‘You don’t look like you are from Bihar’ was what an acquaintance once told me at a party. She rolled her eyes and said ‘I mean you sound intelligent’. For a man who can’t fall back on his looks- for the lack of it- to get girls to make a beeline for him at such parties, I am blessed that I was born and spent the first twenty years of my life in Bihar. It ensures pretty young things come to me and then with an all-knowing smirk on their faces ask me ‘What exactly is the problem with Bihar’. Since I like being invited to such parties once in a while, I shrug my shoulders and say ‘don’t get me started on that place. I mean what do I say’. This sort of a response allows me to stay part of their group, the city-sleekers, the Mumbaikars, the French and Yoga classes gang. It allows me to not be mistaken for a Bihari. Because in their world, Bihari is not a word to describe a person born and brought up in Bihar, it is a word that describes a mindset, a virus, an endless capacity to parasitically cling onto the progress of others, an unwanted entity, a burden on the face of the earth. Thanks to Raj Thackeray, Bihari and Bhaiyya have become words that describe several million things at the same time.
As an Indian and as a Bihari – and still maintain a third party view since at the end of the day I’m a Malu born there- I can prove that however much we smirk at Biharis, every Indian is a Bihari. Let me go about proving it.
All history, no future:
A Bihari really loves to boast about how almost all of pre-Mughal history that is taught in our school books has its roots in Bihar. When Hinduism was getting suffocating for the lower castes, two saviours appeared- Gautama Buddha and Mahavir. Where were they from or where did they attain this enlightenment- Bihar. When we talk of the greatest of our kings, who do we think of- Ashok, Chandragup? Bihar again. Which kingdom’s splendour and ferocity made Alexander the Great’s men say enough and no further? The Magadha Saamrajya under the Nandas. The only medieval Islamic king who defeated the Mughals and made public works his life mission? Sher Shah Suri from Rohtas. The same gentleman who made the Grand Trunk Road. So on and so forth. But don’t we see every Indian do this? We invented zero, Aryabhatta, astronomy, plastic surgery blah blah blah. End result- when we went gaga over Chandrayan finding water on the moon’s surface, the foreign papers and a NASA press conference only mentioned their equipment that found water, not a word of Chandarayan which took that equipment to the moon in the first place.
Cultural arrogance:
All the above-mentioned firsts inevitably gives the Bihari a streak of cultural arrogance that borders on nausea. As a Malayali living in Bihari, I was always reminded that we khattaas- the term for all south Indians because of the amount of tamarind we allegedly eat- married in our lungis and all our brides and the womenfolk without fail came to a marriage as widows. That was the Bihari take on the fact that white is the predominant colour in a Mallu marriage.
The Jharkhandis and other tribals were always haadi bootis roots, shoots and rice beer people, or chota jaat. Chota jaat also extended to Yadavs, Kurmis, etc if a Singh was talking. If it were a Mishra Jha or Tiwari speaking, then even a Singh would be a chota jaat. Doesn’t every Indian do this? In cosmopolitan Mumbai I hear colleagues say he is a Kobra, he is a CKP, he is a Deshasht, Maratha, Mahar, Jai Bhim. For us Indians, all south Indians are Madrasis, all Sardars are well dumb sardars, all east of Kolkata are chinkis or nepalis, all people from the mountains are pahadis. All Bengalis are machchees or dadus. Ghatis, Horo, Paandy, Gulti, cutpiece, topaless- mind you not topless. We Indians can give any nation a run for it money with our absolute mastery in cultural obnoxiousness.
Wide range:
Some of the most intelligent people I have met in my life are Biharis. At my school, Bihari students always stood first in almost all classes. These chaps then went on to gain entry into IITs and some went further into the IIMs. A Union HRD survey predicts that by 2025 all districts in India will either have an SP or a Collector or a Magistrate from Bihar. The civil services exam seems like it is made only for Biharis, looking at the numbers who clear it from that state. At the same time some of the biggest idiots I have seen are also Biharis. You will hear old men say that a particular candidate is a ‘full criminal’ but since he is Yadav – or substitute that for Thakur, Kurmi, Bhumihar, Moosahar, Brahmin, Baniya- I will vote for him. ‘Nahi to kya satta yeh haramzade uchche/ chote jaat ko dede?’ he will reason. Biharis vote for crooks who keep Pakistani made guns in their houses, crooks who buy mines in Liberia, crooks who have rape cases against them, murder dacoity, molestation, fraud, you name it and a Bihari will go and vote for that idiot. Are we Indians any different? Look at the recent Maharashtra assembly elections. Sons, fathers, crooks, scamsters, party-hoppers, sons of criminals, absconders, you name it and we have voted for them.
Low self-esteem:
Every Bihari when he moves out of his state feels it impossible to defend his place. I mean can you do anything more than just grin and bear it when every one starts laughing the moment you say Bihar and then follow it up by saying Lalu Prasad Yadav?
