Intolerance, Liberalism, Dissent, and the Arrogance of Power

One cannot be an Indian & stay insulated from the happenings that are tearing my country apart currently. To say that this deep divisiveness is unprecedented in India’s history or wholly unexpected, is to be naïve or deliberately ignorant. Starting from the Partition, to the Khalistan Movement, the Mandal Commission agitation, the demolition of the Babri Masjid, to the Godhra massacre, our checkered history has more stains than stars. Nor are these incidents such that they can be easily pushed under the rug of a distant past – party workers hacking members of rival parties to death, point blank shootings of critiques of Hinduism, calls for purging Mumbai of non-marathis, destruction of entire belts of Dalit villages in Haryana, rape & abduction of Hindu girls in Assam & WB – these incidents have continued to dot the pages of our national & regional dailies. It would be a matter of individual ideology & also depend on which data one would be likely to refer to in order to argue for or against the allegation that we are becoming more intolerant under the current government.

It is no secret that Liberals & intellectuals across the country openly mourned that “the fascists have won” when the BJP won a landslide victory in 2014. Nor can one blame them entirely -- that Mr Modi is cut from a very different cloth than the previous BJP PM Mr AB Vajpayee was quite apparent to all. Modi’s pedigree as a RSS stalwart who has made his way up the ranks of the party was proudly touted in his tenure as Gujarat CM & his pre-election campaign. His past record during the Godhra riots, completely unapologetic stance in its aftermath, and aura of arrogance, didn’t win him many friends. While his promised mandate to the electorate was reforms, minimum governance, and boost to manufacturing, little or no profress has been made on either of these areas. Economists like Swaminathan Ankleshwar Aiyer today lament that Modi has shown none of the Capitalist-minded reforms that many Liberals feared. Instead, turning on the TV these days means witnessing yet another public spat between the BJP & Kejriwal/Rahul Gandhi, or listening to obnoxious & utterly shameful pronouncements from minor BJP leaders & supporters. One’s heart goes out to BJP spokespersons like Nalin Kohli or Sambit Patra who are called upon every evening on primetime TV debate to defend the callous and insensitive remarks of their party colleagues. One thing is amply clear – the quality of public discourse in India is abysmal & belongs to the gutter. One needs only to follow/participate in such debates on Twitter (I’ve recently become quite active) to discover new & colourful abuse at the hands of the trolls – largely from Right Wing supporters.

Having said all this, I think the BJP’s political ascendency under the leadership of Mr Modi was welcome and much required for our country to gain political maturity, for many of us to actually grasp a genuine understanding of such noble text-book concepts as ‘secular’ & ‘nationalism’; for India’s intellectuals to acknowledge (if they have the courage to) that their ideologies and choices are barely a representative of the country’s electorate; for the ‘other’, who we easily label as ‘bhakt’ or ‘anti-national’ or ‘presstitude’, to lend their voice to the larger question of what should India be in the 21^st century, or, to determine which kind of economic theory & history (both Left & Right or only one) should be taught in the country’s leading universities. So far, our public discourse has largely been dominated by the Left & that is also not without reason – the Right has always decried any kind of intellectual engagement depending instead on a version of muscular Hindu nationalism. Today, I am glad that I have access to mainstream RW news & opinion sites such as Swarajya & DailyO. While I may not agree with some of their columnists, I am at least exposed to a factually whetted & well-articulated point of counter-view to what is the prevailing thought in my country. And to be absolutely frank, I find RW commentators such as Ashok Mallick, Swapan Dasgupta, Sanjeev Sanyal, and Tavleen Singh far more bipartisan than any of their Left colleagues (Kavita Krishnan, Arundhati Roy, Brinda Karat).

For many days now we have heard people argue about the idea of india? This is a stupid argument in the first place. My idea of India changed drastically when I undertook a fairly long road trip of north-India earlier this year. My cousin -- who runs his small insurance business in Murshidabad district of WB and struggles to ward of the muslim goons who haunt the area often rants that ‘we should throw all muslims out of the country’ -- is quite different from my husband’s uncles from Madhya Pradesh who belong to the Hindu upper caste and openly advocate banning not only beef but all kinds of meat among Hindus. How can their idea of India concur with mine? I, who am writing this sitting in a Muslim country and enjoy my steak & red wine.

At Jhargola village in Rajasthan it was difficult for us to find a single shop in the local haat which sold clean cooking oil – mustard or vegetable. The local brand sold there is so badly adulterated that one can barely see through the foggy, dense mix inside the bottle. Till about a year ago, I worked at one of India’s largest private banks whose corporate brochure proudly claimed its network of 2500 branches & 12,000 ATMs. Yet, as we toured more than 1700 kms across Delhi & Rajasthan, we must’ve passed about 7 ATMs & only 4 branches operated by SBI, Union Bank & HDFC Bank. Mind you, I am talking about small towns which stretch across the NH7, not the heartland of our villages. In Mulund, I am spoilt for choice – Kotak, HDFC, Axis, SBI, Canara – you name it and you’ll find them all with 300 metres of my house. So, how can my experience of India and hopes and expectations from it be in any way similar to the priest’s family in Chittorgarh who wanted our advice about his elder daughter pursuing a career in Commerce?

I’ve always believed that the absence of choice is the worst fate than can befall us; bringing up millions of countrymen on a single, homogenized and sanitized ideology is dangerous. The greatest nation on Earth too is not immune to such danger. Why else would it be reeling under the threat of a presidential nominee who has openly insulted minorities, women, and gays and still hopes to occupy the most powerful office in the world? When you try too hard to accommodate the ‘other’ without realizing that its definition is fluid and ever-evolving, when political correctness takes precedence over the country’s interests, and when most of the country hasn’t attained the political and social maturity to even grasp what it means to be the ‘other’, we court such dangerous phenomenon as we are seeing in the world’s two largest democracies today.

For me the saddest day was not when the BJP won the election, but every time I hear one of my urban, salaried, ‘educated’ friends & colleagues evince the desire to turn India into a China (Kanhaiya Kumar would be shot in Tiananmen Square!) and speak glowingly of Saudi’s law & order (the punishment for rape is stoning; no wonder women are safe there! Kar sakenge humare desh mein?). Blaming the BJP is the most convenient & obviously lazy thing to do. It is far more difficult to introspect and accept historical mistakes, political mishaps and vote bank appeasements.

Red

A colleague in Denmark who recently quit the company and relocated to Germany wrote me a mail describing the new workplace, travel involved, search for a house, etc. He mentioned, "I can feel this move will change me in several unknown, unseen ways but I guess it'll all be for the good in the end. I try and remain stoic but the prospect of all those dialysis machines leaves me wondering what good is life about anyway."

Dumb me jumped to conclusions and dashed off a mail immediately remarking that i wasn't aware he was relocating for health purposes and commiserating with his misfortune, et all. PL replied later explaining that the 'dialysis' reference was solely due to the fact that the Communications department of this huge hospital was located on the same floor as the nephrology section and he passed them daily on his way to his office. He thanked me for my 'kind mail' but assured me that he was in perfectly fine health.

