certainly a higher artistic station in the Indian classical music.

A Suitable Boy, can be put to two uses. It could be a weapon of murder, owing to the bulk. (A Death In the Library...) It could be also the best introduction to India after Gandhi, to borrow Ramchandra Guha's title-words.

The bulk indeed is intimidating. My advice to those who haven't read it would be not let the weight of the book scare you off. The novel makes for a delightful reading. More importantly, it offers glimpses of early years of Indian independence across the Gangetic plains. It touches upon so many things: religious tension, caste/class divide, status of English language in post-British India, power-struggle between Nehru and right-wing Congressman Purushottamdas Tandon, decline of British-bred box-wallah business class of Calcutta and the rise of dynamic Punjabi/Marwari entrepreneur, land reforms, predicaments of Muslim aristocracy and masses. One character is absolutely a creation of a master novelist: Haresh, a high-caste Punjabi boy who enters the cobblers' trade: he holds a degree in shoe-making from UK. He represents so much of the social/economic changes that swept the country in the last century. (And he joins a footwear company, set up by Czechs. Like the real-life

Bata.)

Read it.

Singh & Singh

2011-09-18T23:08:00.001+05:30

I chanced upon this gem in NYT archives.

In 1999, Khushwant Singh campaigned for Manmohan Singh. The NYT profile of Khushwant says:

.... the candidate of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, had been accused of challenging Manmohan Singh's credentials as a Sikh because his daughters had married Hindus and suggesting that Mr. Singh's turban be removed to see if he really had unshorn hair like a true Sikh. (Mr.... has denied making those statements.)

Other speakers had expressed umbrage at so grave an ethnic insult, but Khushwant Singh replied with a bawdy one-liner.

''Why doesn't the B.J.P. man drop his trousers so we can see if he's a Hindu or a Muslim?'' he asked to the howls of the crowd.

Lolz. That's Khushwant for you. Imagine how Manmohan's face must have looked seconds after the old man delivered that line.

West India Company

2011-09-16T10:38:00.001+05:30

The Economist seems to have fallen in love with the Tata story. Read this and this. First is about how Tata has become the biggest manufacturer in Britain, ahead of British Aerospace. The second is about reversal of economic history: East India company went to the subcontinent four hundred years ago, now the companies from the subcontinent are coming to UK and buying up British brands.

We should feel proud. When the economic liberalization began in early 1990s, those opposed to it said it would usher in another East India Company conquest: foreign companies would come to India and snap up the Indian companies. We know what happened since: Tatas, Ambanis and Murthys from the orient are shopping in the west.

Some writers (Pankaj Mishra, Arundhati Roy) like to remind the readers of newspapers in the west that many people in India are still terribly poor. True, an hour's stroll in Mumbai will show you that.

But that doesn't mean that success of Indian businessmen should be belittled. Businessmen could be greedy and corrupt, but they did not manufacture the Great Indian Poverty. Stifled economy, lack of industry, illiteracy, too much people dependent on farming: these were the culprits.

Despite the poverty, and the children begging at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (formerly Victoria Terminus), the self-congratulation would not be misplaced. Because the success of Tata and others shows that we may have been conquered and enslaved once, but we, the Indians, are not talent-less people.

Guru of 200

2011-09-05T18:55:00.001+05:30

Haima Deshpande has produced a kick-ass story on this god-man, who allegedly counts 200 of Maharashtra's MLAs among his disciples. Not to mention ultra-legislature ultras like Raj and Uddhav Thackeray. 200 out of the total 288! Why doesn't he become the Chief Minister? But certainly power should be more fun behind the curtains.

Also, he is buddy with Udayan Raje Bhosle of Satara, a descendant of Shivaji. They race cars. Those who are aware of the personage called Udayan, would be tickled to know this.

To Kill or Not

2011-09-05T11:47:00.001+05:30

Tamil Nadu Assembly's resolution seeking clemency for those convicted for Rajiv Gandhi's assassination had a positive side-effect: It put BJP in a quandary.

One must congratulate Omar Abdullah for his tweet. BJP routinely flogs Congress for not executing Afzal Guru so far. How would it explain the "muted response" to TN resolution? And, as Omar has also pointed out, why didn't the party condemn Badal government in Punjab for seeking pardon for Devinder Singh Bhullar? He too was a traitor, wasn't he?

Abdullah left it unsaid, but it is true that Guru's religion has to do with the strong feelings that his non-execution arouses among the right-wingers. But there is more the present issue.

I do not believe that BJP leaders, or cadres, feel any kind of sympathy for Rajiv's killers, or Khalistani terrorists. What has complicated the situation is the coalition politics. Or coalition `dharma', to use Vajpayee's words. Badal is an ally; and Jaylalitha/DMK a potential one. Congress faced the same predicament in 2G scam. It's own ministers weren't under cloud, but it had to be a mute spectator to shenanigans of DMK ministers for a long time, until the damage was done.

If you ask me, it would be advisable to grant pardon in all the three cases. Terrorism must be dealt with ruthlessly, human rights abuse notwithstanding. But executing these men will do no good. Khalistani terrorism is now forgotten. LTTE is dead. And killing Guru will not exactly strike terror in the hearts of remaining militants in Kashmir, or those waiting across the border to enter Kashmir. It's not that we have been soft in fighting the terrorism. What difference the dead bodies of these few men would make? Except that they would become martyrs.

Mr Writer

2011-09-05T10:41:00.001+05:30

Prabhakar Padhye was well-known Marathi writer-journalist. He and his wife, Kamal Padhye, were active members of the socialist party.

Kamal Padhye wrote a fascinating memoirs after her husband's death.

Mr Padhye had many flaws. One of them, befitting the writer that he was, was absent-mindedness.

Once he invited socialist leader Madhu Limaye home to dinner.

Limaye turned up in the evening. They chatted. A couple of hours passed.

Then Padhye sneaked into the kitchen and said to his wife: "Hey, it's nine o' clock, but Madhu doesn't seem to be in the mood to leave!

What to do now?

"Why would he leave? We have invited him to dinner!"

Being Hazare

2011-08-21T13:13:00.001+05:30

Shobhaa De has written a wonderful and timely piece on Hazare movement in today's TOI. If I were the editor, I would have carried it as front-page second lead .

She writes: It is scary being Anna Hazare. Here is one man who has been compelled to carry the collective hope of over a billion countrymen on his 74-year-old shoulders....That is a lot of weight....How much longer the Main Hoon Na scenario will last? If emotions dry up and nothing concrete comes out of the shrill protests, who takes care of the disillusioned and desperate Anna followers waiting for the miracle to happen?.

Hazare: Fast Forward To 2014

2011-08-18T12:09:00.003+05:30

In April this year, when Hazare went on fast unto death at Jantar Mantar, I wrote in this space that this man had become ridiculous in Maharashtra because of his annual fasts, now he is on his way to become ridiculous at the national level.

I was wrong. Hazare has become a second Jayprakash Narayan. Government has become ridiculous by its flip-flops: You send cabinet ministers to greet Ramdev, then you send police at midnight to evict him. You accept Hazare's moral blackmailing by putting him and his friends in Lokpal Bill drafting committee. Then you put him in jail. (And release him a few hours later, but he won't be released. Lolz.)

In fact, by now the people should have lost some of the enthusiasm for Hazare's campaign. Government bowed before you and made ready a draft of Lokpal Bill. Now it is before the Parliament, how can you repeat the April circus, what for; they should have asked Hazare.

But this is not the public's mood. I was astounded to see, on TV, Mumbai' cab drivers taking out a procession to express solidarity with the old man. None of these people -- cab drivers, motormen (who shouted slogans at CST yesterday morning), housewives, businessmen, IIT students, film stars -- understand the mechanism/dynamic of corruption. None of them understand that corruption is not about "values" and moral fiber. It's about opportunity. Curtail the government's discretion, bring in more transparency (through Right To Information, etc), and you will have less corruption. After all, Adarsh scam took place because ministers had the power to allot a plot of prime land to a bunch of people at whim, instead of auctioning it off to the largest bidder, or holding a lottery. But no, this is not the stuff that common people, even IITians, would understand.

What led to the present situation is the mood in the country: The mood generated by dis-empowerment of middle class in the electoral politics, the scams which tumbled out post-CWG (It all started with, incredibly, IPL and a tweet by Lalit Modi!), lack of charismatic leader in the government, and opposition BJP's inability to present itself as an alternative. ( BJP's alternative to Kalmadi and A Raja is Yeddyurappa.)

The mood must remind you of 1975, the days leading up to the Emergency. Those were the days! (I wasn't born then. Memories from my previous life.)