So the normal Bihari outside Bihar is a nervous wreck apologetic about the fact that when he came out of his mother’s womb, the mother happened to be within the geographical limits of Bihar. Think for a moment, my fellow Indians. We go abroad, shameful of the fact that we are Indians. We look at their cities in awe, badmouth our system back home, take the smiles and smirks when the average foreigner- only interested in India if he has read Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book or has heard that the Beatles were fairly impressed with some of our yogis- asks us about snake charmers, animal sacrifices, Hindu pagans, elephants, Pushkar, Kumbha and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
There are several more ways I can prove we are all Biharis. But I’m feeling too disgusted to go any further. All I know is Raj will continue to make capital out of the Biharis, Marathis will continue to vote for him and girls will continue to tell me ‘you are from Bihar?’ I will continue with the same response.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
the rascals of Hinduism who shame every Hindu
All those idiots in Goa who claim to be members of the Sanatan Sanstha need to be horsewhipped in public, their heads tonsured and then paraded naked atop donkeys. This way at least the owners of the donkeys will get some money and the donkeys can have some rest from the back-breaking labour they would have to otherwise put in to give its owner that kind of money.
The Goa police is investigating the Sanatan Sanstha group, apparently an upkeeper of Hindu ideals and values, for trying to cause bomb blasts in Goa. Two of the members of this group were killed when a bomb they were allegedly transporting, police claim, blew up.
And what was the reason for this sudden awakening of Hindu ideals in the tourism hotspot? Apparently these idiots had a major problem that in the festivities to commemorate the slaying of demon Narkasur by little Krishna, the idols of Krishna are too small when compared to that of gigantic Narkasur.
Do these bloody right-wing Hindu warriors have any clue about the religion or the state it is in?
I’m convinced if all the Hindu right-wing brains- when I use the phrase right wing I use it for such idiots- are collected at one spot, there wouldn’t be enough intelligence in them to fill up the eye of a needle.
Except for bluster, boasts, outdated myths, cultural apartheid and pseudo religious logic, these idiots will not be able to say one word worth hearing.
Looking at these people if you feel ashamed of being called Hindu, then you can bet your last penny you are dead right in feeling ashamed.
These people are not Hindus. They are mental retards.
A Hindu is someone who can answer correctly two simple questions:
1) Is your chance of dying of cancer higher compared to being shot dead?Do you fear flying planes more or a donkey grazing near you?
The Goa police is investigating the Sanatan Sanstha group, apparently an upkeeper of Hindu ideals and values, for trying to cause bomb blasts in Goa. Two of the members of this group were killed when a bomb they were allegedly transporting, police claim, blew up.
And what was the reason for this sudden awakening of Hindu ideals in the tourism hotspot? Apparently these idiots had a major problem that in the festivities to commemorate the slaying of demon Narkasur by little Krishna, the idols of Krishna are too small when compared to that of gigantic Narkasur.
Do these bloody right-wing Hindu warriors have any clue about the religion or the state it is in?
I’m convinced if all the Hindu right-wing brains- when I use the phrase right wing I use it for such idiots- are collected at one spot, there wouldn’t be enough intelligence in them to fill up the eye of a needle.
Except for bluster, boasts, outdated myths, cultural apartheid and pseudo religious logic, these idiots will not be able to say one word worth hearing.
Looking at these people if you feel ashamed of being called Hindu, then you can bet your last penny you are dead right in feeling ashamed.
These people are not Hindus. They are mental retards.
A Hindu is someone who can answer correctly two simple questions:
1) Is your chance of dying of cancer higher compared to being shot dead?Do you fear flying planes more or a donkey grazing near you?
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Jharkhand: Rich land, poor people,
Growing up in Jharkhand, December was picnic time. Entire families in big noisy groups rented trucks and set out in the bitter cold of early Jharkhand mornings to get to places like Ghatsila, Joeeda- the confluence of the Subarnarekha and Kharkhai rivers- and Dimna for a day of fun and frolic in the winter sun.
These were places which far removed from the hustle and bustle and pollution of industrial Jamshedpur looked like time had stopped since God created them.
But for young boys like us and even grown up men, the picnics of Jharkhand also held another and more important fascination.
In a time when India had just opened up to the outside world under the watchful eyes of Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, internet and easy availability of porn was not an option.
The next best option was hiding behind the cliffs and dry grass growing all along the banks of thinning rivers to watch tribal women bathe, which they always did without any clothes. Abject poverty meant that a change of clothes was for most women never an option and backbreaking physical labour meant that their bodies were taut, without an ounce of fat and glistened in the play of sun and water.
Luckier still getting caught in this act of delicious voyeurism did not come with the fear of getting thrashed by other tribals which was a strange paradox for a people who always saw the non-tribals who have made Jamshedpur their home with great mistrust.
The reason for this paradox was not their naked ladies but their naked children. All through December and January, hordes of families made their way to these places. Any news of a picnicker thrashed by tribals during this season went back to Jamshedpur increased manifold and it usually put a premature end to the picnic season.
With that came to an end the poor tribal’s only chance to have cakes, chicken masala and rice that had aroma rather than a stench.
That is because every year when a group of families took up a scenic spot to enjoy their picnics, small groups of almost full-naked men would arrive with arrows and bows and demand food. The menace- if being ‘civilized’ allows us to use that term- forced people to carry extra food as bribe for the tribals. A few bars of chocolates also got thrown in for the little kids who waited back at the hamlets for their fathers to come back with the ‘loot’. Sundays and public holidays in these two months meant happy hamlets all along these picnic spots.