If stupidity can kill, i would be playing the harp in heaven now. Aaaaargh! 

Justice

Despite my love for mush and poetry, I’m a tough nut and nothing fazes me much these days. So it was a wonder of sorts when I was badly rattled by the way the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair ended. Of course, it was unthinkable at any point that DSK would face rigorous imprisonment but I did believe that he would pay – right through his fat fucking French nose. Out of court settlements are known to have set up victims for life and I thought at least it would entitle Nafissatou Diallo and her daughter to a lifetime of security and comfort.
For a woman who is an immigrant housekeeper in a NY hotel and one who’d escaped from a life of gruesome poverty, civil war and genital mutilation, you couldn’t ask for more. But it was not to be. And no, I don’t think Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance is at fault in this case. Vance is absolutely right in dropping the charges when he knows they would be difficult (more likely impossible) to prove beyond a reasonable doubt in front of a jury. Nowhere has he stated that Diallo was not the victim of a wrongful sexual assault; no, he’s simply saying that certain omissions and lies in her past behavior would unduly influence a jury’s decision and make it impossible for them to convict DSK.

So, who the hell am I mad at, you may ask? Certainly not DSK who was seen smiling as he emerged with his wife and daughter after dinner on Wednesday. He is a predator and acted according to his nature – prey upon those who are most likely to keep silent. Nothing out of the ordinary, if you ask me. I am mad, indeed exhausted, at the truth Vance points at – the jury’s verdict, the truth about us. The jury is made up of people like you and me, people who demand that a victim of rape have an impeccable history, who demand that a victim of rape should be a model citizen, who think a victim of rape is sure to be lying if she has lived with multiple partners, who swap a person’s past with her living present. Because dear reader, when you think about it, that’s what Vance’s decision is saying. He writes that she lied on her application for asylum in the US. Ok, so she made up a story of having been raped by the militia in Somalia. How many of us would consider fleeing to an alien land, whose language we don’t speak, unless there are compelling circumstances? And if the circumstances are compelling, wouldn’t all of us lie? Hell, we lie even when it is not required! How could her lie be any greater than ours?

The second blot against Diallo is her association with Amara Tarawally, an illegal immigrant now behind bars on drug charges. I am sure, given a choice, the poor woman would no doubt have preferred lighting cigars for the likes of Bill Clinton but choice is not something that’s the prerogative of a penniless, black, immigrant single mother.  Whew! As I was writing this I became aware of the number of things Diallo was actually guilty of: 5 counts to be precise. Poor/Colored/Immigrant/Single/Woman. How could any jury on earth have believed her story?

Justice has been done. 

JLT

Those of you who follow this blog even sporadically will be aware that I’m facing issues at work and have been looking for a change. It’s been about 2.5 months that I’ve been actively applying, scheduling calls with recruiters and meeting HR resources from different industry. In this time, I have attended 2 interviews, 1 of which I failed to crack after dual rounds. There are things which I said and issues which I responded to in a manner that, several people told me later, may not have gone v.well with people looking at a prospective employee. I accepted their word and resolved to learn from the experiences. The second interview was with a famous infrastructure development company & the first round must have been more than 45 days ago. After 3 rounds – during which I have made presentations to their entire marketing & communications team, travelled to their office thrice, even presented a plan to their key sales director – I was informed that I was finally through & was to come to collect the offer letter as well as complete a final round of formalities with their HR.


Early in the morning I trekked halfway across town for this meeting where I was informed that ever body worked 6 days a week in this company. Of late, more and more companies are embracing the working-Saturday culture and I have always made it clear that I will not consider such corporations. I remember clearly stating this to their head of Corp Comm. during my initial interview where he’d assured me that only the ‘Operations’ team worked on Saturdays. When I mentioned this to their HR today, they said that since he (GM, Corp Comm) was a new joinee, he may have been unaware of the company’s policy! Now I’m thinking -does that mean he has been working on Saturdays without being aware of it? Or has their policy changed since the time my first interview took place? Had I suddenly developed herpes or grown a second nose that they'd changed their minds? ! I am still lost.


For a few minutes, I felt everything go cold. I was afraid I would burst into tears right there. After a while he trooped down from his cabin on the 6^th floor and apologized for the misunderstanding explaining "these things happen you know, I have so many things on my mind since we are trying to develop many new modules together with the marketing team. Anyway, during our conversations you have assured me that you possess a deep emotional connect with your work so I would say give this a shot.” I realized that this man who had wasted so much of my time over the last 45 days was being absolutely flippant, was not even aware that he had behaved irresponsibly, either through misinformation or some other reason. The realization of right and wrong is a deeply personal one and one of my oddities is that despite my temper and sharp tongue, the times when i am really disappointed or stunned by someone's callousness, i am unable to retort. There wasn’t much to be said after that & I left.


As I sat in the car, I don’t know if I was more livid or sad or just indignant. Yday had been a hell of a day as well. I’d had a huge argument with someone I’ve unconditionally supported over the years. Let’s just say that she said things & behaved in a manner which I would never have thought her capable of. I felt let down and I’d been trying my best to keep that incident at bay since I knew I’d to get the offer letter today. In the car it all came back – her words, other’s words, some lies, people leaving without a goodbye, as also the fact that I hadn’t collected the offer letter finally. After giving it some thought, I decided, “Let me see how I can get through today without thinking about these things?”


I had almost the whole day ahead and it’s evening as I sit writing this. I am not sure if I succeeded entirely, but it was better than what it would have been in the past, that I know. I came back to office and worked steadily most of the day. In between, kept recalling a friend's advice regarding what I should wear for the final meeting. I was very touched when he'd offered his views and in an odd way, it felt like I'd let him down too by returning empty handed. 
Maybe what they say is true - the people who are born to let you down, will always let you down – at home, outside, in the workplace, everywhere. While others will stand by you. The trick is to not to care too much about such things.

On MF Hussain, Fatwas & our Hypocrisy

So MFH is dead and the entire world has suffered a loss so severe that Sinhead O’Connor is now composing a follow-up to her 90’s hit ‘Nothing compares to you’. First, it was the Jai-Veeru duo of Anna and Baba Chaukanna who dominated the headlines for weeks and yday it was MFH & the shabby treatment meted out to him by the government, sundry Indians, & even the local milkman who refused to deliver milk at his doorstep. I watched the segment on 2 channels – Times Now and NDTV – and was astonished at the utter hypocrisy and cluelessness with which ‘eminent’ thought leaders lamented his passing away. I’m-still-sexy-at-60-Shobha De alleged that MFH ‘would have lived and worked for another 5 yrs but actually died from a broken heart’. Oh, what a shame! Pritish Nandy, Jatin Das, Shabana Azmi and every Lefty loony lamented the government’s treatment of MFH.