Morning bulletins said that Hazare has got the permission to carry out his fast at Ramlila grounds, for fifteen days. But this doesn't resolve the crisis. What next? What if he doesn't relent on `my draft or no sweet lime juice' stand? Perhaps, Manmohan should go there and launch a counter-fast. But the joke apart, I feel that is what, in a way, this government must do now, in view of the public support for Hazare's unacceptable demand (I bet seven out of ten won't know the point of difference: whether Lokpal should be above PM and higher judiciary). The government should resign.
Call the general elections, fast forward to 2014 (when they are due). Tell Hazare, tell yourself: let's go back to the public.

Coronation

2011-08-16T17:28:00.002+05:30

In his piece in Express about the memory of August 15, 1947, Inder Malhotra writes:

The girl next door was trying to explain to her young brother what the huge excitement was about by saying: "Aaj Nehruji ki taaj poshi hai (today is the coronation of Nehruji).

So livid was I that I wanted to go and tell the foolish girl that we were ushering in an independent and democratic India, not a monarchy....Over the years, I have sometimes wondered whether the semi-literate girl wasn't more prescient than I.

Situation In Bhopal

2011-08-16T17:11:00.001+05:30

This story from Bhopal landed in my workstation a few days ago.

The chief Qazi of the city, in his Friday sermon, allegedly spoke about how it was wrong for Muslim women to step out of the house -- to go to the market, for instance -- alone, with no male relative to accompany her.

Few days later, some Muslim youths tried to stop a couple of Muslim women from entering a shop, because they had no male relative with them.

The shopkeeper was (the story did not specify), apparently, a Hindu. The incident led to a communal tension.

Then an SMS started doing rounds, saying that the Qazi had asked Muslims to boycott certain shops. The Qazi went to the police. He said he never issued such SMS. It was a mischief, aimed at breaking the communal harmony.

A few years ago, this story would have made me furious: how dare someone preach in the secular India that Muslim women should not step out without a male relative? How dare they?

Not now. Hinduism, thankfully, does not have much organised structure, no equivalent of a Qazi and Friday sermons. But now I am aware that we have Khap panchayats, we have had Ram Sene. We have Shiv Sena which opposes immersion of Ganesh idols in the artificial water tanks instead of the sea, lakes or rivers (so as to avoid water pollution), because it is uncustomary.

But the story also shows how complicated the situation becomes in our country, with its communal tensions, with its half-literate masses, and access to the cheap communication technology.

The Cost

2011-08-16T16:44:00.001+05:30

At the reliance supermarket near my house, a poster has been stuck at the cash counter. It exhorts shoppers to bring their own bags. Because supermarkets are no longer permitted to provide free polythene bags. If a shopper still wants one, he/she will be charged two rupees extra. It also mentions that this new rule aims at curbing the plastic menace, in the interest of environment.

The other day:

Guy at the counter asks two ladies who are ahead of me in the line: "You want a carry-bag Madam?"

"Of course we do." Evidently, they hadn't even looked at the poster. (It is enough conspicuous, well-printed. It is there since June.)

"You will have to pay two rupees extra."

"Oh!"

Out comes a cloth bag.

गीत

2011-08-15T10:15:00.001+05:30

स्वातंत्र्यदिनाची पूर्वसंध्या. पाकिस्तानचा वाढदिवस. घराजवळील गल्लीत ऐकलेले एक स्फूर्तिप्रद व राष्ट्रभक्तीने रसरसलेले गीत: (गायक: अनामिक. वय: दोन-ते-चार वर्षे.)

ए बी सी डि ई एफ जी

त्यातून निघाले गांधीजी

गांधीजींनी खाल्ला पे--रू

त्यातून निघाले -- ने--हरू

नेहरूंनी खाली का--कडी

भटाची शेंडी वा--कडी

(हे गीत लहानपणी मलाही पाठ होते. जय हिंद!)

Firing In Maval

2011-08-13T12:50:00.004+05:30

Kaustubh, a fellow journalist, has this to say about Maval firing incident:

Following points have rarely been mentioned in the media coverage.

1. Certain land owners had opposed the proposed water pipeline from Pavana dam to Pimpri-Chinchwad becasue they felt that water would not percolate to adjacent lands along the route, unlike in the case of the present open canal.

2. These people had moved the Bombay High Court, but the Court held that farmers had no claim on the percolated water, and a pipeline was desirable because it would prevent wastage of water.

3. Following this, the government decided to lay an underground pipeline, so that the surface land would not be needed.

4. Still, the government also decided to compensate the land owners. Some of them refused to accept the compensation.

5. All over India, water to big cities is supplied through pipelines.

6. Protesters had not specified in the advance notice given to Pune police that they planned to stage blockade on the Pune-Mumbai expressway. Why block the expressway when issue was about pipeline?

7. The expressway had remained blocked for about three hours. Police had to do something to open it. When they tried to disperse the protesters, there was stone-pelting. Vehicles were set on fire. Initially rubber bullets were fired, but it had no effect. So police had to fire real bullets.

8. What if the protesters had attacked hundreds of vehicles which had backed up on both the sides of expressway? Who else we would have blamed but the police? In situation like this, only police on the spot can decide the course of action. Not outsiders.

9. We are also witnessing a pattern: in the name of protest, public/private property is vandalised, sometimes policemen are attacked. The brand `farmers' has now gained clout, and media invariably sides with farmers everytime.

10. I don't believe that police really like to kill ordinary people.

11. Journalism in Maharashtra has been so shallow lately, that the hand of Pawars is suspected in everything that goes wrong. I am no sympathizer of Sharad Pawar or his nephew. But blaming them, instead of working one's backside off to research the issue, is bad journalism.

The protest on the expressway that day was most likely politically orchestrated. (Remember, the state legislature was in session.) If police are not allowed to be harsh in the face of mob violence, they would become toothless. The firing in Maval was justified, period.

Mr Avhad Over A Pothole

2011-08-11T09:59:00.003+05:30

Five years ago, Bombay High Court's Justice Lodha passed an order, directing municipal corporations to fill up all the potholes on roads in Mumbai and Thane, pronto. Within a month, it got done. Justice Lodha was as happy as the Cheshire cat.

Then, two years ago, Aurangabad bench of High Court ordered action against those who put up hoardings of political leaders on roadsides without necessary permissions. Further -- and it made news -- Court said the leaders who feature on the hoardings too should be prosecuted.

Two years on, this July, a two-storey tall hoarding of MLA Jitendra Avhad was looking down over a potholed intersection near my house.

There is a lesson here for judges. Don't waste time over PILs, unless the issue is really, really serious, and involves breach of constitutional rights. Because, one: that's not what courts are for. Two: judges can not ensure that their orders in such matters are followed forever.

To Feel Like India

2011-08-08T10:50:00.001+05:30

From two recent Economist articles on India:

1. Banks have also been allowed to avoid booking losses on loans to Air India, a state-owned zombie.

2. So many things work properly in Gujarat that it hardly feels like India.

The Man Who Lifts Skirts

2011-08-07T19:20:00.008+05:30

चौघांच्या खांद्यावर

2011-08-05T17:05:00.001+05:30

सोनिया गांधी अमेरिकेत वैद्यकीय उपचारांसाठी गेल्या असल्याने राहुल गांधी आणि इतर तिघांकडे कॉंग्रेसची जबाबदारी सोपवण्यात आली आहे.

सामनाचा आजचा उप-मथळा:

कॉंग्रेस चौघांच्या खांद्यावर

झकास!

खाली बातमीत मात्र सामनाकार घसरले आहेत: हरियाणात राजीव गांधी ट्रस्टला बेकायदेशीरपणे जमीन मिळाल्याचे प्रकरण उघडकीस आल्यामुळेतर सोनियांचा आजार अचानक बळावला नाही अशी शंका राजकीय वर्तुळात व्यक्त केली जात आहे, असे एक वाक्य आहे. सोनियांचा आजार काय आहे हे उघड झालेले नाही, पण तहलकाने काल असे वृत्त दिलेय की अमेरिकेतील कॅन्सरवरील उपचारांसाठी प्रसिद्ध असलेल्या एका इस्पितळात त्या भरती झाल्या आहेत. हरियाणातील प्रकरणाबद्दल सामनाने पाहिजे तेव्हढे तोंडसुख घ्यावे, पण त्याचा इथे हा बेचव विनोद करण्यासाठी उल्लेख करणे शोभत नाही.

Squirrel & The Bull in China Shop

2011-07-29T14:48:00.002+05:30

Hina Rabbani Khar is cute. But if you ask me, she was overdressed during the Delhi visit. Why, always, that scarf around the head? Dressing is a matter of personal choice. But I suspect hers wasn't a choice, it was a tribute to the backward society back home. Just like the garish sindoor of Sushma Swaraj, or khadi saris of Sonia Gandhi. I would have loved to see the squirrel from Pak in a cocktail dress. Alas, lass.