So that meant that a proud race of people, who even took on the British when the white man took on their customs- remember Birsa Munda- never thrashed city boys ogling at their naked bathing women because that helped their children- those who managed to not end as infant mortality statistics in the block development officer’s file- get food far better than they would probably have all their lives.
In a dirt poor state with more minerals than any other part of India inch by inch, where men allow boys to ogle at their women if it got their kids food, comes the news of a man who while being its chief minister made enough money to buy mines in distant Liberia, set up plants all around Jamshedpur, and make a whopping Rs 400 crores in hawala transactions half way around the world.
Madhu Koda had made history when he became the first Independent MLA to become chief minister. In a state where horse-trading is rampant and government change at the whim and fancies of a handful of MLAs, we probably now know the reason how Koda managed to become CM.
Is it any coincidence that Jharkhand is the most potent naxal laboratory in India? Any coincidence that almost a quarter of the state is inaccessible to cops all round the year, all part of liberated red land?
Who is right, who is wrong? These answers are never easy. In Jharkhand, they are tougher still.
These were places which far removed from the hustle and bustle and pollution of industrial Jamshedpur looked like time had stopped since God created them.
But for young boys like us and even grown up men, the picnics of Jharkhand also held another and more important fascination.
In a time when India had just opened up to the outside world under the watchful eyes of Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, internet and easy availability of porn was not an option.
The next best option was hiding behind the cliffs and dry grass growing all along the banks of thinning rivers to watch tribal women bathe, which they always did without any clothes. Abject poverty meant that a change of clothes was for most women never an option and backbreaking physical labour meant that their bodies were taut, without an ounce of fat and glistened in the play of sun and water.
Luckier still getting caught in this act of delicious voyeurism did not come with the fear of getting thrashed by other tribals which was a strange paradox for a people who always saw the non-tribals who have made Jamshedpur their home with great mistrust.
The reason for this paradox was not their naked ladies but their naked children. All through December and January, hordes of families made their way to these places. Any news of a picnicker thrashed by tribals during this season went back to Jamshedpur increased manifold and it usually put a premature end to the picnic season.
With that came to an end the poor tribal’s only chance to have cakes, chicken masala and rice that had aroma rather than a stench.
That is because every year when a group of families took up a scenic spot to enjoy their picnics, small groups of almost full-naked men would arrive with arrows and bows and demand food. The menace- if being ‘civilized’ allows us to use that term- forced people to carry extra food as bribe for the tribals. A few bars of chocolates also got thrown in for the little kids who waited back at the hamlets for their fathers to come back with the ‘loot’. Sundays and public holidays in these two months meant happy hamlets all along these picnic spots.
So that meant that a proud race of people, who even took on the British when the white man took on their customs- remember Birsa Munda- never thrashed city boys ogling at their naked bathing women because that helped their children- those who managed to not end as infant mortality statistics in the block development officer’s file- get food far better than they would probably have all their lives.
In a dirt poor state with more minerals than any other part of India inch by inch, where men allow boys to ogle at their women if it got their kids food, comes the news of a man who while being its chief minister made enough money to buy mines in distant Liberia, set up plants all around Jamshedpur, and make a whopping Rs 400 crores in hawala transactions half way around the world.
Madhu Koda had made history when he became the first Independent MLA to become chief minister. In a state where horse-trading is rampant and government change at the whim and fancies of a handful of MLAs, we probably now know the reason how Koda managed to become CM.
Is it any coincidence that Jharkhand is the most potent naxal laboratory in India? Any coincidence that almost a quarter of the state is inaccessible to cops all round the year, all part of liberated red land?
Who is right, who is wrong? These answers are never easy. In Jharkhand, they are tougher still.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Gadchiroli attack: what awards?
After 26/11 we all saw the sheer madness that enveloped families of slain policemen to get their departed beloved ones Kirti Chakras and Shaurya Chakras.
Family after family poured their hearts out to the media demanding, you cannot use a lighter word, that their relative displayed bravery of the highest order and deserved whatever chakra the government was doling out.
What did they exactly do? Die at the hands of two crazed Pakistanis. Did they kill anybody? Not till the NSG commandos came in. And of course brave Tukaram Omble who deserved his award.
A day after the naxals, almost 200 strong, armed with assault rifles and in guerilla war formation, mowed down 18 policemen, there is eerie silence.
The state government and the police set-up do not have enough courtesy or thought to send a fax to newspaper offices naming the brave 18. I’m saying brave because these cops, heavily outnumbered almost 10 is to one, fought for four long hours, took bullets all over their bodies and then finally departed like heroes. In the process these cops also killed 15 naxals.
But would they get any award? You bet they won’t because they are tribals from some of the state’s most backward districts and except for joining the police force or the naxal army, they don’t have much of a choice. The press will move on to the next event since unlike a Taj or a Trident, NGOs never come forward to light candles and hold fashion shows in the memory of naxal victims in Gadchiroli. So if there are no candle light vigils or skin-showing ramp walks, then there isn’t much meat in there for the television channels.