Now, the way I see it, there are 2 things we are discussing here – one, whether MFH deserved the treatment he got; second, whether the government failed in its fundamental duty to protect its citizens. On the first, all I can say is that any artist who craves unrestrained freedom of expression is living in a dream world. From Socrates, to Galileo, to Ayan Ali Hirsi, to Rushdie and Taslima Nasreen – they have all had to pay a price for the controversial and audacious rendering of their thoughts or creative process. Sure, in an ideal world anybody could paint, write or direct whatever they wanted but this is not an ideal world and parts of India & its citizens seem to belong to a different world altogether.

It is also juvenile to compare the fatwa on Rushdie with the protests and non-bailable warrant issued against MFH. A more apt comparison would be if Rushdie was a citizen in Saudi or Yemen or Iran or even progressive Egypt & continued to live there. He offended the sentiments of muslims and lived in a country where they constituted the minority. MFH offended he sentiments of hindus & lived in a hindu nation.

Furthermore, it is myopic to compare India with developed nations like the UK or the US. While I also appreciate their culture of pluralism and diversity, it is just not possible to replicate the same model with 1.5 bn people, most of whom haven’t been to school and don’t have access to two square meals a day. What plurality, duh?

Second, what was the government’s role? Rather, is there something more the government could have done? Definitely, yes. For starters it could have issued a strongly worded statement against the Hindu Right who were waging the protests against MFH; it could have arranged for security at his exhibitions. It failed.

I am also reminded of something that happened in Bengal when Taslima Nasreen sought refuge there in 2003 & the minority community erupted in violent protests. The Left was caught in a bind – they couldn’t go back on their secular credentials, yet they couldn’t isolate the minority community, their largest vote bank in rural areas. In the end, they asked Nasreen to leave and I supported that decision. The reason is because, I believe, the government’s first role is to maintain law and order. Sure, it should protect the rights of individuals but not at the cost of law and order. Not an ideal situation, but most often choices in life are not ideal. If Hussain’s presence in the country endangered law and order, then the government would be well within in rights to ask him to leave the country, which it didn’t do. MFH’s decision to leave was an independent choice which he made after due consideration of the situation.

Again, I’m not questioning his love for India or respect for Indian culture since that is not moot to the discussion here. I am not a gifted artist and it is not possible for me to comprehend or share his vision. But I do think it is irresponsible citizenship to blame the government for actually doing what it is supposed to do!

Damned if you wear, damned if you don't!

It is bad enough when people in India’s cow belt still talk of bahu, beti, cow and land - all in the same breath. What makes it worse is when people echoing the voice of a modern & emerging India exhibit the same feudal attitude, albeit in the guise of arguing in favour of women. It makes me see red. I’d rather live with the knowledge that I have to fight a posse of chauvinists than be let down by those who have always sworn by gender equality. Anil Dharker seems to be one of the latter.


While I wouldn’t care two hoots what our female badminton players wore on court as long as they returned home with a few medals, I find the Badminton World Federation’s (BWF) dictat that its female athletes ‘must wear skirts in all tournaments from June 1, 2011’ to ‘increase the spectator appeal of the game’ odious and personally offensive! As usual our Badminton Association of India (BAI) has gone about objecting this issue in a completely irrelevant manner, dragging in everything from our ancient kala, sanskriti to heritage and perhaps Hazare (who knows?). It has also aligned itself with those (Pakistan/Indonesia) who have equally loathsome ideas about what constitutes womanhood and how a woman ought to dress.


My problem is that irrespective of which side you’re on, no woman can emerge a winner from this argument. If wearing skirts and flashing panties won’t work, the BWF will probably insist next that its female athletes start posing topless on court to grab a few eye(balls). After all, it’s all in the spirit of the game.


The thing I find galling about Dharker’s views is that he seems completely oblivious to the fact that he seems to be endorsing a view where appearances make up for lack of talent; where commercialization needs to be promoted at the risk of sacrificing personal freedom; where our “athletes (should) at least look the part, even if they aren't quite the part.”


This is a defeat after fighting for over a century for equal rights, a defeat for the suffragettes, a defeat for those who were burnt at the stake at Salem, a defeat for those African girls who still bleed to death due to genital mutiliation, a defeat for those girl infants who are drowned upon birth in the remote villages of Rajasthan, as well as a defeat for all of us who struggle daily to instill in our daughters the wisdom that what matters is who you are inside, not the layers of pancake you can smear across your face.

Rant UnLtd

There is a reason people like Sathya Sai Baba and Anna Hazare manage to enthrall us. We Indians are completely bereft of imagination which is essential for a basic modicum of sensitivity. We do not understand that breaking queues at a toll booth will only impede the flow of traffic, not hasten it; we don't understand that driving garbage trucks around with their hoods open will strew the streets with rotting stench and dropping garbage; we definitely don't see how smashing a few fingertips while swinging through doors is in any way wrong. Toh kya hua ji?.

The building which houses our office is being painted. Today as i was leaving work i noticed that the paint dripping from the workmen's brush had coated the entire flower bed which lay around the right side of the building a stark white. These are beautful peonies, daisies and marogolds. The flowers could be recognised only by their shape since all of them seemed a uniform white. In all likelihood the plants will die soon. In Fremont i recalled, the painters would first take care to cover with a light tarp any plants that were likely to be smudged with falling paint when the external walls of any structure were being painted. It wasn't a matter of a great investment, just some simple steps. I spoke to our security staff and when he called the workmen's supervisor, his whole attitude was that i was the one who was out of my mind. The whole while that we kept arguing, he refused to accept that it was absolutely simple to cover the flower beds while the men were at work and remove the cover in the evening!

This is why we will never win any Nobels, never get anywhere while China will build nuclear power stations and SEZs and the US will keep inventing cheaper and better antiretroviral drugs. You need imagination, you need sensitivity to do those things and we lack both.

And Then There Were None

If only things were as simple as Swapan Dasgupta thinks. While i completely agree with him when he holds the Left's regime of more than 3 decades responsible for Bengal's dismal economic and growth statistics, to allege that only by removing the Left will there be any real possibility of recovery and rebuilding, is totally untrue and also quite irresponsible, given the alternative that we have to the Left's rule - the Trinamool Congress. Anybody who has bothered to track the trajectory of Mamata Banerjee's rise will see that her politics is in no way different from that practised by the Left - one of populism, of posing constant roadblocks to any measure of progress, and of deliberately keeping education and progress away from the reach of the rural populance to ensure it stays in power. Much before her famous agitation to the Singur plant, Mamata Banerjee had revealed her true affiliation and colours by leading morchas protesting the ouster of hawkers from the streets of gariahat, from bringing traffic to a stop in the middle of busy Hazra for the government's crack down on demonstrating workers of a famous power plant, and many such instances of willful disruption. To now claim that she is the shining beacon of hope for Bengal is willful disregard of recent history.

Bengal will never change and hope is a mirage for us. We bengalis know this. Things won't change because we exchange old pagan gods for the devil.