Squirrel? Kha(a)r means squirrel in Marathi. Joking.

Somebody said: She was the best thing that Pak has sent across the border in the last few years.

By the way, these resumed bilateral talks: what's the point? Or are they only for the international (read US and EU) audience? Do they achieve anything?

Ram Jethmalani, the lawyer, reportedly behaved like a bull in the china shop at the reception organised by the Pak High Commission for Hina. He said he decided to come (only) after seeing her photographs in papers. And beware, he told the lady , China is our mutual enemy.

He was being honest, and in the case of China, at least half-correct. Dunno whether China can be called Pakistan's enemy, but it certainly isn't India's well-wisher.

The only problem being: Jethmalani said this in the Chinese ambassador's presence.

I wish he was our foreign minister. S M Krishna should be shifted to Science and Technology ministry. Vilasrao Deshmukh -- the incumbent -- should be shifted to nowhere.

Learn From Lalu

2011-07-25T11:38:00.002+05:30

Charles Clover writes in Financial Times:

"Russia needs more successful young entrepreneurs, therefore, governors should have more children!"

At first it may seem a non-sequitur, but in Russia, the joke is obvious....offspring of top officials and the like do well.

Could be adopted for the home context as: India needs more young politicians, therefore, ministers should ape Lalu Prasad: have more children!

A letter to Mr F. A. Te

2011-07-24T22:16:00.003+05:30

Dear Sir,

I am writing this to convey my deepest sense of gratitude.

Sir,

I shifted to Mumbai in the year 2005.

In July 2006, I was living in a western suburb of Mumbai. I took train to the office, and back, every day,

But, I did not travel first class then. Nor did I leave office at 6 pm.

So when blasts ripped through five trains one after another, I wasn't one of those 180-odd people died. Odd people, indeed. Ordinary folks die on beds.

Then Sir, in November 2008, I had shifted to an eastern suburb. On some evenings I took a 9.30 train home from CST.

But on November 26 of that year, I left a little early. Mr. Ajmal Kasab and his friend missed me by 10-15 minutes. Others, all very odd people, died.

I hail from Pune, Sir. But when I visit, I never go to Koregaon Park area. And I wasn't even visiting Pune when a bomb went off there last February. The bomb wasn't meant for me, I am sure.

And only this month! Now I know you really, really like me. For, I have never been to Zaveri Bazaar and Opera House. The last time I went to Kabutar-khana was five years ago. Needless to say, I wasn't among those odd people who died on that odd day: 13th.

Thank you. Thank you, also, in anticipation.

Since 1945

2011-07-23T14:28:00.001+05:30

Reading about reports on blast and shooting in Norway yesterday, what stuck me the most was this refrain: "Norway has sufferred the worst attack in its post-war history as the terrorists bombed....."

Post-war history. That is, since 1945 they had not witnessed anything like this. Imagine.

भानगड

2011-07-19T10:12:00.001+05:30

परवा गिरीमित्र संमेलनामध्ये सुधीर गाडगीळ यांनी बाबासाहेब पुरंदरे यांची मुलाखत घेतली.

गाडगीळ: बाबासाहेब, चढायला सगळ्यात अवघड गड कुठला?

पुरंदरे: भानगड.

Barrister

2011-07-15T15:52:00.004+05:30

1. "What would the people say if I fill out? So I starve myself. I keep working, I grind grain for neighbours if my supplies are full; I walk around Maruti five hundred times a day. All this, so that I shouldn't put on weight."

So says Mavshi (Marathi for mother's sister) in Jay-vant Dalvi's play Barrister. Her's is not the anorexia that afflicts some women in the modern world. Her anorexia is a gift of the Hinduism which prescribes a life of self-denial for widows. It also prescribes that a widow should wear nothing but a red saari, no ornaments, and her head be always shaved. She is not supposed to look nubile.

Barrister is set in early 1920s, in a small town in Maharashtra, presumably somewhere in Konkan. Rao-saheb, the protagonist, is a London-returned barrister, a 40-something bachelor. He lives in a spacious house with his Mavashi, and elder brother who has gone mad. Insanity runs in the family; barrister's father disappeared some years ago after losing it completely. The brother, once a dynamic, intelligent man and an associate of Lokmanya Tilak, no less, too is fully "gone". He sits in a rocking-chair all day and comprehends nothing. Barrister himself is a successful lawyer, a handsome man, but he never forgets the time-bomb that may be lurking in his DNA: how long before this hereditary insanity claims him?

To complicate this anxiety, there are quite a few painful memories. One of which is of a jilted white girl in UK. But the present and closer wrench is Mavashi: who is leading the life of Hindu widow. He, an anglophile, hates her for that, and he hates Hinduism "which has no notions of beauty", "which has interred Mavashi's life".

Faith's real victim is the believer who is brainwashed into submitting to its tyranny. Barrister is tormented by the thought of the starvation -- literal, sexual, aesthetic -- that his beloved aunt is undergoing. It's also a source of constant rage for him.

Bhaurao, a simple, conservative Brahmin of modest circumstances (and modest education), is barrister's tenant, who occupies a small outhouse next door. At the start of the play, he arrives with his newly-wed wife. She is a beauty, barrister says so to Bhaurao's face. "Get rid of your tuft and mustache dear man, you have to match her beauty, you must make yourself attractive," he tells him. And Bhaurao, though he has no use for modern ways, does not mind: at some level he is aware that barrister has no desire for his wife, he is a gentleman to the core. Bhaurao doesn't take the advice on tuft and mustache, but bonds with the barrister. He becomes a loyal audience when barrister vents

his emotional turmoils.

I should not spoil the plot, suffice to say that the play is not destined for a happy ending.

2. To me, the most important thing about Barrister is the portrayal of the modern Hindu man's rage. One does not know what Hindu upper-caste men thought of mindless tyranny of religious laws in the

pre-British era. (Perhaps they found escape in Islam, and later, in Christianity.) But Raja Rammohun Roy, who could be said to be the first Hindu who acquired the modern ideas fully, felt that rage and torment. Roy's sister-in-law was forced to burn herself on husband's pyre when Roy was very young. It gave him a cause: reforms.

Intelligent, thinking Hindus who came into contact with the West naturally introspected, and found that the old world of Hinduism was rotten. Hinduism inflicted misery on two classes: women and Dalits. Dalits were largely out of sight, on the outskirts of the town. But the women were closer home.

The hero of Dalvi's play is perhaps from the last generation of Roy-like men who felt this rage and torment. Because, a sea-change took place in the next couple of decades. Remarriages of widows became common and acceptable, women started going to colleges, started working in offices. A former Dalit man wrote the Constitution of the first Indian republic.

Still, barrister's pain does not fail to move me.

Tweet. Don't Fly

2011-07-14T00:03:00.002+05:30

Home Minister Chidambaram is flying to Mumbai tonight. What the **** for? What will he or for that matter any politician would achieve by visiting sites of blasts and hospitals? The people who are in excruciating pain, would they feel better seeing politicians' faces looming overhead?

But if Chidambaram had decided not to come, he would have faced criticism. Same goes for CM Chavan. His visit to KEM Hospital was pointless, but formality is formality.

Bollywood guys were quick to react; on Twitter. Politicians should take the Tweeter route to convey sympathy to victims.

Shorts In The Rain

2011-07-08T10:42:00.003+05:30

It seems that monsoon has revived. It is pouring outside as I listen to Amir Khan's Miya Malhar (musicindiaonline.com) and write this.

Rain always brings this question to my mind: why did we, the adults, took to wearing long pants/lehengas/saris that reach the ankle and further? Aren't shorts more convenient? And more comfortable too, in a city like Mumbai where sweat drenches you if the rain doesn't? Few years ago, on a Sunday of heavy rains, I wore shorts to the office. It felt great. Ordinarily that wouldn't be socially or officially acceptable. Of course, if one is stepping from home straight into a waiting car under a porch and taking the elevator to the airconditioned office, then long pants pose no problem.

Pants came to us from the West. British men wore breeches in the 17th and 18th century. They reached a little below the knees. Why and how did the breeches evolve into the longer version?

One reason could be that you need good, muscular lower legs if they are going to be exposed. With

long pants, there is no such need.

Use Chits Next Time

2011-06-25T07:51:00.002+05:30

New Yorker's recent online issue has this fine article which fills in an ignorant reader on Raj Rajaratnam scandal in US.