So Gadchiroli will be forgotten till the naxals think up their next move to rub mud on conceited faces like that of our all-knowing P Chidambaram. And we will continue giving awards to cops for dying at the hands of the enemy rather than for killing them.
Family after family poured their hearts out to the media demanding, you cannot use a lighter word, that their relative displayed bravery of the highest order and deserved whatever chakra the government was doling out.
What did they exactly do? Die at the hands of two crazed Pakistanis. Did they kill anybody? Not till the NSG commandos came in. And of course brave Tukaram Omble who deserved his award.
A day after the naxals, almost 200 strong, armed with assault rifles and in guerilla war formation, mowed down 18 policemen, there is eerie silence.
The state government and the police set-up do not have enough courtesy or thought to send a fax to newspaper offices naming the brave 18. I’m saying brave because these cops, heavily outnumbered almost 10 is to one, fought for four long hours, took bullets all over their bodies and then finally departed like heroes. In the process these cops also killed 15 naxals.
But would they get any award? You bet they won’t because they are tribals from some of the state’s most backward districts and except for joining the police force or the naxal army, they don’t have much of a choice. The press will move on to the next event since unlike a Taj or a Trident, NGOs never come forward to light candles and hold fashion shows in the memory of naxal victims in Gadchiroli. So if there are no candle light vigils or skin-showing ramp walks, then there isn’t much meat in there for the television channels.
So Gadchiroli will be forgotten till the naxals think up their next move to rub mud on conceited faces like that of our all-knowing P Chidambaram. And we will continue giving awards to cops for dying at the hands of the enemy rather than for killing them.
let us do an IPL on the naxals
The Times of India had an article on a naxal leader in its Mumbai edition a couple of days ago. It was a partly vilification and a partly robinhoodising effort by the paper of 28 year old Kundan Pahan, the Maoist red rascal who ordered the beheading of Jharkhand inspector Francis Indwar.
In an earlier blog, we had touched upon the danger of the Maoist menace disintegrating into a thousand wars led by a hundred warlords if the Indian state didn’t act fast enough. That could be an absolute horror for the country. Imagine swathes of land under the control of different warlords with their own laws, some bordering on insanity.
To get the picture just think of Somalia or closer home the North West Frontier Province.
Coming back to the article, the headline was ‘Veerappan of the East’, referring to Pahan.
It spoke of how he went the bloody red way when rich landlords forced his family out of the village he hailed from. There are no details of when, where, how or what, lending credence to the fact that it might just be a journalistic way of giving a humane face to a man who is acting just the opposite.
So far the movement has been a shadowy one with no newspaper or even the cops managing a picture of Mupalla Laxman Rao or Comrade Ganpathy, as he was known, though with the outing of the moniker he might have changed it.
No one knows the structure of the organisation, or how many members are there in the Politburo or indeed in which part of the ‘liberated’ stretch between ‘Pashupati to Tirupati’ do they meet.
We have not even dwelt enough on the fabulous story of Saket Rajan or Comrade Prem, a man who could have become with some media benevolence and folklore passing of as fact, the Indian version of Che Guevara. Rajan was the son of a strict Army officer, went on to top class from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, was editor of the defunct Mysore Star which wrote scathing articles against uranium mining in India, wrote the encyclopedic History of Kannadigas which is still taught in almost all Karnataka universities, and then left to become the commander of the naxal army in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and known and dreaded by cops as Comrade Prem.
He got killed in a firefight with the Greyhounds of Andhra some years ago.
Rajan died a unheralded death. Let us not make heroes of people like Pahan.
Like the stories we had in some papers – I think DNA- of how mellifluously Ajmal Qasab sang his prayers during Ramzaan.
Let us do to the naxals what Lalit Modi did with the Indian Premier League. Copy the format from the Indian Cricket League, get it officially approved from the IC, spend money, make it a success and force the ICL to shut down.
Similarly let us listen to the naxals, take the good from their rhetoric, implement them with our laws and money and then go after them.
In an earlier blog, we had touched upon the danger of the Maoist menace disintegrating into a thousand wars led by a hundred warlords if the Indian state didn’t act fast enough. That could be an absolute horror for the country. Imagine swathes of land under the control of different warlords with their own laws, some bordering on insanity.
To get the picture just think of Somalia or closer home the North West Frontier Province.
Coming back to the article, the headline was ‘Veerappan of the East’, referring to Pahan.
It spoke of how he went the bloody red way when rich landlords forced his family out of the village he hailed from. There are no details of when, where, how or what, lending credence to the fact that it might just be a journalistic way of giving a humane face to a man who is acting just the opposite.
So far the movement has been a shadowy one with no newspaper or even the cops managing a picture of Mupalla Laxman Rao or Comrade Ganpathy, as he was known, though with the outing of the moniker he might have changed it.
No one knows the structure of the organisation, or how many members are there in the Politburo or indeed in which part of the ‘liberated’ stretch between ‘Pashupati to Tirupati’ do they meet.