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A lot has been written about Amy Chua's controversial parenting discourse 'Battle Hymn of the Dragon Mother.' Read the book recently and it was actually quite funny in places. There is nothing i have to say that's not been said before, save this which most people seem to have missed out - any woman who straddles a high-profile career as a law professor at Yale and routinely travels the globe to attend conferences and present papers and is much sought after for her views on immigration laws and trade barriers and still manages to pursue her daughters' upbringing with such passion and single-minded pursuit deserves a huge round of applause along with whatever criticism folks wanna throw her way. i mean, returning from a 14-hr flight and then checking your daughter's piano notes and ensuring she practices for 2 hours and then teaching the kids maths? All in a day's work. Half the time i was wondering, 'when does she sleep or do recreational reading or watch TV or have sex or manage a pedicure'?

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Mixed feelings about our semi-final clash. The old divide between heart versus head. If one were to discount ICC rankings and all that balderdash, India have been playing miserably in the WC save for their match against Ponting's men. On the other hand, our peaceful neighbours in green have been embroiled in controversies that'd even put Paris Hilton to shame. But they have been fantastic in the tournament. Something yt said the other day struck a cord. I agree that the pakis must be evaluated as a tournament team. They save and showcase their best for tournaments and rarely do well in the other circuits. Perhaps this stems from a feeling of being ridiculed and victimized by the entire world - the usual minority grouse. I dunno why but my heart stays with them this WC. At the same time i'm fairly sure if India were to be beaten by them, i'd go to office with a long face the next day. There's no pleasing some women, i know.

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Pens For Hire & the Radia Tapes controversy

I spent some time reading the transcripts of some of the Radia tapes. Lot of mudslinging, lot of biggies offering their two cents and lot of experts bemoaning the state of Indian journalism. Now I wonder, didn’t people know before this story broke out that most of Indian journalism is peopled by liberal arts graduates, who in the absence of any talent and viable career opportunities, join a newspaper after graduation and climb the ranks slowly. Having started my career with the one of the prestigious newspapers in Kolkata and then having moved to Mumbai, I was appalled when I started work at the Express in 2001. To say that the editorial quality sucked, would be an understatement. What was more disgusting was the lack of political awareness and any thought-building endeavour which every individual (not just journos) should possess. Reporters covering the hospital or education or BMC beat would saunter in around 4 pm in the evening, file a routine story which lacked any element of journalistic enterprise and demand bylines. Those were early days and I recall the almost daily arguments I’d have with two senior correspondents who used to cover the Dabhol power scam and the Ketan Parekh story. I gradually discovered a world beyond the mediocre environs I was ensconced in. I discovered Joann Hari & Stephen Fry from the Independent, Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman , Stanley Fish from the NYT, Henry Porter from the Observer and several others. I also loved Bhanu Pratap Mehta, Sudheendra Kulkarni, Tavleen Singh, Swapan Dasgupta and MJ Akbar from mainstream Indian media. Oh, Vir Sanghvi too.

And now, Mr Sanghvi has let down fans like me so badly. I don’t have anything original to say beyond what the worthies are talking about, save this – something precious has been irreversibly muddied wrt these columnists whose articles I so looked forward to every week. I followed their views, usually nodding my head vigorously and occasionally even disputing them in the comments section. The disputes never mattered for this was an exercise in learning, in forming opinions and views where an expert perspective was available at hand to guide me. To be told later, ‘Babe, whatever you read was merely a transcript of the views that were fed to him/her from a partisan industry insider solely interested in pushing his/her agenda’ is worse than adulterated liquour in my book. Sounds melodramatic, but true. So pardon me if I sound mad or outraged as Arundhuti Ray usually sounds.

What is also interesting are the clarifications offered by Sanghvi and Barkha Dutt in the face of the controversy. While Barkha claims she didn’t feel the story was important enough (a Sr. NDTV journalist now needs tutoring on what comprises an imp story!), Sanghvi says he has to speak to various sources to gather opinion in his capacity as a columnist. Of course, poor child didn’t know that gathering opinion and then arriving at independent, unbiased conclusions is what a columnist ought to do – not parrot lines fed to him by industry lobbyists.

What is hilarious is the way people are baying for Barkha Dutt’s blood, turning their personal dislike for her into a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity to get back at her for all those time she mouthed homilies for the cause of the Naxals or the minority community displaced in Gujarat. I am no fan of Barkha Dutt but I think it’s important that we take note of one small detail here: she is a cog in the wheel of a much bigger cart. Why aren’t we questioning the PMO, or the finance minister who promises probe after probe after much damage has been done or the CBI who has held on to the tapes since 2008. If Radia was under the Income Tax department’s scanner, why weren’t these disclosures investigated before?

And no, I don’t want to end on the desultory note that ‘nothing will come of this’. I still believe in Ratan Tata & I didn’t find anything particularly objectionable in his conversation. He is a paying client and it is only right that he appoint as his PR consultant one of the most well-connected people in the industry. I see no conflict here – a capitalist hiring the services of someone he believes can deliver what he wants at a fair price. The conflict of interest is for journos like Sanghvi and Dutt whose pens are for hire; and the conflict of interest is for those politicians and bureaucrats like Ranjan Bhattacharya who gleefully claims, ‘Ab toh Congress apni dukaan hai.’

Role Playing

There is a scene in the film ‘Revolutionary Road’ where Kate Winslett & Leonardo Di Caprio are arguing over her wish to abort their third child. This is an unwanted pregnancy they are discussing and the decision to go ahead with the child will severely hamper their future plans of relocating to Europe. The story and their marriage hinge on this move, but that’s unimportant here. In a desperate bid to make her husband understand the reasons behind her decision, she bursts out, “But I have had two children. Doesn’t that count in my favour?” You are filled with an immediate distaste when you hear a mother thinking thus; as expected her husband looks at her in disbelief. Then the accusations follow.

You follow the trajectory of this neurotic woman’s character, you sense the tragedy ready to implode within her and you fine-tune your senses to hear what she is really trying to say beyond the ‘doesn’t-that-count-in-my-favour’ question.

What this woman is actually trying to do is something very simple – she is beseeching, even begging, for understanding, for empathy, from a world which has cast her in a role she is not fully willing or happy to play. She is ok with that role, she has played it for several years, but there are other roles she wants to explore. What is notable about this scene is the look of sheer despair she wears because not even the person she loves and connects with most is able to understand or accept her as she is. If that isn’t defeating, I dunno what is.

This isn’t really a feminist rant about a woman’s need to determine her own selfhood. Much has been written about all this and my writing a few feeble lines will not change anyone’s perspective. What is perhaps more imp is how intolerant, how unforgiving, we are of those who don’t confirm to the stereotypes we bear in mind. Time and time again, we exact a price for their non-conformity even when we think we don’t.

A lot of the times I write a post, I wonder how D would react were she to ever read it. I don’t know if she ever will. What I do know is, I’d like her to know and love her mother as she was. After all she is my flesh and blood, not one of the 250 friends people have on their FB lists.

I have some strict notions about motherhood, as opposed to parenthood. Parenting is a dual function, mothering is not. For me, motherhood is about putting your child ahead of your needs. Period. How many times you do this in a lifetime is immaterial. It is about taking a backseat, giving up things, so that your child can run. Once or twice, you follow your dreams; mostly you give them up. So, you say no to outstation deputations because your child is young, you refuse prestigious offers of heading departments because it will entail 13-hr workdays, you shake your head to opportunities to work with the best minds in the industry because the father is travelling and you're required at home. Thus the years fly by.