Rajaratnam, a Tamil of Sri Lankan origin, ran a hedge fund called Galleon. (Hedge fund is a mutual fund which uses high-risk, speculative methods: dictionary.com.) He created a few sources in the American corporate sector who provided him pieces of information that ordinary investor had no access to. The most high-profile among these sources was Rajat Gupta, former head of McKinsey. One instance of this scam: In September 2008, Gupta participated in board meeting of Goldman Sach, an investment bank. The board discussed a proposal by Warren Buffet to invest five billion dollars (How much is that in rupees?). The meeting ended at 3.54 pm. At 3.58, "just two minutes before markets closed", Gupta called Rajaratnam's office. Rajaratnam placed order for 3,50,000 shares of Goldman. The news of Buffet's investment was out later that night, and the stock rose.

One month later, Gupta called Rajaratnam as Goldman was going to announce an unexpected quarterly loss. RR immediately sold the stock.

RR was eventually prosecuted and sentenced. Gupta is facing a civil suit. The question in my mind is:

Could what Gupta and RR did be termed a crime? and are such practices really avoidable in the stock market?

One can accept the proposition that misleading investors by cooking up account books, or by not disclosing something that the statute require you to, can be called a fraud. Gupta and RR were not planting wrong information; they were using the right information ahead of the public. But in any case, the stock was bound to move after the news of Buffet's investment or unexpected losses came out. This is a risk an investor who is not inside the company takes. So why blame RR and Gupta? They had an unfair advantage, true. But that is unavoidable, someone will always be more knowledgeable than ordinary investors. Consider a situation like this: Anil Ambani and

Mukesh Ambani slugged it out over gas supply agreement in the court. The hearings were reported on daily. But reporting can not give a full account of happenings. Wouldn't someone present in the court -- among lawyers, or company officials -- have had a better chance of guessing which way the judgement was going? An ordinary investor could not have attended every hearing in the Supreme Court in Delhi.

The insider trading is also unavoidable because of difficulties in proving it. In RR's case, he and his sources used phones, instant messaging, etc, to communicate. His phones were tapped, and instant messages left trails. They were stupid. Future scamsters should use the methods of old-day spies: drop-boxes, passing of chits of paper while brushing past in the crowd, suchlike. The chit should be eaten up after reading.

P.S: The word chit originated in the Indian sub-continent (Chithhi in Hindi/Marathi). So did Messrs Rajaratnam and Gupta.

Where Eagles Dare

2011-06-17T10:41:00.002+05:30

1. I stumbled upon a 2010 article by the late J Dey while reading about him on Sans Serif blog.

Using metaphors -- encounter specialists as eagles, underworld henchmen as parrots -- Dey writes:

There are, in fact no eagles left...The death of Vijay Salaskar ended long campaign against the underworld by the encounter specialists of 1983 batch. Twenty members of the batch gunned down around 600 gangsters between 1995 and 2001.

Almost all the eagles have gone into hibernation...species may soon get extinct..... It may be too late to do anything once the parrots take charge. Many more lives would have been lost by then.

Dey doesn't go into the debate whether "encounters" should have a place in fight against crime. He says it loud and clear: if you want to decimate Mumbai underworld, unleash `eagles'.

And he wasn't some right-wing loony politician gunning for swift justice at a public rally. A veteran crime reporter is saying this, for he knew that short of killing the gangsters, there is little else that our system can do to terrorize them.

2. But the eagles that Dey talks about often became more than the killing talons of the law. Yesterday, Gujarat High Court ordered CBI probe in an allegedly fake encounter of one Sadiq Mehtar in 2003. The last para of the PTI story was startling.

It said that the petitioner, Sadiq's brother (who had alleged that it was a fake encounter), had relied on an affidavit filed in Mumbai court by former journalist Ketan Tirodkar.

Tirodkar had levelled several allegations against the famous encounter specialist of Mumbai police, Daya Nayak. One of the allegations was that Sadiq was in fact in Nayak's custody. Nayak handed him over to Gujarat police, two days before the `encounter' in Ahmedabad, to "oblige a big politician of Gujarat".

On Loan

2011-06-14T10:44:00.002+05:30

Gopinath Munde is sulking again. Actually he has been sulking since Pramod Mahajan's death. These days he is sulking a tad too more. His bete noir, Nitin Gadkari, is now the national president of BJP. Munde's writ doesn't run anymore. He is now BJP's deputy leader in Lok Sabha, but Munde is not the kind of leader who can make a mark in the Parliament.

Speculation is that he might leave the party. Seems unlikely, but if that happens, it would be a blow to BJP. They have no other mass leader in the state.

But switching the employer wouldn't be easy for Munde either. Where would he, a vociferous Hindutva man, go? Rane did manage a cross-over successfully, but it is, still, a very uncomfortable route to take.

I propose a solution: BJP should loan Munde to its alliance partner, Shiv Sena. Sena has no crowd-pulling leader left now. Munde can revive Sena in the hinterlands. He should not make Uddhav insecure. He can operate in Marathwada and Vidarbha, leaving Mumbai and Konkan to the Thackeray family and Sena's (surviving) old guard.

Dey's Murder

2011-06-14T10:29:00.002+05:30

Being an Indian Express reader, J Dey was a familiar and respect-inducing byline to me. I lost track of his writing after he quit, to joint HT. (I always feel that Indian Express reporters do not perform that well after they jump to another newspaper.)

Dey's daylight murder can mean any of the following things.

One: The underworld men who ordered it have acquired impunity. They did not care that police may turn up the heat on the gangs afterwards. Generally, the underworld has an unspoken compact with the police. They do not do the things that would make the middle classes, intelligentsia, the people who can make noise, insecure. They also keep the police sweet. In return police let them carry on their businesses. Sometimes police become partners in those businesses. This compact was broken when Dey was killed.

Two: The underworld hasn't yet acquired impunity, but Dey was onto something so big, something so damaging if he were to write about it, that he had to be eliminated. The stakes were too high.

Three: Or the people who killed weren't a part of Mumbai underworld.

One interesting thing that I noticed soon after the murder was Chhagan Bhujbal's quick reaction. He was probably the first among the politicians to condemn the killing. May be he sniffed an opportunity here to snatch R R Patil's job. (To be fair to him, Bhujbal must be knowing Dey quite well, he had launched one of Dey's books sometime back.)

St Vs Hussain, Jhumri Tilaiya

2011-06-11T13:25:00.002+05:30

M F Hussain was facing 900-odd court cases in different parts of India, he told a newschannel a few years ago. I don't know if the number is correct, but certainly there were many cases filed.

All these cases (I am guessing) sprang from the section 295 (A) of Indian Penal Code. The section makes "hurting religious sentiments" an offence.

Some of the acts which IPC defines as a punishable can be called "perceived offences". (A section about "obscenity" is another example.) Badmouthing a religion, or presenting nudity does no actual harm, it is just perceived to have done harm. Whether such offences should remain on the statute-book is debatable. If you ask me, they shouldn't, they undercut freedom of expression. If you don't want to hear what I say or read what I write or see what I paint, be my guest, but why punish me for that?

However, Hussain could have still dealt with the cases that were filed against him for painting nude goddesses. What made it insufferable was that cases weren't filed in a single court; they were all over the land. Eventually Supreme Court ordered that all these cases be clubbed, and tried before one court.

This mischief became possible because of a provision in the Criminal Procedure Code. It says that a case can be filed where the victim is staying. The Hindu Fundoos who were so hurt and bleeding because of those nudes, could simply register a case in the court next-door, wherever they lived. They did not need to travel to Mumbai, where Hussain lived. Hussain was supposed to run from one court to another.

South Indian actor Khushboo faced the same harassment when she made some harmless statement about women's rights. Cases sprang up all over Tamil Nadu and outside.

So as a homage to Hussain's memory, the law-makers can do this: amend the CrPC. In offences such as 295 A, where the "victim" is hurt only in the mind, a case should be allowed to be registered only where the offender is staying.

Vidia Vs Half the World

2011-06-04T23:24:00.001+05:30

It's time I jumped to the defense of my icon, V S Naipaul.

Women of the world are aghast and angry with him for his latest remarks. In an interview, he was asked which woman author he thought was his equal. He said no one. Not even Jane Austen? No.

Then he added, for good measure, that sentimentality, and narrow view of the world marks women's writing.

After he shot this bolt, hell broke loose. Scorned women are furious. "Get well soon Naipaul," Shobha De tweeted. (To be fair, she also added, in her reaction to Mid-Day, that Naipaul is genius.) Another lady said that he should see a shrink.

Phew.

I have this to say in his defense:

You may disagree with him. But admit one thing: he didn't try to be diplomatic. He did not, for e.g., said, "It's for the readers to decide, I can't say anything" or some such tosh. He said what he thought, though that was unflattering to the ears of half the world. Please remember that he did not offer this insult gratuitously. A question had been hurled at him, he answered it honestly.

His generalization about women being sentimental etc could be utterly wrong, of course. My reading is very limited, so I can't say. The same goes apropos Austen: I haven't read a single novel of hers, so have no opinion.