We have not even dwelt enough on the fabulous story of Saket Rajan or Comrade Prem, a man who could have become with some media benevolence and folklore passing of as fact, the Indian version of Che Guevara. Rajan was the son of a strict Army officer, went on to top class from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, was editor of the defunct Mysore Star which wrote scathing articles against uranium mining in India, wrote the encyclopedic History of Kannadigas which is still taught in almost all Karnataka universities, and then left to become the commander of the naxal army in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and known and dreaded by cops as Comrade Prem.
He got killed in a firefight with the Greyhounds of Andhra some years ago.
Rajan died a unheralded death. Let us not make heroes of people like Pahan.
Like the stories we had in some papers – I think DNA- of how mellifluously Ajmal Qasab sang his prayers during Ramzaan.
Let us do to the naxals what Lalit Modi did with the Indian Premier League. Copy the format from the Indian Cricket League, get it officially approved from the IC, spend money, make it a success and force the ICL to shut down.
Similarly let us listen to the naxals, take the good from their rhetoric, implement them with our laws and money and then go after them.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
please don't vote, enjoy ur holiday
Hahahaha. This whole legal spiel to voting is very funny. Two days in a row all papers have reported that the state government has dug out some obscure section of the People’s Representation Act which says I bloody well have to go and vote. Even if it is for crooks, tenth fail crorepatis, useless sons of disgusting fathers, liquor-for-votes distributors, absconders etc etc.
Let us give the election commission and the state government a good one on the chin by simply making better use of our holiday.
Do anything but vote. Lets make history by bringing down voting percentages to single-digits.
You vote does not count so why count on it. If you’re afraid of your salary well then let me tell you inflation would have eaten into anyway so why grudge the deduction.
Enjoy your holiday
Let us give the election commission and the state government a good one on the chin by simply making better use of our holiday.
Do anything but vote. Lets make history by bringing down voting percentages to single-digits.
You vote does not count so why count on it. If you’re afraid of your salary well then let me tell you inflation would have eaten into anyway so why grudge the deduction.
Enjoy your holiday
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Naxals behead cop: Just not done
What the naxals did with inspector Francis Indwar in Jharkhand was very very unfortunate. The red movement has been a violent one but before this incident it never looked like one that could be equated with the idiocy of the Taliban.
Indwar was just a foot soldier going about his job. Kidnapping him and then beheading him seems to be the work of some very lazy naxals, the kind who wanted to do something but then went about the shortest and easiest way possible.
Did the naxals of Chottanagpur think that the government would have let free Kobad Ghandy, Chattradhar Mahato and Bhushan Yadav in exchange for Indwar? Indwar was just a lowly inspector and the state couldn’t have cared less. If the naxals wanted to get these guys out, they should have gone for some of the fat cat ministers or senior bureaucrats.
The incident comes on the back of some brownie points the naxals had earned over the past four days. First, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar stated that the Amosi massacre did not seem to be the handiwork of the naxals, something the naxal establishment itself had tried to impress upon the people.
On Wednesday union home minister P Chidambaram during a press briefing in Mumbai clarified that the naxals were not receiving any backing from China and that their funding mechanism was wholly indigenous. Of course the description might have been somewhat different. While Chidambaram called the naxal funding methodology a mix of extortion, ransom and bank robbery, the naxals might themselves be calling this ‘war tax’. In effect what the Home Minister was trying to say was that the red rascal movement is a home-made one, a big thing coming from a government that jumps to look for a foreign hand even in natural calamities if that could help.
But with Francis Indwar, the naxals have undone much. The revolution is an ill wind that blows nobody any good if it leaves behind tears in the eyes of a woman who till yesterday might have thought of herself as just another ‘have-not’ in a huge system governed by a small minority of haves.You idiots owe the people of India an apology.
Indwar was just a foot soldier going about his job. Kidnapping him and then beheading him seems to be the work of some very lazy naxals, the kind who wanted to do something but then went about the shortest and easiest way possible.
Did the naxals of Chottanagpur think that the government would have let free Kobad Ghandy, Chattradhar Mahato and Bhushan Yadav in exchange for Indwar? Indwar was just a lowly inspector and the state couldn’t have cared less. If the naxals wanted to get these guys out, they should have gone for some of the fat cat ministers or senior bureaucrats.
The incident comes on the back of some brownie points the naxals had earned over the past four days. First, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar stated that the Amosi massacre did not seem to be the handiwork of the naxals, something the naxal establishment itself had tried to impress upon the people.
On Wednesday union home minister P Chidambaram during a press briefing in Mumbai clarified that the naxals were not receiving any backing from China and that their funding mechanism was wholly indigenous. Of course the description might have been somewhat different. While Chidambaram called the naxal funding methodology a mix of extortion, ransom and bank robbery, the naxals might themselves be calling this ‘war tax’. In effect what the Home Minister was trying to say was that the red rascal movement is a home-made one, a big thing coming from a government that jumps to look for a foreign hand even in natural calamities if that could help.