But if such giving up implies doing it with a grin and a sunny demeanour, I’ll be damned. You cannot sit back and watch opportunities fly by and turn around to admire how wonderful your child is doing at swimming. No, you can’t. And the truth is, there is nothing wrong or bloody criminal about occasionally feeling sad or disappointed. What is galling is when the world expects you to give up things and accept it with equanimity simply because you were born with a uterus. Is motherhood or womanhood a Phd course where you are tutored to annihilate your ego and selfhood to the extent that you function in society solely as the roles you can play as a mother or wife? If so, what of those women who flunk the Phd programme? What becomes of these perennial outsiders? Is there any hope of redemption or empathy for them?

Was it only yesterday that I was cursing everything from friendship to Facebook to successful men? Ah! That wasn’t right.

Reached office early, started speaking to Vivek who’s buying his first house, things unraveled and now I realise you don’t choose your friends or do things for them because of how long you’ve known them or what they will do for you some day. No, you don’t.  You do them for 2 simple reasons: you think it’s the right thing to do and we all like being right :) & you are also convinced your actions will add some value, do some good, to your friend. That’s all there is to it.

I have known Vivek for about 3 months now and we hit off really well from early on. I was smoking alone & thumbing through my phone when he first started talking to me. It was his thirs day at work and within minutes he’d confided that his wife had suffered a miscarriage the previous Saturday. I could sense the sadness in his voice, as also the acute loneliness that’d lead a guy to confide to a perfect stranger. We spoke, smoked and somehow a bond was forged. Another time, we were talking about life in small towns and he spoke about his plans for his widowed mother. I am much older than him and he often teases me mercilessly. In an odd way, Vivek is the kid bro I’d loved to have had.

This dude has finally decided to buy a house. It’s gonna cost him Rs 40,00,000 and he is scrambling around for cash as he’s not eligible for a home loan of more than Rs 20,00,000. We were discussing the cash arrangements he had made, home loan applications, floating versus fixed rate of interest when he revealed that the builder had asked for 50% of the money to be paid in black. Even this wouldn’t be so bad had it not transpired that our man had already paid Rs 4,00,000 without receiving any documentary evidence/receipt that he has made such payment. According to him, the bulder had claimed that no receipt is issued in cases of black money. I was aghast.

Now a bit of diversion here. My entire family are pros at this game of buying and selling homes and stocks. Dad, my uncles and my brother – they are not so much interested in the actual flaunting of the money as the means of making it. I admire that. A and I are too lazy and too stupid to do the same, but admire them nonetheless. So I do have some working knowledge of how loans are disbursed,  what penalty pre-payment invokes, how black component money has to be paid, etc. Alarm bells started ringing and I did the only thing I do in such cases – called up Dad. He was livid and started calling Vivek names. Calm down I said; the kid’s green, is fatherless and is naïve. Being naïve is not a crime, is it?

Anyway, dad spoke to vivek and explained the things he needed to do immediately. Vivek spoke to the builder who is now saying that he will issue a receipt only after Rs 13,00,000 have been paid in cash. Asshole. I don’t know how things will unfold and I am scared.

You know, spread over a lifetime Rs 4,00,000 is not a very big sum and I’m sure Vivek will do well in life and buy more homes. However, if things go wrong, there is a part of this simple, honest kid from small-town Ranchi that’d be lost forever. I hope that doesn’t happen.

Freebie Junkies: on SOPs

So we celebrated a bharat bandh today. From the look of it, it’s been a spectacular success. Going by the reasons behind the protest, it seems we are a nation of freebie junkies. We frequent restaurants during happy hours and haggle about the free samples to be given when we buy expensive perfume at duty free shops. Hell, Indians even ask for freebies when they attend garage sales in the U.S.

We think we own the country by paying taxes and are entitled to an endless range of services and commodities in lieu of that. Such things as fiscal deficit, fuel subsidy and price rationalization mean very little to the average Indian. Which is why I wasn’t at all surprised when Khetia aunty mourned the hike in fuel prices and spoke in support of the bandh. They are small-time traders and have been hit bad. Her angst, though misplaced, is understandable. Those I cannot quite fathom are the educated, left leaning liberals. I had the opportunity to lock horns with such a character during my recent visit to Lucknow.

Bhaskar Chaterjee is an IAS officer and a distant relative; one of those hitherto-unknown influential people who you bump into at social gatherings and immediately note everybody paying obeisance to. I was in a spot of trouble with my return tickets and my uncle was kind enough to approach him for assistance which he dutifully offered. I was introduced to him and we kinda took to each other. On my part it was pure desperation as I saw him as a refuge from the endless introductions and hugs I was being subjected to. He had it even worse, poor guy. Also, without really being immodest or a snob about it, I don’t think apart from me and my uncle, there were too many people at the venue there who the poor soul could really talk to. So, anyway, there we were, strangers in a blind, two ships faffing by and all that.

We were chitchatting about this and that when the question of subsidies arose. I don’t recall exactly how but the question of free water to the Punjab farmers arose and predictably enough, I started to rant and rave. This has been a burning issue with me for a while and with media reports about the debilitating ground water levels, the ire has simply increased. He started off by defending the cause of the agriculturists as an exploited minority, but backtracked fast when I jumped at his neck with some Green Revolution facts. Point is, only an imbecile can uphold the Punjab farmer as a prototype of the Indian peasant. Bhaskar had conveniently overlooked the fact that the maximum number of Mercedes and Audis are sold in Punjab.

After arguing for a considerable period of time (we debated things like socialism and welfare state and Marx but that’s another story), the great IAS divulged that as a mark of his professional excellence, he had been given some land near Ambala which he’d leased out to a sugar major. So much for neutral perspective. But the encounter with Bhaskar has stayed on in my mind. If educated, prosperous, privileged Indians think they are entitled to freebies, why blame the poor?

Two Bills, Two Stories

A friend and (one of the few martians who traverse the path of this blog) asked me why I hadn’t written/commented on the Women’s Reservation Bill. “What’s to comment”, I asked. Any Tom, Prick or Scary can tell you that Sonia Gandhi is one lucky lady; madam will be credited with ushering in one of the greatest legislative reforms of all times. Good for her. I have been tracking opinions, arguments, counter arguments and almost all of them make some sense. Even if I don’t support the Bill, I certainly cannot abide by those sanctimonious Yadav bastards (Mulayam and Lalloo) who have suddenly woken up to the exploitative measure of quotas.

The one thing – and forget talk of the Bill actually being regressive and manipulative, etc – that does bother me is this: according to the Bill all constituencies would be eligible for reservation on a rotational basis. What happens if a really able, committed male politician has spent the past 3 years securing and working for his constituency only to discover during election year that his constituency falls under the 33% reserved quota? Wouldn’t this ultimately translate into a loss for us, tax-payers and voting citizens who have professed faith in a Ram Naik or a Murli Deora only to have a Rameshwari Kumari or Puja Tripathi thrust at us in their stead?