The Sena (& Maharashtra) Story

2011-06-04T09:55:00.003+05:30

After reading The Sena Story, Vaibhav Purandare' book on Shiv Sena, I felt I should have read it much earlier.

The book offers certain valuable insights into the political history of Maharashtra, and Hindutva.

Hindutva wasn't a later ideological shift for Shiv Sena; Muslim-bashing figured on its agenda from the start. In 1969, within three years of its formation, it jumped into a quarrel between Hindus and Muslim over ownership of a shrine near Bhivandi.

For several years, Sena openly allied with Congress. A typical deal would be giving support to Congress in Assembly elections, in return for a couple of seats in the Legislative Council. It unabashedly supported emergency. I don't think it was because Thackeray was afraid of government's crack-down, it seems he genuinely thought that this kind of quasi-dictatorship was a good thing for the country.

Unlike Sena, BJP was not much enthusiastic about going the whole hog on Hindutva. Hindutva plank had not paid before 1977, so it had no hesitation to dissolve itself into Janata Party under JP. Even after quitting Janata, it fiddled with Gandhian Socialism (whatever that was). In fact until 1989, the remnant of Janata Party in Maharashtra -- headed by Mrinal Gore and others -- happily allied with BJP during the polls. (Where is Janata Party these days?)

BJP endorsed militant Hindtutva in 1989, with Ramjanmabhoomi movement. But before that, in Maharashtra, Shiv Sena had adopted it, and it was seen to be working. Around 1987 Sena put up a good showing in Aurangabad civic polls presenting itself as saviour of Hindus. Similarly, it won Assembly by-election in Vile-Parle (Mumbai), which had a sizable Gujarati population. Its candidate was a Maharashtrian. BJP had supported a secular Gujarati candidate in that election.

So, possibly, Sena's success was one of the things that persuaded BJP to switch to Hindutva. It was unfortunate, but it brought it unprecedented electoral success.

Lastly, it can be surmised, after getting an overview of Maharashtra politics during 1977-1986, what Sharad Pawar could have been. He was the sole leader around whom all non-Congress parties could rally. Both BJP and Janata party were with his Congress (S), a break-away outfit. He had vowed never to return to the Congress. That he did in 1986.

Purandare says that in doing so, he betrayed the trust of young political workers from rural Maharashtra who had come out of socialist movements of the 1970s. They were now rudderless, and they drifted to Shiv Sena.

I forget where I read this, but Rajiv Gandhi once supposedly said that he regretted taking Pawar back into Congress, because it created a void in the Maharashtra opposition, and Shiv Sena filled that void.

I guess he was right. Pawar's return to Congress made his reputation as someone who could not be trusted. He could not remain out of power for long, it seems. (Upon return to Congress, he was made the CM.) He could have built a solid alternative to Congress in the state over the years. His later venture, NCP, is full of shady characters, and has as much ideological foundation as Arun Gawli's political party. Worse, it can not but sleep with Congress.

Which One?

2011-06-02T10:15:00.001+05:30

Shekhar Gupta on Walk The Talk with Alyque Padamsee:

SG: What about drama in real life? Our common friend, Rama Bijapurkar, told me about her fist meeting with you as a trainee at Lintas. Your secretary came in to say Mrs Padamsee is calling, and you said, "Idiot, tell me which one? There are three. One was your mom...."

AP: You are making that up.

Crutches

2011-05-23T10:16:00.003+05:30

New Delhi: As the UPA - II celebrates its second anniversary, a veteran Congress leader today said it is time Priyanka Vadra's children, Raihan and Miraya, get into active politics to help the party get back to power on its own in the 2014 general elections by discarding the "crutches".

Vasant Sathe said that if the Congress' "first family" -- Sonia Gandhi , Rahul, Priyanka, Raihan and Miraya -- embark on a vigorous mass contact drive in the months and years to come, the party could restore the past glory of single party rule in the next Lok Sabha polls.

"I tell you with guarantee that if Sonia, Rahul, Priyanka, Raihan and Miraya go out all over the country, then you will see a revival of the Congress with the emergence of a vibrant organisation. There are no short cuts. It is time to throw the crutches," the 86-year-old former union minister told PTI.....

Ok, I was joking. In reality, Mr. Sathe only talked about Priyanka Vadra, not her children. But ten years hence, and he would be urging

Raihan and Miraya to get into active politics. Wish you a long life, Mr. Sathe. (Honestly, I didn't know he was still around.)

Of course, I wouldn't mind if Priyanka joins politics. She looks and sounds better than Manmohan Singh.

PS: I liked the metaphor of "crutches". No irony perceived.

Pain & Killer

2011-05-17T19:58:00.001+05:30

Human intervention in the planet's affairs has messed up the place. That, of course, began thousands of years ago, when we learnt to light a fire.

Diclofenac is a painkiller, used in human drugs. It is also administered to animals.

People use it to treat cattle. Traces of the drug remain the animal's body even after its death. Then it becomes deadly: because it kills vultures, which feed on the dead cattle. Vulture population is decreasing fast in the Indian subcontinent, and Diclofenac is considered to be one of the culprits.

So a few years ago, the government banned its use as a painkiller for the cattle. Hopefully it will help vultures.

But still, the drug is used, illegally. Why? because the other for-cattle painkillers in the market are costlier.

Look at how perverse the situation is: We, humans, domesticate some animals. To sustain them, we pump some chemical into their bodies. And that chemical -- supposed to relieve the poor cattle of pain -- kills vultures.

But without Diclofenac, there would be no cheap painkiller for the four-hoofed ones. What a situation, from non-humans' point of view.

मार्क्सबाबाची कहाणी

2011-05-13T12:31:00.000+05:30

एकदा काय झाले, एक आटपाट गाव होते. तिथे एक राजा होता. तो राजा कसा झाला? ऐका ऐका. त्याने मार्क्सबाबाची मनोभावे भक्ती केली. बारा वर्षे तप केले. खाल्ले नाही, प्यायले नाही. कोका कोला पिणार नाही, बर्गर खाणार नाही असा वसा घेतला. लाल वस्त्रे सतत परिधान केली, दास कापितालचे रोज पठण केले.

मग पुढे मार्क्सबाबा त्यावर प्रसन्न झाला. त्याने भक्ताला राज्य दिले. भक्त राज्य करू लागला.

मग पुढे काय झाले? भक्ताने सात युगे राज्य केले. पण पुढे पुढे भक्त उतला. भक्त मातला. तो मार्क्सबाबाची पोथी वाचेनसा झाला. बर्गर खाऊ लागला. कोका कोला पिऊ लागला. मार्क्सबाबाने हे पहिले. तो कोपला. त्याने ममतादेवीचा अवतार घेतला, व राजाचा निप्पात केला.

मार्क्स बाबा जसा राजावर कोपला तसा तुमच्या-आमच्यावर कोपू नये म्हणून काय करावे.ऐका ऐका. रोज सकाळी लवकर उठावे. लाल वस्त्रे परिधान करावीत. मार्क्स बाबाची पोथी वाचावी. संध्याकाळी लेनिनची आरती करावी. वर्षाकाठी एकदा चीन देशाची यात्रा करावी. सतत मार्क्सबाबाचा जप करावा. तर मग बाबा तुमच्या-आमच्यावर प्रसन्न होईल. आलेली बला टळेल. मुला -बाळांना अमेरिकेचे ग्रीन कार्ड मिळेल. अशी ही साता उत्तरांची कहाणी सुफळ संपूर्ण.

Unto The Last Tribal

2011-05-12T09:18:00.000+05:30

Shekhar Gupta, apropos Maoist/Naxal movement:

"This revolution will be led by non-tribals, and fought, if they had their way, to the last tribal."

Nip It in the Bud

2011-05-12T09:03:00.000+05:30

Jasmine is a nice little plant on which grow fragrant white flowers. No?

No Comrades. It has, these days, achieved the status of a contraband in China. This NYT story says that last month government cancelled an international jasmine festival. It can not be sold in markets. Ancient paeans to the flower can not be sung. One flower-seller said that she was told by police to report those who sought to buy the flowers.

Why?

Because the revolutionaries in Tunisia, on the Atlantic coast, have labelled their movement for democracy a "Jasmine Revolution". And those anti-revolutionaries in China -- read democracy-seekers -- have taken a fancy to the label.

So, no jasmines. They are a threat to the People's Republic of China, the number 2 economy of the world.

Uncle, Ball Please

2011-05-05T09:53:00.002+05:30

Imagine this:

Kids are playing cricket. Someone hits the ball hard and off it goes over compound wall of a bungalow.

Kids knock on gate. A man emerges.

"Yeah?"

"Uncle, our ball went inside. Can we go in and look?'

"No way."

"Uncle, please..."

"Look, why don't you take this 50 bucks, and get yourself a new one."