But with Francis Indwar, the naxals have undone much. The revolution is an ill wind that blows nobody any good if it leaves behind tears in the eyes of a woman who till yesterday might have thought of herself as just another ‘have-not’ in a huge system governed by a small minority of haves.You idiots owe the people of India an apology.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Pati, Patni aur woh saudagar
One of the most popular pieces of philosophy that gets thrown into any conservation between people vastly jealous of the fun the rich and the famous tend to have in their lives is this---‘ in the highest strata of society and the lowest, things remain much the same.’
I do not know how true this is because fortunately I am not on the lowest rung of the social ladder but unfortunately nor am I in the highest.
But reading an article about the parents who have ‘loaned’ their infants for the NDTV Imagine show ‘Pati Patni aur Woh’, this piece of pop philosophy got me thinking.
If you have ever used Vikhroli station, then you might have seen this group of dirty women- by dirty I mean unwashed, unbathed and untidy and not any of the moral and ethical connotations the word has- who sit on platform number two close to the landing of the overbridge. Every woman has an infant in her arms and a couple of slightly older ones to spare.
Now these women, as any RPF constable will tell you, are part of a group that carry these infants into crowded trains and beg for alms for the kid’s milk and well-being. Most commuters moved by the sight of the little one sleeping peacefully will give a rupee or two.
A crying infant or an ailing one is trouble. That’s because the effort of the day for the ‘mother’ goes wasted in pacifying or tending to the infant rather than in making a sorry face to arouse pity among the commuters and get them to go for their pockets.
I once saw one woman ‘exchange’ an ailing infant for a healthier and sleepier one just as the slow train to CST pulled into platform number 2.
The woman who ‘loaned’ her more begging-friendly kid to the other turned to the leader of the pack and asked the leader to stand surety that the barter would be a fair one.
The barter was that the woman who took the infant into the train would give half her ‘earnings’ to the lady who loaned the kid. The deal was done when the leader, tobacco spittle trailing from her lips, barked at the woman getting into the train.
One such case of a baby swap turned ugly last year when one of these women jumped out of a train with her infant to dart across the tracks when a set of commuters objected to the merciless way she was hushing up a crying infant. A train from the opposite direction knocked her and the infant dead.
Cops say the easiest way to spot whether the infant carried by a beggar woman is her own is to observe if she feeds the infant once his crying gets uncontrollable. If she doesn’t, then she isn’t.
Coming back to those women who have loaned their kids to the NDTV show, is it any different? Obviously these parents- for want of a better word- have been paid handsomely despite the fact that from their mannerisms and language, they appear to be rich, sophisticated and ambitious social climbers. Don’t’ go by what one lady told Mumbai Mirror that they have done it as social welfare, which is making would-be parents understand the finer points of child-rearing. What a joke. The lady either thinks we are idiots or she is a genius many times over.
In several footpath colonies in Mumbai, the money that has to be given to the ‘footpath lord’ can also be paid in kind- usually a lady from the household.
Coming back late from office one night, I observed a fight on a footpath on SV Road right outside Borivali station between people from one such foopath colony. In this case a woman, her hair and clothes disheveled with the nocturnal activity, promised to cut some important parts of the anatomy of a man who was now eyeing her just-touching-puberty daughter.
“The money gets paid by me” the woman barked at that man, who, probably drunk observing his gait, just walked away to the other side of the footpath and life went on as usual.
Probably it might be happening in several of the very rich households as well. Who knows? We have heard of marriages of convenience among rich business families after all. So is the pop philosophy right?
I do not know how true this is because fortunately I am not on the lowest rung of the social ladder but unfortunately nor am I in the highest.
But reading an article about the parents who have ‘loaned’ their infants for the NDTV Imagine show ‘Pati Patni aur Woh’, this piece of pop philosophy got me thinking.
If you have ever used Vikhroli station, then you might have seen this group of dirty women- by dirty I mean unwashed, unbathed and untidy and not any of the moral and ethical connotations the word has- who sit on platform number two close to the landing of the overbridge. Every woman has an infant in her arms and a couple of slightly older ones to spare.
Now these women, as any RPF constable will tell you, are part of a group that carry these infants into crowded trains and beg for alms for the kid’s milk and well-being. Most commuters moved by the sight of the little one sleeping peacefully will give a rupee or two.
A crying infant or an ailing one is trouble. That’s because the effort of the day for the ‘mother’ goes wasted in pacifying or tending to the infant rather than in making a sorry face to arouse pity among the commuters and get them to go for their pockets.
I once saw one woman ‘exchange’ an ailing infant for a healthier and sleepier one just as the slow train to CST pulled into platform number 2.
The woman who ‘loaned’ her more begging-friendly kid to the other turned to the leader of the pack and asked the leader to stand surety that the barter would be a fair one.
The barter was that the woman who took the infant into the train would give half her ‘earnings’ to the lady who loaned the kid. The deal was done when the leader, tobacco spittle trailing from her lips, barked at the woman getting into the train.
One such case of a baby swap turned ugly last year when one of these women jumped out of a train with her infant to dart across the tracks when a set of commuters objected to the merciless way she was hushing up a crying infant. A train from the opposite direction knocked her and the infant dead.
Cops say the easiest way to spot whether the infant carried by a beggar woman is her own is to observe if she feeds the infant once his crying gets uncontrollable. If she doesn’t, then she isn’t.