Also, I think by now there’s lil doubt in anyone’s mind about the actual empowerment quotient of such reservations. One needs only to cast an eye at the tribals and adivasis of Bihar, AP, Kerala, etc too gauge how far SC/OBC reservation has benefited the intended beneficiaries. In this misguided thrust towards ensuring equality, aren’t we actually robbing our democracy of true and meaningful representation based on merit?

There’s something else that has been troubling me deeply. It’s the govt’s efforts to pass the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill. Understand that the Bill is imperative as foreign companies (American) have refused to supply to India the nuclear equipment that this country needs if it has to meet its nuclear generation targets. However, surely the way ahead is through negotiations, dialogue, and winning support from select groups rather than short-selling the rights of the country’s citizens? What the Bill purports to do is this: it caps the amount of liability that the foreign company will have to bear in case of a nuclear disaster, or accident. It caps the amount at Rs 2800 crore of which the company (foreign or indian, pvt or public) operating the plant would be liable to pay only Rs 500 crore. The foreign company supplying the nuclear machinery or material will be free of all liability even if the accident is a result of some defect or fault in the material or equipment being supplied by the foreign company. Even ex-attorney general Soli Sorabjee has protested against the Bill saying it flouts the fundamental rights of the “victims of accidents” under Article 21 of our Constitution. Earlier last year, novelist and NYT columnist Suketu Mehta wrote a precise and moving editorial arguing about the principle of ‘polluter pays’ and calling for Union Carbide to clean up the site of the Bhopal Gas tragedy and bring its absconding CEO Warren Anderson to justice. What is truly galling about America is the supreme indifference with which it arm twists its way to sail smoothly across the most trying situations and emerge triumphant (look at the way we were told to suck our thumbs in the David Headley extradition request or even the simple request to grant our investigators the opportunity to interrogate him.)

By proposing a cap on the amount to be paid in damages, are we not trying to put a universal price on human lives when it should vary from every situation, circumstance, degree of damage accorded, etc? When will we grant our citizens the empowerment they truly deserve instead of handing out these quota carrots periodically to stem the flow of discontent and simmering anger?

What hurts is not when the U.S. or other foreign nations wants to rip us for their benefits – that always gives rise to righteous indignation and anger. When our own government behaves in ways that are so openly craven, there is a feeling of despair and alienation so complete that one wonders what is left for any of us to continue staying here.

A Twisted Tale: Prof Siras Controversy

The Aligarh Muslim University is one of the nation’s premier educational institutions. In keeping with its repute as an institution par excellence, I’m sure lecturers and professors employed by the university are recruited only after a rigorous selection process. My meager knowledge and some amount of personal experience in college-level teaching revealed that even after the selection, one is usually required to spend several arduous years presenting papers at international symposiums, organizing mind-numbing departmental seminars, advising n number of research scholars, only after which they are eligible for tenure or professorship.

There is little doubt then that scholars who finally make it to the teaching ranks of such institutions, are some of the brightest and most gifted minds in their particular disciplines. Whether they choose to eat meat or not bath on Sundays or nurture a foot fetish or believe in abortion or choose to live with people of the same sex should in no way be our concern, no? No. That’s not what the VC of this prestigious university would have us believe.

The university has suspended a professor SR Siras after the university received a video of the professor indulging in same sexual activity with another man. While it is still unclear who taped the entire saga (a bunch of righteous students or some news channel desperate for breaking news), what is astonishing is the university’s stance where it blatantly flouts ones right to privacy by condemning Siras instead of the mischief makers. According to the VC, “Homosexuality is not good for them and so such act(s) could not be allowed on campus.” There are a couple of questions one wants to ask:

Is homosexuality akin to sugar for a diabetic that he offers his easy diagnosis of ‘not good’? In what ways is it bad? Has it been established beyond irrefutable doubt that it leads to criminal tendencies or religious intolerance or lower life expectancy?

Second, are people, even university students who are open or closet homosexuals, looking for permission to the VC? Isn’t his authority relegated to matters of administration and curriculum?

A peculiar paradox embedded in this entire sordid saga is the role of Islam and the way it views homosexuality. While the AMU continues to accept funds from NRI muslim donors, it has no choice but to sack people like Sarai even if many of the same donors are guilty of polygamy. The AMU would certainly not sack a professor if he was married to 2 or more women simultaneously, citing the muslim personal law as a defense. One wonders – it is ok to practice polygamy but not homosexuality, it is ok to bomb innocent civilians but not touch alcohol. Strange world indeed.

A Tooth Story

D is down with the allergic cough yet again. We were buried deep in steam inhalations, inhaler puffs and homeopathic doses all weekend. Not that it was as bad as it sounds. When I thought that the worse was over, I was hit by a sudden and rather rude discovery this morning. She has been complaining of ‘another teeth’ for a while now and poking away inside her mouth with her grubby fingers. But as any mom of an imaginative 5-yr old will tell, there is a good reason why the good Lord gifted us 2 ears. I think no differently. Bu this morning as the poor lil thing sat eating her cereals at breakfast, she implored me so movingly that I gave in and asked her to open her mouth to check the presence of the phantom tooth.

And there it was.

With great cunning, concealing itself behind the primary ranks of able bodied front teeth, I could make out the jagged edges of the white monstrosity. Upon further examination I learnt that one of my baby’s lower row tooth was shaking and all ripe for sacrifice. I cannot tell you the acute sadness and despair that washed over me. The entire milk teeth shedding exercise is one I abhorred in my childhood. I was such a sissy that I’d not even let my dad come near me (he had some pretty macabre paraphernalia of thread, dettol and cotton). As a result what happened was that like the last leaf in O Henry’s famous story, the poor shaking tooth would be forced to hang on till its last dying breath, fighting valiantly for a cause whose conclusion was long foregone. In the meantime, the new age upstarts, the impatient replacements of permanent teeth would start crowding from behind. “oh c’mon you slow coaches, make way!” they’d say and come piling in. What all this translated to is a row of hideously crooked front teeth that leer back at me every morning. Grrr…

And now I see history repeating itself. Why can’t these teeth wait awhile before they start these rituals of adulthood? Why is she growing up so bloody fast? Earlier there were a host of words she’d mispronounce and now it’s only the odd ‘amimals or commutity helper’ that makes me smile like a loony. I can’t be called an indulgent mom by any degree of imagination and yet as she’s growing up, I find myself spending more time clicking her pics, recording her voice than before. It is as if that’s the only way I can squeeze her childhood in an airtight bottle and sip from it after she has gone away to become a doctor or fashion model or bring up a brood of horrid children or whatever. Or become a ‘musketeer’ as she says. 