That perplexes the kids. Who would pay Rs 50 when all they demanded was an entry to retrieve a ball?

They take the money and leave.

This happens a couple of days later too.

Now one kid says: "The guys inside seem like nuts. Let's hit the ball over the wall again..."

Damn Obama. He sent choppers into that compound. No more easy 50 bucks.

Sleeping With Fishes

2011-05-03T10:21:00.001+05:30

Just thought of a headline on Osama:

Laden Sleeps With Fishes

Those who have read `Godfather' would get it quicker. In the novel, when Luca Brasi, Don Corleone's henchman, is killed, the rivals sent a dead fish to Don's house. One of the men present at the house explains: "It means Brasi is sleeping on the bottom of the ocean. It's an old Sicilian message."

In the film, it's more explicit: "It's a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes."

Postscript: quite a few people have used this phrase writing about Laden's death. Google it.

What makes it too fitting is the fact that Laden actually got burial at sea.

Who?

2011-05-02T12:29:00.001+05:30

Two hours after the news of Bin Laden's death broke, I wrote on gmail status:

Osama Found, Khandu Forgotten

A friend -- a journalist -- pinged: Khandu?

Butter Leave Them Alone

2011-05-01T17:55:00.002+05:30

Today's Express Eye carries a story on Amul hoarding ads, which always have something to say about current events. But sometimes, they do not dare say anything.

....Another time, the Shiv Sena took umbrage when the line for one ad, around the time of Ganesh Chaturthi, said, `Ganpati Bappa More Ghya'.

"We have been in trouble for a few ads, but over time, we have figured that certain topics are better left untouched," says Jhaveri. The Shiv Sena and the MNS, for instance, are spared the sharp edge of the butter knife. Given the volatile nature of the two parties, this approach is pragmatic. "We don't want them to come to our office and create trouble."

I am sure Thackerays -- of both Senas -- would be glad to know this. You had butter not mess with us, Amul babe.

Miss Unwanted?... Present Sir

2011-04-25T09:47:00.002+05:30

Haryana has the worst sex ratio in the country. It is also notorious for its khap panchayats which pass death sentences on lovers now and then. I often think that the north is socially much more backward than Maharashtra. But wait, here is an Indian Express story by Nisha Nambiar:

When Sitaram and Ramabai had their fourth child, a girl, they did not have the usual naming ceremony. The couple had held grand naming ceremonies for their other three daughters, but they did not even want to think of a name for their fourth child and started calling her Nakoshi. That's Marathi for `unwanted one'. Today, the five- year-old girl goes to school and continues to be called by the same name.

She has 222 namesakes in Satara district (western Maharashtra), according to an official survey.

Born Good

2011-04-21T08:49:00.002+05:30

According to a PIL filed by Ketan Tirodkar in the Bombay High Court, following people have got flats from

`Chief Minister's quota':

Ashok Chavan's mother-in-law

Narayan Rane's brother

Prakash Javadekar's son and daughter

Pratap Pawar -- Sharad Pawar's brother -- in "intense need" category

Chhagan Bhujbal

Sameer Bhujbal.

Tirodkar has demanded inquiry. He should demand abolition of the CM's quota. Believe me, the aforementioned gentlemen aren't congenitally corrupt. That quota made them corrupt; as it had many a journalist too.

Spirituality & Accidents

2011-04-18T21:12:00.002+05:30

Week after week, people say nicely-worded nonsensical things about spirituality in Nadine Kreisberger's column in Sunday Express. You would not have suspected some of them to be so articulate and literate. But

Ramchandra Guha provides a relief this time:

Nadine: What does the word spirituality means to you?

Guha: Nothing at all.

Nadine: In India everybody uses this word...

Guha: Not me. Not this Indian! ....Spirituality is one of those utterly meaningless, pointless words. It should be abolished from the English language.

Nadine: When you look at life and how it unfolds...

Guha: I don't look at my life in that way.

I had a good laugh.

I am an atheist. Last week I edited a couple of accident stories, sent by our outstation stingers. In two cases, victims were returning after attending a yatra. In another case, a rock fell on a woman who was going around the temple -- doing pradakshina. She died on the spot.

Then, on the local train this morning, my neighbour was telling his companion about someone who died in a car accident while returning from Shirdi.

An old question revives in my head: how do the victims' relatives look at such deaths? Do they shake their faith?

Limit

2011-04-14T13:23:00.001+05:30

Here is a killer Rajni joke.

A frustrated SMS from Rajnikanth:

सालों, एक हद होती है... यह कौन लिख रहा है के रजनी कान्त ने अपने माँ-बापको पैदा किया?

Jantar-Mantar, Corruption Chhoo!

2011-04-12T00:03:00.004+05:30

Last week, when Anna Hazare said at a rally in Mumbai that he would not return to Maharashtra until Lokpal Bill was passed, I thought he was punching above his weight.

Hazare, till then, was a little-known man at the national level. In Maharashtra, he had become ridiculous. He was someone whose fasts-unto-death were -- to use a Marathi phrase -- as periodic as rains. Like in Gandhi's case, people had ceased to respect his fasting.

Everything has changed. Now he is a national hero, he has displaced Tendulkar and Dhoni.

I feared when he launched the latest fast at Jantar-Mantar that he was on the way to become laughable at the national level. I still have that fear.

His present cause, and the method, have been questioned well by Indian Express. Rest have jumped on the bandwagon led by TOI. He is the second Gandhi, who, if supported whole-heartedly by the people, will overpower the demon of corruption.

I haven't read `Jan' Lokpal Bill. But from what I read in papers, the drafters seem to be naive. If a person chosen by the committee of Nobel laureates and Magsaysay winners, and vested with powers of police, prosecutor, et al, is the answer to corruption, why not go ahead and make the fellow the CEO of the country? Going by this logic, a fan of judicial activism might suggest that Chief Justice of India be made the Supreme Leader of the country, instead of the President. Isn't the present CJI better qualified that the present President?

But even CJI can be as fallible as A Raja; Kapadia's predecessor is facing allegations of corruption. There is no silver bullet, no single law that will have all the answers.

TV channels, especially Times Now, put up a great media-circus at Jantar Mantar. Do honchos of channels, Goswami, Sardesai, Barkha Dutt and others, really believed in Hazare's cause and method? They aren't that dumb, but they encouraged the tamasha, because people were loving it. (The World Cup was over.)

People were loving it, because since last April, there had been four big corruption stories. Commonwealth, Adarsh, Spectrum and Wikileaks. The image that the Prime Minister enjoyed all these years -- Mr Clean, Mr Middle-Class -- is intact, but now utterly useless. And people had seen how angry citizens

flexed their muscles in Egypt, may be some found that inspiring. Hence the TRP.

If you ask me, Hazare is a true Gandhian: like Gandhi, he is too ambitious. Weeding out corruption that the system promotes through one movement, one legislation, one institution is not possible. But wasn't Gandhi similarly ambitious? He thought Congress leaders would remain morally correct if he fasted, he believed Hindus and Muslims would get over dangerous pulls of communal feelings if he fasted some more.

I admire Hazare because of what he achieved in his village three decades back. A friend had visited Ralegan Shindi when we were in college. He had told me: What difference he has made to Ralegaon Shindi can be understood better when one steps out of the village. Ralegan is an island of greenery; the surrounding area is terribly parched.

I wish Hazare hadn't become anti-corruption crusader. He should have stuck to water conservation. A decade later, the pandemic of farmers' suicides started in Vidarbha. Who knows, had Hazare taught Ralegan experiment to Vidarbha, there would have been fewer suicides.

The Accused

2011-04-11T22:35:00.001+05:30

Watch Veena Malik, the Pakistani actress who was a part of Big Boss once, taking on a cleric.
She is facing the allegation that her behaviour and dresses on the show were un-Islamic. She hits out at the cleric: As per the Islam, a cleric can look at a young girl once. But not the second time. You saw me many times on the show. You deserve punishment....

Hilarious, it would have been, if Pakistan was not in the grip of Messrs. Cleric and the brotherhood.

Sadly, while defending herself against the charge of being un-Islamic, Malik keeps swearing by Islam. What's wrong if someone is Un-Islamic, she should have asked. (She would have ended up dead within a few days then.)

Godfather

2011-04-05T21:02:00.002+05:30

Godfather, that cult classic, was released 39 years ago. Marking the anniversary, Atul Sabharwal writes about Indian versions of the film in this piece in Open magazine. He writes mainly about the character of Santino alias Sonny, the hot-headed elder son of the don; how Indian film-makers have treated it.

He doesn't have any great insight. It is hard to agree when he says that Kay Kay Menon's Vishnu in RGV's Sarkar was not an avatar of Sonny but that of Freddy Corleone. Nonsense.

