Oof this secular shit in India!!!

It happens only in India! In the Brambridge Press, New Delhi Office, an innocent Hindu cow is mistreated, insulted and humiliated by a fierce Muslim zealot. It happens repeatedly, unjustifiably, without any professional reasons and without any provocation by the poor cow. The reasons are plainly personal. The Hindu holy cow sheds tears. The Muslim filly bites back with more ferocity next time. If the Hindu holy cow raises an issue, other educated Hindu lambs eating the grass of hypothetical secularism run to defend the Muslim houri. She has this shield. Caught in a difficult situation, she just has to shout the plaintive tales of Muslim sufferings in India. She is educated; pampered in office like a princess. Still she has endless tales of Hindu atrocities against Muslims to share. The secular shrimps, the educated chicken-hearted Hindus, ever so eager to prove they have read a few books, run with hanky to wipe her tears and mutter against their own religion. Earlier in the build-up of Modi wave that catapulted him to PM status, she was always splattering venom against Modi and was casting Nazi type holocaust of Muslims in India if Modi came to power. Now ask her, ‘Has Muslim population of India been sent to gas chambers?’ They are better placed than before! It can happen only in India! Only educated Hindus blinded by hypothetical lines of secularism can allow a Hindu cow to be bitten and smothered by a Muslim colleague! Kudos to Hindu secularism! Is there any overenthusiastic RSS or Bajrang Dal guy who can issue Hindu version of fatwa against this woman!!??

Chaudhary Devi Lal Ji Amar Rahein!

The maker of modern Haryana, Ch. Devi Lal – our Tauji – the Jan Nayak; the spirited non-conformist against the shadowy overtures of lopsided development at the cost of countryside; the man crowned with the unadulterated halo of farmers' interests.

          It is a matter of pleasure and pride to dedicate this write-up – these simple pen strokes of countryside nostalgia – to the Jan Nayak. I feel it is a Godly intercession in my little literary journey that I have'n provided the opportunity to hitch my tiny literary cart to the strong and swift horses of his legacy.

          There is voluminous testimony to the impressiveness of Ch. Devi Lal's calmly commanding personality. And if a son of Haryana – the karmabhoomi of our farmers' messiah – entails himself to the fag end of our Tauji's enormously elderly aura and legacy, then it should be forgiven and appreciated.

          The Jan Nayak's overriding benevolence has'n shining and will continue to do so endlessly through the rack and ruin of time. His unblemished character and works for the country's downtrodden have made his luminous memories firmly fade-less. Lustrous whirls of extravagant green decorated so pridefully in the agricultural fabric of this country will continue to inspire generations to come. His work, worry and weariness for the cause of rural India make him outstandingly standout amongst the rag-tag parliamentary disorder.

          Despite achieving so much at the highest level of Indian politics, he was uncommonly sobered; his simple, stout spirit, merry and mellow elderly aura made him immensely approachable to the people from the lowest rung of life. Where else would you find a Chief Minister, who dropped in by a poor hutment and heartily enjoyed the frugals offered like he had'n served with choicest delicacies from the costliest restaurant. Every settlement in Haryana happily cradles myriads of such sweet memories. By the God's greatest glory, he'd arrive at the scene mired in heartbreaks and dejection. And lo ! An encouragingly buzzing transformation would take place. His mere presence will sprinkle new life. His malleable sensitivity, kind and condescending behaviour, subtle and statuesque physique dispelled the disharmony and dispassion from the scene.

          We grew up in our village taking him the single synonym of all that 'politics' means to the children. Such has'n the sweeping scope of his charisma across the length and breadth of Haryana! That casual flightiness of flickering childhood can still clearly recall the grand impressiveness of his hold over the ruralites' psyche. While I was 13-year-old, finding me unconcernedly lost in the slow grandeur of childhood, my grandfather– a devout follower of the Jana Nayak – exhorted me :

          "You haven't yet learnt how to talk like a youth. At your age, Ch. Devi Lal not only spoke like a fiery youth, but acted like one also. At such a tender age of 13, he raised the flag of revolt against the Britishers and courted arrest for the cause of mother India!"

          It was then I got to realise the real force of his selfless valour, courage and conviction.

          Generic sacredness of his socially prominent policies, for which he life-longly lugged it out and lugged it in, made him the favourite son of Haryana's destiny. The Jan Nayak was compulsively attached to the cause of sons of the soil. Throughout his life, he ladenly slogged ahead, shouldering the responsibilities of those whose interests – up to that time – were politically sterile. And this cherished goal of his would never get off his uncomplaining shoulders till he left us. Even during his last days, his feeble, old eyes envisioned a golden future for the deprived and dispossessed masses of this country. A very-very old farmer whom I met in a bus broke down while he narrated the dreamy moments he shared with the farmers' messiah when the latter had'n bedridden by the inevitable and cruel hand of age.