Coming back to those women who have loaned their kids to the NDTV show, is it any different? Obviously these parents- for want of a better word- have been paid handsomely despite the fact that from their mannerisms and language, they appear to be rich, sophisticated and ambitious social climbers. Don’t’ go by what one lady told Mumbai Mirror that they have done it as social welfare, which is making would-be parents understand the finer points of child-rearing. What a joke. The lady either thinks we are idiots or she is a genius many times over.
In several footpath colonies in Mumbai, the money that has to be given to the ‘footpath lord’ can also be paid in kind- usually a lady from the household.
Coming back late from office one night, I observed a fight on a footpath on SV Road right outside Borivali station between people from one such foopath colony. In this case a woman, her hair and clothes disheveled with the nocturnal activity, promised to cut some important parts of the anatomy of a man who was now eyeing her just-touching-puberty daughter.
“The money gets paid by me” the woman barked at that man, who, probably drunk observing his gait, just walked away to the other side of the footpath and life went on as usual.
Probably it might be happening in several of the very rich households as well. Who knows? We have heard of marriages of convenience among rich business families after all. So is the pop philosophy right?
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Bihar naxal massacre: Don’t’ talk but listen in
The killing of 16 people in Bihar by the naxals, in what was a land dispute and nothing lofty by standards of the Mao-spouting and bullet-spitting red rascals, probably is the start of the next and more dangerous phase for the Indian nation.
The killing, if police is to be believed, was the naxal way of clearing up the social hierarchy that slot itself according to time, circumstances and opportunity.
With the arrival of Nitish Kumar as the doyen of Bihar politics, it is the Kurmis who have become the new Yadavs of Bihar. The Yadavs of course are feeling the pinch of the gradual alienation and frustration they feel with their messiah of the 90s Lalu Prasad Yadav.
The naxal operation was in support of the rat-eating Mushahars, a group that finds itself in the lowest rung of the caste hierarchy because of their fetish for catching, peeling, boiling and eating rats soaked in curry with fistfuls of coarse rice. As in any naxal operation, the end was cold-blooded and left dead bodies strewn all over for a shell-shocked and frightened village to wake up to.
The danger in only a militaristic solution to the fight now is the dismemberment of the so far monolithic People’s War, led by the 13 member Politburo, into a cesspool of individual warlords with small gangs of tribesmen to help them. What we saw in Central Africa especially Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo and Rwanda, could be a reality in India. We have enough tribes, enough castes, more than enough problems of corruption and just not enough honest men in the system we call democracy or India to avert something like this if it were to become a reality. All this could just be the fodder for the dismemberment of the people’s war.
Tomorrow these warlords could block highways, blow up dams, lay siege to mines and forests, kill the ruling elite, declare entire swathes of tribal land independent and then dictate terms to the democratic class. Sadly some of this has already begun.
The time might not be ripe to talk to the naxals- because of their hatred for Indian democracy or the parties in it- but the time is definitely ripe for us to listen in.
What is it that we missed in our 60 years as a welfare state that the naxals picked up? Why are the tribals such ready fodder for the red rascals? Why have we failed with smiles when they are succeeding with the gun?
It is time to go full out into these tribal strongholds and develop them, even if it means suspending democracy in these areas for some time. It is time for Tribal Development Authorities to be carved out of states like Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Andhra and Bihar. A justice system within that of the current one but with quick disposal of cases, inculcating the saner and civil parts of tribal justice dispensation, has to bet set up in these places. Failure could mean the colour red would figure more prominently in the lives of every Indian, only that it wouldn’t be representing piety and gaiety as in the festivals of life, but the fear and shock villagers in Amosi in Bihar’s Khagaria district woke up with on that fateful day.
The killing, if police is to be believed, was the naxal way of clearing up the social hierarchy that slot itself according to time, circumstances and opportunity.
With the arrival of Nitish Kumar as the doyen of Bihar politics, it is the Kurmis who have become the new Yadavs of Bihar. The Yadavs of course are feeling the pinch of the gradual alienation and frustration they feel with their messiah of the 90s Lalu Prasad Yadav.
The naxal operation was in support of the rat-eating Mushahars, a group that finds itself in the lowest rung of the caste hierarchy because of their fetish for catching, peeling, boiling and eating rats soaked in curry with fistfuls of coarse rice. As in any naxal operation, the end was cold-blooded and left dead bodies strewn all over for a shell-shocked and frightened village to wake up to.
The danger in only a militaristic solution to the fight now is the dismemberment of the so far monolithic People’s War, led by the 13 member Politburo, into a cesspool of individual warlords with small gangs of tribesmen to help them. What we saw in Central Africa especially Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo and Rwanda, could be a reality in India. We have enough tribes, enough castes, more than enough problems of corruption and just not enough honest men in the system we call democracy or India to avert something like this if it were to become a reality. All this could just be the fodder for the dismemberment of the people’s war.
Tomorrow these warlords could block highways, blow up dams, lay siege to mines and forests, kill the ruling elite, declare entire swathes of tribal land independent and then dictate terms to the democratic class. Sadly some of this has already begun.