But Sabharwal makes one great point, assuming it's original. The plot of Godfather, he says, can be traced in the lives of Indira Gandhi and her two sons. Indira Gandhi was a ruthless power-addict. She valued loyalty. And it can be suggested that she was unscrupulous about means, because she believed that her sticking to power was in country's interest. So like Vito Corleone, she might have had her own moral code.

Her elder son, Rajiv, stayed away from politics. But the younger son, Sanjay, plunged into it headlong. He was brash, rash, etc., like Sonny. He got killed, possibly because of rash flying, and reluctant Rajiv Gandhi had to step up, to help his mother. Enter Michael Corleone. (To take it further -- like in the film, Rajiv's wife (Italian!) was dead against his entering the politics. But unlike in the sequels, this Michael didn't survive; and the wife is now the most powerful person in India. Varun Gandhi, Sanjay's son, is a full-blooded politician, but in the opposite camp. Nobody yet knows what plans Rahul has for himself. Real life plays out in more interesting ways than film scripts.)

That's an interesting way of looking at three Gandhis.

Talking of Godfather, I first read the Marathi translation of the novel, then the original book, and finally the film and two sequels. Sequels, I feel, were eminently forgettable. But the first part is a classic, and boldly written. Imagine an opening scene, where nothing much happens except an Italian wedding is underway. People sing and dance, but it's not exactly Suraj Barjatya way.

Yet, it's the most important sequence of Godfather. It introduces the characters, and the Italian, family-centric cultural background, which is necessary to understand the idea of Godfather. Corleone isn't just a crime boss; he embodies a Sicilian institution. The wedding sequence says all this. Even later, when the action starts, it isn't flashy, as in other commercial crime films. Godfather almost reminds you of art-house cinema.

I appreciated Ram Gopal Varma for stating in the opening credits of Sarkar that it was a tribute to Godfather. But it was a bad, bad tribute. Who exactly is (Amitabh-played) Subhash Nagre? All that is clear is he is a Maharashtrian. But is he a political leader? Or an underworld figure? Neither fish nor fowl. Godfather is one hell of a script. Why didn't Ramu simply copy it from start to end?

Enemy

2011-04-03T11:09:00.002+05:30

Girish Kuber is right: He writes in yesterday's Lok Satta that it was really stupid for President and PM to congratulate Indian team after victory in Mohali. Would they have congratulated the team after a semi final win over other countries?

We didn't win the world cup in Mohali, It is another thing that many deemed the match against Pakistan to be the real final. Ordinary folks may think of Indo-Pak match as a substitute for war; but government should show more maturity. Whatever we may think of Pakistani army, ISI, and fundoos -- and I hate Pakistanis for giving up Jinnah's idea of a Muslim-majority secular state -- Shahid Afridi is not an enemy. Pratibha Patil should have just opened a bottle of champagne and said cheers to Devisingh Shekhawat.

Final: Live Blogging

2011-04-03T02:34:00.002+05:30

Sri Lanka is finding it very hard in the first 10 overs to score runs. Indian bowlers dominating 100 per cent.

Sangakkara is dangerous: he is gone!

Jayawardhane is in. In every match, one of the Sri Lankans has scored a century, a colleague tells me. Would he score one today? Then we would lose, she says.

He is set now.

Why Srisanth? Dhoni again went by instincts, and he was wrong. All the boundaries in the initial overs came off Srisanth.

45th over, power play: would they go beyond 240-50?

Awesome! Boundary after boundary! What are they heading for? 270 plus?

Last over: boundary, and last ball sixer! Awesome.

I remember an SMS joke that landed in inbox yesterday: "You get Sri Lanka's map free if you buy India's. Such a tiny country, and ambitions of World Cup. Aukat hai kya?

That map part was clever, but the joke was in bad taste.

Indian innings starts.

Sehwag plays first ball defensively. Next delivery: LBW! Review is sought, but he is plump out.

Sachin starts hitting around. Looks relaxed.

Out! Sachin is out! 18!

Lankans almost do a victory lap.

Why do we put Sachin on pedestal? Then the heart-break follows, always.

India is now tottering. I want to throw the scorecard at the guy who thought up that map joke. Dekhi unki aukat?

Office is silent. Commercial breaks are welcome, they give a break from the anxiety of when the next wicket will fall.

I am thinking of tomorrow's headlines: Dreams broken, Billion and 21 Crore Weep, God Fails.

Gambhir and Kohli. They are playing well. Look comfortable. Run rate is good. But 276 seems a big, big chase now.

Gambhir reaches 50. I had read yesterday in a newspaper column that he is supposed to be the best player of spin. Needed now, when Murali comes.

I decide to go out. There are not many stories on the desk to edit.

Roads seem dark, silent, empty. Wankhede is a 15-min walk from office. I am happy I am not there.

Hotels are closed. I buy a pack of biscuits at a hole-in-the-wall shop. A man strolls by and tells the owner that three wickets are down.

"Banayenge. Aaramse banayenge," the owner says. The tone is very reassuring. Or he is not serious?

Dhoni comes in. India reaches 150/3. Not bad.

TV in the office is now almost muted.

I find some stories to edit.

195/3! Dhoni 44, Gambhir 89. Come on boy, get century.

Dhoni hits boundary, and reaches fifty. Removes the helmet and blows his nose. Yuvraj applauds from pavilion.

206/3. Gambhir's bat gets chipped at the tip. He seeks new bat. The chipped bat can be auctioned if we win tonight.

Match is going one-sided, a senior colleague on the desk says. One-sided, indeed.

Malinga's offside delivery: Dhoni just flicks away and runs. Beautiful temperament this man is showing. The over is over. Now i can't wait for commercial breaks to get over.

People say Dhoni is lucky, and true, successful people need luck too. Sachin getting five lives in Mohali was a part of Dhoni's luck as a captain. But today its not luck that is serving him. Its the best temperament in the game that is at work.

Wide balls, mis-fielding. 10 runs off Murali over.

Dhoni hits a drive. Four. Neeta Ambani, grinning, waves tri-colour. Aamir waves tri-colour.

Dhoni's helmet is off. His head and hair sweat-soaked. He looks as if primed for some street fight.

TV scroll says Gambhir's best score against Lanka is 150. He is in form, poor Lankans.

Gambhir out! Clean bowled. Went down the wicket. Why? Why?

Match is again not so one-sided.

Yuvi comes. Last match's memory...dismissal off the first ball...

He opens the account with a four. Does he have no fear? I can feel tension in my fingertips. What kind of tension these guys -- out playing in the middle of Wankhede -- must be experiencing? Can't imagine.

MSD hits first sixer in the Indian innings. 37 runs, 41 balls now. A run-out appeal; review sought. He seems to be out, but no, third umpire doesn't think so. Lankans are unlucky.

Mandatory power-play. Lasinga's first three balls to Yuvi. No run! Fourth ball: again no run. (The man who thought of introducing this power play thing must be congratulated. Makes the game interesting.) Two runs come off last two balls.

Next over goes like this: 1, 4, 1, 4, 0, 1. Match is over.

MSD hits a sixer. What a way, what a way to win - the World Cup!

Juice of Candour

2011-03-28T23:00:00.002+05:30

Apropos wikileaks cables:

Many people would have felt that top Indian leaders speak with a remarkable candour when audience comprises the American ambassador. Take, for e.g., what Chidambaram said to ambassador Roemer. India would have been better off without the northern states, he said. A cabinet minister is not supposed to say this; but haven't we already acknowledged this fact by coining the term "BIMARU" states?

Chiddu dared say this, because it was supposed to be a private conversation. He probably did not know that Roemer would put that in the report to Washington, and he certainly would not have known of a guy called Assange at the time.

What's really striking is the frankness. Chidambaram is not known to be a garrulous man, he never opens up when he gives interviews. He has a lawyer's control over his tongue.

But he (allegedly) opened up when speaking to a firangi, the US ambassador. So did that another top lawyer: Arun Jaitley. (Again, allegedly. They being lawyers, one must be careful.) Why? Would they have been as frank with, say, an Indian journalist in an off-the-record chit-chat? And could it happen other way round? Would Mrs Clinton or Mr Robert Gates ever be so confiding in an Indian ambassador?

The fact is, we admire Americans. We crave their attention; and if we get it -- by the virtue of being a top BJP leader, or a number-3 cabinet minister -- we go candid. Because candour can often impress, and we want to impress those we look up to.

Nothing wrong in that; if you ask me. Especially when the fruit of candour leaks, and becomes a journalistic juice. So much edification the Hindu reportage has provided!

बैल, सामना, व मराठी

2011-03-26T13:48:00.001+05:30

दैनिक सामनाच्या आजच्या अग्रलेखातील वाक्य:

"अजित पवार यांच्या पार्श्वभागाला त्यांच्या काकासाहेबांनी शेण लावले म्हणून त्यांना बैल म्हणायचे. नाही तर त्यांना विधिमंडळाच्या आसपासही कोणी फिरकू दिले नसते."