          "His eyes were peacefully closed," the farmer told me about his life-long hero. "When I touched his feet, slowly but with sudden urgency his eyes opened. He had energy just enough to say few words and asked, 'How is it with the crops?' And then those big, passionate eyes were closed again, as if he was praying for me and the crops."

          Tauji's all-fired urgency had blossomed fresh morning's verve in the sublime-stillness of the traditional hinterland of Haryana. Yes! We as children have'n first hand witness to this silent revolution of 'coming of age of the ruralites.' His name connoted all that leadership, politics, elections and statesmanship meant to us. Far away from the hoot and holler, and flimsy vanities of 'utilitarian politics' the 'leader of common man' was selflessly busy in his mission. And later when his benevolently beaming imagery shone at the national level, perhaps for the first time this country came to understand and realise the real worth of the Jats, who have always been the bread earners of this big country, and who in return were uncomplainingly scraping a living — 'barely' — for their impoverished and almost famished families.

          It is a pungent irony that the mountainously-big legacy and stature of this great son of Haryana has proved to be too broad and comprehensive for the local literature to accommodate in its pages. May be it is due to the fact that literature is in its nascent stage in this traditional land of agricultural community. Inevitably and naturally, the myth and legend of the Jan Nayak is bound to grow exponentially, I think local literature must brace up its wordy effort to provide full justice to the great man's mission and philosophy. In my humble capacity, I've tried to take a few steps in this direction by paying literary obeisance to our Tauji. It has been a revealing experience, at the emotional level, to catch the glimpses of his memories in the poem titled 'Tauji'.  I feel privileged in dedicating this anthology to his cause and mission. These are the heartfelt songs from the land he worked for all along his immensely productive life.

          As all of us suffer from some stringent frailty. Yours truly is also no exception to that. If my poem 'Tauji' does not match the Jan Nayak's real greatness then this beginner deserves forgiveness. May be, time and experience will provide me the capacity to portray this great man's exceptional simplicity, magnificent profusion of his forthrightness, his unflinching righteousness and his fierce possessiveness about the cause of downtrodden and deprived.

          I hope my humble literary endeavour finds favour with the people of every caste, class and political spectrum, because history makers like our Jan Nayak belong to our common legacy and must get all encompassing reverence, gratitude and heartful salutation from each and every one of us.

Politics: The institutionalized and constitutionalized system of plunder, injustice and exploitation

Politics: The institutionalized and constitutionalized system of plunder, injustice and exploitation

It is about politics. Before we discuss the political ramifications for this politicized word, let us go back in time to take a look at the roots of the tree of authority that holds the thriving tree of politics in modern times. Well it started with absolute monarchies.

It has been the supreme irony of our so called ‘civilized fate’ that try as hard as we can manage, we cannot stop pyramid type, hierarchical and classified pattern of the social set up. In a pyramid social formation, the higher the class, the lower the weight on its shoulders, and higher the weight on the lower ones constituting the base. In the beginning we had the pointed peak of the social pyramid represented by the unrestrained, unchecked, all powerful potentate, the King, with all his weight on all below, and no weight on his shoulder at all except the light hallo of divinity falling on his crowned head. The crown just acted as a paperweight holding the paper sheaf wherein endless lines of unlimited authority decided the fate of those below. Sometimes the winds did ruffle the edges around the margin, but the middle was always safe, its centre of gravity exactly on that of the sheaf of divine rights. Under the big stone of cosmic proportions, the papery revolt just could not move even a single tremor across the sheaf of divine rights.

Later, as civilization unfolded more, absolute monarchies were either blown off the top, or some checks and balances were put in the path of all powerful authority in the form of some constitutionalities like elected representatives trying to bolster the principles intended for the emancipation of the lowest layers in the pyramid. (Times have more or less weathered the massive crown heads of monarchies and we are left with a few residual, beaten crags struggling in low relief with beaten joints and chips flying away attacked by the rasping desert winds.)

Will we be ever able to wipe out the successive upper plateau of exploitation (as the denuded pyramid comes lower, having lost its upper layers, the slag sliding down the sides and slopes to reach a one common uniform layer of everybody’s authority and thus none’s authority)? Under such a scenario, all authority denuded and spread equally among the masses in a uniform plain, will self responsibility allow things to function in all empowered citizenry? Will we function as expected and idealized?