The time might not be ripe to talk to the naxals- because of their hatred for Indian democracy or the parties in it- but the time is definitely ripe for us to listen in.
What is it that we missed in our 60 years as a welfare state that the naxals picked up? Why are the tribals such ready fodder for the red rascals? Why have we failed with smiles when they are succeeding with the gun?
It is time to go full out into these tribal strongholds and develop them, even if it means suspending democracy in these areas for some time. It is time for Tribal Development Authorities to be carved out of states like Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Andhra and Bihar. A justice system within that of the current one but with quick disposal of cases, inculcating the saner and civil parts of tribal justice dispensation, has to bet set up in these places. Failure could mean the colour red would figure more prominently in the lives of every Indian, only that it wouldn’t be representing piety and gaiety as in the festivals of life, but the fear and shock villagers in Amosi in Bihar’s Khagaria district woke up with on that fateful day.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Manna Dey: keep singing
The Dadasaheb Phalke award to Manna Dey might be most discussed in Kerala after his home state West Bengal. The man’s connection to the coastal state is a very old one.
In the land of the divine-voiced Yesudas, this man once saw himself in the idst of some of the most hotly contested debates the state has seen. As the millennium rung in and just about everyone worth his name was coming up with millennium polls for whatever they were worth, Kerala had one for the best film song ever.
Now Yesudas has sung so many songs, and so many of them hits that the grand title ‘Gaana Gandharvan’ – or Celestial Singer- sits very lightly and deservedly on him. Such is the enduring legend of the soft-spoken man that when Lata Mangeshkar and some of her close aides said that it is possible Lata may have sung the highest number of songs in India, Tamil song bard SP Balasubramaniam jumped into the debate.
Firstly he said that it is not Lata but yours truly who held that record. When that sounded immodest from SP- though the way he has got awards for singing, composing and acting, you’d forgive him for immodesty- the portly man said the only person who could have possibly sung more than him would be Yesudas.
Coming back to Manna Dey, in a very tightly contested poll with different actors taking sides, the outcome was a sensational one and spawned a hundred debates in a state which always believe the country has never acknowledged the massive artistic talent the tiny state held.
Back to the Manna Dey saga again. Voters in Kerala chose ‘maanasa mayele’ from the evergreen ‘Chemeen’ as the finest Malayalam film song ever. The singer- Manna Dey. To add to the surprise factor, the song was composed by a man who did not understand a word of Malayalam or had much of an expertise on Kerala except for an understanding of its communist fascination- Salil Chaudhary.
Later however Manna Dey lost out in a Hindi music era when fun and frolic in the voice of a singer was more in demand than meticulousness about the sound and note of the song. Kishore Kumar marched ahead. In the early 80s the same fate befell Suresh Wadkar who was pushed aside by untrained and in some cases jarring voices like Amit Kumar- after the Balika Vadhu and Love Story euphoria-, Shabbir Kumar and Mohammad Aziz.
But Manna Dey, forget all these awards. They cannot match up to the soft hue that comes over us when we hear the silken rendition of ‘zindagi kaisi hai paheli haye’ from Anand. Long live
In the land of the divine-voiced Yesudas, this man once saw himself in the idst of some of the most hotly contested debates the state has seen. As the millennium rung in and just about everyone worth his name was coming up with millennium polls for whatever they were worth, Kerala had one for the best film song ever.
Now Yesudas has sung so many songs, and so many of them hits that the grand title ‘Gaana Gandharvan’ – or Celestial Singer- sits very lightly and deservedly on him. Such is the enduring legend of the soft-spoken man that when Lata Mangeshkar and some of her close aides said that it is possible Lata may have sung the highest number of songs in India, Tamil song bard SP Balasubramaniam jumped into the debate.
Firstly he said that it is not Lata but yours truly who held that record. When that sounded immodest from SP- though the way he has got awards for singing, composing and acting, you’d forgive him for immodesty- the portly man said the only person who could have possibly sung more than him would be Yesudas.
Coming back to Manna Dey, in a very tightly contested poll with different actors taking sides, the outcome was a sensational one and spawned a hundred debates in a state which always believe the country has never acknowledged the massive artistic talent the tiny state held.
Back to the Manna Dey saga again. Voters in Kerala chose ‘maanasa mayele’ from the evergreen ‘Chemeen’ as the finest Malayalam film song ever. The singer- Manna Dey. To add to the surprise factor, the song was composed by a man who did not understand a word of Malayalam or had much of an expertise on Kerala except for an understanding of its communist fascination- Salil Chaudhary.
Later however Manna Dey lost out in a Hindi music era when fun and frolic in the voice of a singer was more in demand than meticulousness about the sound and note of the song. Kishore Kumar marched ahead. In the early 80s the same fate befell Suresh Wadkar who was pushed aside by untrained and in some cases jarring voices like Amit Kumar- after the Balika Vadhu and Love Story euphoria-, Shabbir Kumar and Mohammad Aziz.
But Manna Dey, forget all these awards. They cannot match up to the soft hue that comes over us when we hear the silken rendition of ‘zindagi kaisi hai paheli haye’ from Anand. Long live
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