A Change Too Late: the Challenge Hillary Clinton & We All Face

During Hillary Clintons much publicized trip to Congo, she was asked by a student in Kinshasa what her husband thought about congo’s trade deal with china. The nurse ratched-like always-cool-under-pressure ice queen reacted most unusually. She snapped at the hapless guy, “'You want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not the Secretary of State, I am.” With this the nation’s media went beserk and blogs, podcasts, columnists, etc have laughed and jeered so much that I suspect even George carlin’s shows never have generated as much entertainment as ol’ hilly did. The American media has always hated her; it was as if only by denigrating her credentials, could one show solidarity towards obama. Fox TV anchors are having a field day with most of them going overboard using & this as an opportunity to dissect feminism, demanding apologies, perceiving the seeds of her crumbling marriage and reading signs of early dementia. At least one of them must be true. After all Hillary rodham, the fullbright scholar from Wellesley, the first woman to propose a radical healthcare plan and a highly successful NY senator, couldn’t be all perfect, could she?

I have observed that whenever a woman asserts her intelligence or independence to the world, it has to be couched in terms of an apology. The sense of wrong, pretended or real, is as much for those virtues that came to her instead of the spouse or brother, as the burden of lifelong success that such virtues usually promise.

Currently, as secretary of state, Hillary is focusing on rehabilitating the condition of women in Africa who have been raped, infected with HIV and left to die in the unending civil wars that plague the continent. She has to fight ignorance, fear, poverty, taboo, militancy before she can make any difference. But before that she has to fight her personal battles of womanhood – that insidious, murky, crippling institution of male chauvinism that survives by virtue of trivializing its women. Pls note, this is not an affront to men; just a sad legacy that many of us still content with frequently.

In order to truly emerge as secretary of state in her own right & not the wife of the ex-prez, she must lash out as she did at the African student for sometimes u have to speak louder for the hard of hearing. Perhaps, what makes this whole issue so ignoble is the idea of pitching a perfectly matched gifted couple against each other. A Rhodes scholar and one of the finest minds on international affairs, bill Clinton is more than a match for ol’ hilly. But no, it has to be either her or him. Media pundits now intuit that she snapped because of the publicity that bill garnered by negotiating the release of the two American journos from north korea.

If such is the dogma the modern woman has to fight, what role do we really seek for ourselves? One of insulation and segregation or the more challenging role of integrating our positions within the society that polarizes us? The hubby thinks sexual harassment is the worse a woman can face in the workplace. I disagree. Fighting the bastion of male domination & trivialization of female roles is a far greater menace. It is subtler, more powerful, infinitely more demoralizing and definitely far more widespread.

Women’s empowerment won’t be delivered at the end of a gun or through economic sanctions or even overt criticism, unless it can supplant accepted cultural practices with an independent order that recognizes merit over gender and virtue over beauty and incentivizes powerful women instead of laughing away their efforts. Are we really getting there or merely comforting our daughters with a dream?

Don’t Wait For Godot: 26/11 Mumbai Blasts

The Mumbai blasts took place only a few days after I’d returned from the U.S amidst much eager anticipation at the change I would witness in the nation of my birth, my home. The next few days saw a flurry of activity, with everyone from journalists to the aam aadmi holding candle light vigils, writing petitions, sprouting bombast and criticizing the rescue operation. Almost everyone was sure that change was imminent and everyone from Javed Akhtar to Anu Kapoor proved their patriotism by yelling ‘Enough is enough’ repeatedly. Waiting for concrete action and change has become akin to that much celebrated vigil for Godot.

Now, almost 3 months later, much posturing, jago re and slogan writing later, we are still haggling over the issue of Pakistan’s guilt or innocence, the correct response to our unfriendly neighbour, what authorities from the U.S and U.K think about Pak’s role and ways to reform civil society so that such incident can be avoided. While it is important that the new American president understand and share our concerns regarding Pak’s support of the Kashmir insurgency and its attempts to destabilize our economy, it is equally important for us to rely on our own strengths; to understand that to expect others to fight your own battles will at best yield talks of solidarity and a lot of peace documents, much like the ones Israel routinely inks with Palestine.

Most people I know even made a lot of noise about the outrage the leaders of the minority community had expressed over 26/11 and lauded them for ‘condemning the heinous attacks’. What else should they have done, I wondered? Why should we even expect them to think or behave any differently? Last week I attended a meeting in Mahim where leaders of the minority community were asked to suggest ways to educate the common people and avoid their infiltration by the jihadi elements. Most of them blamed their poor economic and social status for their problems but failed to see that for every muslim who is poor or deprived, there are 3 hindus. Even Kashmiri pundits who are forced to flee the valley in what is perhaps one of the worst instances of ethnic cleansing the world has seen, do not take up arms against their persecutors in the name of some religious war. While grievances of social inequality should not be disregarded, they are by no means a valid justification for mindless murder and mayhem. Even if one were to accept such justification, it doesn’t in any way explain the collapse of the twin towers, or the bombings at Bali, Madrid or Glasgow.

A related problem is that of education. It is high time we banned all such institutions that impart education by adhering to the tenets of a particular religion to the exclusion of all else and thus breed intolerance. Before we mull attacking or reforming Pak, we must deal with the enemy within; we must abolish and ban the madarsas that dot the landscape around MP and UP and are breeding grounds of misinformation, hatred and intolerance. One of the most famous instances of this brand of education is the Darul Uloom in Deoband, UP who openly advocates an exclusivist brand of Islam while uttering polite denunciations against terrorists. While such teachings may be routine in Iran or Saudi Arabia, we know that India is different and we fight to preserve this difference.

Finally, we come to the ‘village syndrome’. In 17 century New England, rumors of witchcraft started in small isolated villages and soon flamed into a conflagration that saw hundreds of women being burnt at the stake during the Salem witch trials. While almost all of India was burning with anger against the British in 1857 and the Peshwas were actually mulling mutiny, all it took was a small regiment from Barackpore to start the Sepoy Mutiny. All it takes is one village, one community, to stand up and reject an evil that has taken root so deep that unless it is uprooted for good, it will devour all. Tavleen singh writes, “The best defense against this kind of murderous violence is to limit the pool of recruits, and the only way to do that is for the home society to isolate, condemn and denounce publicly and repeatedly the murderers — and not amplify, ignore, glorify, justify or “explain” their activities.” There is a lesson in this for all of us, notwithstanding our minority status or otherwise. There is a lesson for those Hindus like me who rejoice Narendra Modi’s sweeping victory in the Gujarat elections, as also a lesson for those who cheered when the U.S was brought on its knees in the wake of 9/11. We are all pawns on the same chessboard and what is mine may well be yours tomorrow.

Warhol was Right

One of the things that I find shocking about America is the nature of its many reality shows. While a part of me is thrilled & grateful for the sheer variety that I find here, most of the shows are appalling. One of the reality shows that I've watched often is the Jon & Kate Plus Eight show that tells the story of a family where there are a set of twins & a set of sextuplets. Needless to say, their hassles, travails & triumphs make me feel better about the 3-yr old I deal with. There is a kind of sadistic pleasure mixed with a sense of humility & awe that two adults can actually do a pretty decent job raising 8 kids, six of which are of the same age. Also, my daughter is a huge fan of the family & insists almost daily that I drop her there; so much for family ties. Though A is critical about the family making money by exhibiting their kids, I don't mind it too much & so far haven't witnessed anything that I’d label as offensive on that show (if u discount Kate’s irritating habit of trying to push the idea of the all American germ-free-pancake-eating-outdoorsy-family down our throats perpetually).
However, most of the other shows will tell u more succintly than Barack Obama does, why this nation desperately needs a change. They paint an unhealthy & sad picture of people who peddle their deepest anxieties & fears, every harrowing experience they've overcome, the most personal demons they fought with & often lost, in front of millions via reality shows like Maury, Intervention, What Not to Wear, Nanny 911, Trading Spouses, Judge Alex, Judge Mathis.