हे वाचून हसू आले. "पार्श्वभागाला शेण लावले म्हणून बैल म्हणायचे" हा वाक्प्रचार पहिल्यांदाच -- बहुधा -- वाचनात आला.

सामनाकारांच्या मराठीला दाद दिली पाहिजे.

बाळासाहेब, तुमचे (आणि तुमच्या वडलांचे) खरे वारसदार संजय राउत आहेत. उद्धव/ आदित्य ठाकरे नव्हेत.

Yeats In Libya

2011-03-24T13:02:00.001+05:30

Four journalists of New York Times were captured by Libyan army last week. First there were beatings. A woman among them was groped by the soldiers.

Later, they were handed over to Libyan Foreign Ministry officials who apologised for the rough treatment. But they stayed in captivity for four more days, killing time by reading Shakespeare: a set of plays was there in the house where they were held.

End of this captivity -- as narrated in this NYT story -- was surreal. A Libyan official murmured these two lines by Yeats:

Those that I fight I do not hate

Those that I guard I do not love.

Mightier Than Sword

2011-03-23T09:30:00.001+05:30

From Bachi Karkaria's book on Times of India:

Khushwant Singh's favourite (subeditorial- slip) was the headline `Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword' appearing without a space between the first two words.

`Public' is a more common minefield, the big fear being that it will appear without the crucial `I'. .....Let us record the time it happened on the watch of hapless Cecilia. To make the matters worse, the sin of omission again took place throughout an article on the Union Public Service Commission.

Existence of Mr. Kapur

2011-03-22T15:48:00.002+05:30

Julian Assagne told NDTV last night that the diplomatic cables -- published by Hindu -- were genuine. As to whether the information therein was true or not, he can not say anything, he said.

Let's see.

The cables said that one Nachiketa Kapur, an aide to Satish Sharma, showed the US guy a chest filled with money. It was the war-chest: for the battle of numbers in the Parliament.

The day Hindu broke the story -- with one of the worst intros I have ever read, but let's not go into that now -- Sharma denied the charges. "I don't know any Nachiketa Kapur," he said. "Never had any aide by that name."

Sharma said this on TV. I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own two ears.

He was lying. Because Nachiketa Kapur, who later appeared on TV, admitted that he was close to Sharma. But rest of the story was false, he said.

As to how close Kapur was to captain Satish Sharma, one of the Rajiv Gandhi's men, read this snippet in Indian Express.

One can understand an unequivocal denial of the allegation that money was paid to buy votes.

But how could Sharma deny, with the same un-equivocation, that he even knew any Nachiketa Kapur? The denial was so ludicrous, that a psychologist would draw only one conclusion: Sharma had panicked absolutely.

He could have simply said: `Yes, Kapur is my man, but as to the chest full of money, I have no idea what you are talking about' . That would have been a sensible reply, whatever the truth may be.

Sharma's lying, and the under-lying panic: you don't need to be a shrink to draw a conclusion from that, do you?

Toll Naka

2011-03-21T19:46:00.000+05:30

On Kofee with Karan:

KJ to John Abraham: Ok, John, now that we have established that you have this very sexy looking house, tell us. How many (girls) have been there so far? What's the toll?

John: Toll?...well, my house is a toll naka!

The Last Bite

2011-03-16T00:16:00.002+05:30

"A snake attacked an Israeli model during a sexy photoshoot by biting into her surgically enhanced breast and later died from silicone poisoning."

Now that I have your undivided attention, check the remaining story. There is a video too. Hail internet. RIP, Boa Constrictor. What a way to die.

(Hat tip to SP.)

Ghost

2011-03-13T14:18:00.001+05:30

Our Pune bureau sent in this funny story last week.

An Urdu class of std 5th was underway at a school in Kondhwa. A boy was asked to read the text on the blackboard. He said the blackboard was blank. Then he screamed. He had seen "an egg-shaped" ghost coming out of the board, he said, and bolted out of the room. Other students followed the suit.

The school now has a holiday till March 14th. Other students must be immensely grateful to him.

The story is damn funny. But may be not so funny if you are a kid who believes in ghosts. And there would be many such kids, I guess.

Primates

2011-03-11T14:07:00.001+05:30

1. Gorilla of grief, I read a poet saying once, visits you when you are by yourself,

and when she visits, all you can do is to offer a perch on your bed.

And stare at her. She will go away eventually.

All she needs is a little bit of your time.

Gorilla of grief came to visit me one afternoon,

as I was lying in bed,

and to find the poet's words,

I googled: #Gorilla of grief#. I found you instead.

2. Google said: your name is Gana, a she-gorilla at a German zoo,

And you are, a picture of pure grief.

You lost your baby, the story said, his name was Claudio.

But you held on to his corpse, refusing to accept the death.

Now you held it, now you put it down on the earth,

walked away a little, then turned back, to see if his death was

only a nightmare. But the body remained lifeless.

People wept, seeing your grief.

But you had another baby before Claudio, didn't you, Gana?

Mary. "For inexplicable reasons you rejected her"; away she was taken,

now she, six weeks old, stays in another zoo.

Why did you reject her?

3. My gorilla of grief has a face: someone who didn't love me. But there were others

who offerred me love

on platter, as it were.

I rejected.

You can't ask me why, Gana. And so I, and you, grieve.

OS Kasab

2011-03-11T12:44:00.001+05:30

Via SMS:

Microsoft is calling its next operating system `Kasab'.

The company says it will never hang.

A Nigerian In Cyberabad

2011-03-08T09:32:00.001+05:30

Cyberabad police yesterday arrested a Nigerian for duping a local man. It was what's called Nigerian Lottery Scam: Mr. Nigerian sent an SMS to this man, saying you have won a British lottery. Please deposit Rs 3 lakh in this-and-this account, so that we can process it, and send you your winning amount: 450,000 Pounds. Our man -- the victim -- did deposit Rs 3 lakh. (Cyberabad is a suburb of Hyderabad.)

HIs gullibility wasn't limited to just this. The Nigerian fella also gave him a wad of black notes: He promised to supply a liquid chemical that would turn the notes into pound sterlings.

My first reaction on reading it was to laugh. The Nigerian deserved Rs 3 lakh, I said to a colleague. How could any one fall for this swindle?

But may be, I have begun to feel now, it's not about gullibility. The Hyderabad man could be perfectly sane. Money, like passion, may have that kind of power; the power to make sane men do most weird things, to suspend disbelief.

By the way: why only NIgerians excel in this kind of scam? But he chose the right city: Cyberabad, indeed!

640 a Day

2011-03-06T21:40:00.002+05:30

Right to Information Act be praised. How else we would have got this golden nugget of information?

New Delhi, Mar 6 (PTI) Athletes and officials at Commonwealth Games village seemed to have enjoyed steamy sessions as an average of nearly 640 condoms were used everyday during the 11-day-long sporting extravaganza, statistics from the Delhi Government suggest.

.....In reply to an RTI application, the Health Directorate

of Delhi Government has said 7680 condoms were dispensed with a daily average of 640 condoms.

Terrific, the RTI is. I wonder why the applicant didn't ask for nation-wise break-up of condom consumption at CWG.

But this invariably leads me to my ancient argument: Information mustn't come cheap, when it doesn't concern the applicant personally. The above, for e.g. Such non-personal, just-for-the-sake-of-curiosity information must have a hefty fee attached to it. Government spends precious man-hours on supplying such information. Let it earn something for that.

PS: Congressmen

2011-03-06T13:30:00.001+05:30

And here is the link to Shekhar Gupta's piece on the late Arjun Singh.

Congressmen

2011-03-05T11:22:00.001+05:30

1. Don't forget to read Shekhar Gupta's column in today's Indian Express. Its on Arjun Singh, who died yesterday.

Gupta calls Singh a quintessential Congressman. (Because) He was Loyal to the Gandhi family till the end. Never ceased to try and upstage the non-Gandhi Congress Prime Ministers. Always focussed on a minority constituency. And always pampered local journalists.

A great read; but I could not find internet link. Grab a copy.

2. I K Gujral: does the name ring a bell? He was our PM in 90s. Well, he has written an autobiography. A review in Express reproduces this anecdote:

Once Gujral was summoned by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. I am angry with you, she told him as soon as he entered the room. Why? Because Gujral was still friendly with Dinesh Singh, who she had dropped from her cabinet. "There is no such thing as friendship in the politics," Mrs Gandhi told Gujral.

How did Nehru produce this petty-minded girl? (And he once wrote Discovery of India and Glimpses of World History for her.) Bad luck, it was, for the country.