While the Maury Show is one of the worst I know of, there is something quite morbid even about the relatively harmless Nanny 911 show where parents who are unable to discipline their children hire a stern, stiff upper-lipped Brit nanny who then proceeds to show them the error of their ways, in the process often revealing certain unsavoury bits about the couple's relationship or their lack of table manners. Participants in the Maury Show are subjected to polygraphs, DNA testing & much else & everything from the fatherhood of one's kids to the number of times a travelling salesman cheated on his wife is revealed in front of an obnoxious, simultaneously booing & cheering audience. I watched one of the episodes in dismay as this Mexican family just disintegrated before our eyes when DNA tests revealed that of their three adorable kids, the eldest Juanita, had been fathered by someone else. I dunno how much of the crying, shouting & ugly accusations that followed, was staged & how much of it was real.

It is just disturbing to watch people who will stop at nothing to enjoy their 15 minutes of fame & make a few quick bucks. This also takes away so much from those dozens of reality shows that are essentially about unearthing talent - be it musical, culinary, hair styling or simple home repair. Those are actually fun & sometimes even faintly educative.

This phenomenon of cheap exhibitionism can also be traced in the kind of 'memoirs' that one comes across these days. Princess Diana has p'bably been immortalised in some dozens of them by now, Monica Lewdinsky made millions clearing her name by talking about sex & cigars and innumerable versions of the tumultuous O.J Simpson-Nicole Smith marriage & subsequent tragedy grace book shops.

I know this gets slightly tangential but it is this cult of cheap, unsavoury, exhibitionism and craving for non-anonymity, of being recognized & congratulated, that drives so many bloggers that I know personally. Why is everybody in such a hurry to share their mundane musings about such weighty matters as a mediocre review of 'Rock On' or what they consider the best way to rein in wandering husbands! And god spare u, if u have dared to not read or even worse, read & not comment, on their posts. Not even a stint in the fourth circle of Purgatory will be enough to save u from their wrath.

Look Back in Anger

its been a heady mix of stories at CNN today ; the report covering how rescue operations are helping those injured in the tornado that hit SE Virginia today is interesting in terms of the speed with which such operations are carried out in these parts. contrast this with the manner in which the indian government responded to the terrible floods that devastated orissa in 1999.

anyway, jeremiah wright's latest antics could finally drive the nail in obama's coffin. mixed feelings here. have never been too convinced of the obama magic but cannot help but feel sorry for the man. seems he's paying for not doing what most others would have done in his place - denounce wright & disassociate himself from him unequivocally. while i'm pretty sure he will now go all out to condemn & cut himself off from wright fully, the question haunting people's minds is why did he continue to support & admire wright or be a part of his church when he knew wright was as racist as the whites he condemns. sadly, it all boils down to 'need'. despite his obvious theatrics & rabble rousing techniques, jeremiah wright is a renowned presence in the chicago black community & his contacts definitely helped obama's transition into Christianity. in fact, it won't be a stretch to suggest that the tables have turned now & wright needs obama to make his presence felt, to be heard, to be applauded or denounced, as the case may be. my only grouse with him is that he is trying his best to wreck obama's chances at the oval office when the man is really close. true, the nomination hasn't been wrapped but this latest controversy has already muddied the waters further.

& lou dobbs, as expected, is on a roll. with his usual eye-rolling & tsk tsking he tried to convey his acute outrage that wright had dared to compare u.s. marines with the jews responsible for the death of christ. can't wait to see the man fall off his chair someday while he practices those endless facial contortions.

i am always appalled at the stories of abuse perpetrated by parents on little children which abound on TruTV, but this one is a wholly diff nightmare - one which is endless (24 yrs) & doesn't end in death as it usually does. really, death is much simpler & nicer. just can't get this piece out of my mind. does it make sense to have babies in a world where such things happen? i have always been haunted by this questn whenever i see unbridled evil & the usual answers that we will raise good children & help mitigate the undesirables of life, the bad & the poisonous, all that seems like the platitude some idiot spun when he was too helpless to do anything else.

yes, this monster is the reason i am unashamedly pro-capital punishment & anti-parole. i know death row isn't much deterrent to such hyenas but imagine the 9-10 yrs he'd have to spend writing appeal after appeal, knowing that the end was near & nothing could stop it. most importantly, ppl like him have nothing to contribute to society, except irreparable damage. why should tax payers money be spent to sustain the likes of him?

Wright Choice

barack obama's recent speech in response to his ex-pastor jeremiah wright's scathing attacks on the nation, its exploitative & purely callous foreign policy & racism, among other things, reads like one of the best essays i have come across on a subject which is explosive & has the power even today to ignite & incite like few things can. most columnists, editors have lauded obama for his nuanced perception, the sincerity of his vision of unity that forms the cornerstone of much the man does & says, and the neatness with which he dissects the fundamental truth that there is no one living in the united states today who is completely untouched by racism - black or white, hispanic or muslim, bangalore coder or Filipino nurse.

in fact, as he was preparing to run for prez, obama must surely have known that wright's inflammatory sermons & his close ties with the senator would return to haunt him. no way could he have avoided wright & all that his name is associated with, when he decided to adopt the name of one of the pastor's sermons 'the audacity of hope' as the title of his book. therefore, to praise obama now because he hasn't publicly denounced wright is a little silly. the time to do so is long past. the Illinois senator has to walk a tight rope between portraying himself as 'not merely black' & 'not black enough'. denounce wright & he'd lose any hope of favor from the latter group. that wouldn't be the right choice. remember how the black policeman (don cheadle) who made it the world despite being from the projects & having an alcoholic mother in paul haggis' 'crash' is never forgiven by his own precisely because he made it, because he didn't turn towards crack like the others, because he joined the police who'd routinely harass & live off the black gangs in bronx. to be segregated must be intolerable, more so when it is amongst one's own & surely obama would never want to risk that.

finally, despite tomasky's brilliant & incisive piece on the ramifications of obama's speech, i'd like to differ with him. at a time when its image in the outside world is in shambles, its economy in ruins over the mortgage crisis & iraq a perpetual albatross around its neck, every u.s. citizen is eager for some scope for redemption or personal grace. as obama's speech reminds them of the sins of their fathers, the founding fathers even (he actually calls the declaration of independence 'incomplete'), his candidacy offers them a chance to right centuries of wrong, to salve the conscience by finally embracing one who isn't their own, to show the world that america is capable of nurturing the 'other' & not just the 'self'. if anything, the whole wright controversy has given obama a platform to poke white voters in the ribs & jolt them out of their indecision.