Passing through successive layers of exploitation in the pyramid, we reach our very own broadly cut plateau at the top involving numerous players—legislature, executive, judiciary, bureaucracy, capitalists, criminals, religioners—our present political system at the top now. Times have eroded the pyramid and left this broader plateau at the top after cutting down the pinpointed head of absolute monarchy. Here all the evils of the former pointed absolutism have been handed over to a broader section of players. The dirt of absolutism has been raked up to be spread among the progenies of absolutism. The ‘will to power’ has sired numerous little crown-heads who try to convince the lower layers that this facelift is meant to ensure the equal rights of the masses. So here we land up with the grandchildren of absolutism, i.e., politics and its big, broad, legally secured crown of authority (which by the way is very safe given it broad lower rim of constitutionality). Presently, politicians rule at the flat top of this denuding pyramid. Murkily spread over this vast pedestal of authority—their authority constitutionalized—suitably served and aided by the so call ‘influential class’, it now wears the ruling crown, a multi-headed monster, the great scion of absolute monarchy, changed with changing times, in its new avatar. What has but not changed is the will to exploit and self-serve to survive. Why not? After all, it carries the same blood in its authoritative veins like its grandfather, the absolute, all powerful king.

Earlier during the days of absolutism, it worked with impunity and through blatant dispensation of whatever it required to keep its clutch hold on the lesser mortals, now it does through the subtle art of politics, through ‘siyasat’. The long and windy corridors of political hypnotizers echo with lispy conspiratorial whispers; of suppression, secrecy, connivance, plot hatching and what not. Under the monarchy, the despotic game was limited to the royal lineage and their chieftains, now the crown is up for grabs by anyone interested. The only eligibility is the ‘will to power’. In its multitudinous aspect, the fight for little-little crowns up for grabs on the plateau: for legislature, for executive, judiciary, etc. The rules of battle in this vast battle ground are solidly fixed up in the constitution book. Rule are but rules, mere words noted down in hypothetical conjectures in books. These cannot come to life and fight for their sanctity and protection if faced with blatant violations. Since brains are developing even faster for any law, for every rule there in the book, we delve deeper into our creative self to contrive bypasses and short-cuts to either escape their feeble dragnet or even poke our noses at them after judiciously cutting the netting. Our present set of power holders, the politicians, practically, suitably and efficiently manages the game. They munch the meat of authority and throw bones to their cronies, bureaucrats, businessmen and criminals. The unchecked orgy earlier perpetrated by a single monarch, is now enjoyed by a faceless broad-rimmed class, the politicians.

In all its forms, democracy is considered to be a religion drawing its inspiration and authority from the scriptures of constitution. A holy book, but, is just a holy book. If not in full letter, but in spirit at least we easily violate the pious injunctions. Apart from these pious injunctions, what happens in reality is an open secret. Except for a few big, mighty words, constitutions are amended to suit the latest political masters’ present day growth prospects. See beyond the superficiality of the decked up bride of democracy coquettishly bragging the independence and autonomy of its various arms, you will see that the politico-bureaucratic-judicial-executive machinery is explicitly or implicitly, directly or indirectly, ultimately mastered and pulled along by the modern monarchs, the politicians. Take for example the bureaucracy, once considered the steel frame of the British Raj, it has now become feeble meshed cage with rusty, breaking wires and gaping holes. All of us know the fate of a bureaucrat if instead of becoming a hyena chucking up the leftover of plunder by some politician, he becomes just a ‘grass eating vegetarian cow’ honestly following the principles and rules of his service book. He is spotted like a black sheep in the easygoing white flock. Harassment and punishment postings ensure that an official of the same cadre and experience can be made a meat-eating hero or a famished zero by the lion, the politician. It’s a clear choice. Either become a steely, profiting arm of a politician or be ready to be thrown in dustbin corners of the bureaucratic corridors. All of us know how state level bureaucracy is selected! Corruption is constitutionally embedded. State Public Service Commissions are just handpicked bodies of the state monarch, the Chief Minister. Literally everybody knows how almost 100% manipulations go hand in glove with state’s ruling politicians. Manipulations are simplest of things at all the stages of examination. If someone just pushes ahead in prelims and mains, the all powerful boards have powers to undo all the hard work and marks gap between the highest and lowest qualifiers during the farcical personality test. So the prospective provincial civil servants easily start their inning as political loyalists. To muster up high-end pay, perks and profits, they operate like loyal palace groom discharging functions assigned by the political patron.

Without making much of noise against the plunder of public money, severe breach of laws, gross insufficiency of public morals and rules, the judiciary too toes the line. Directly or indirectly the political masters influence the functioning of justice dispensation. The dark corridors leading to the appointments and elevation to higher chairs in High Courts and Supreme Court definitely allows the politicians to hold ears of ambitious judges. Judiciary is allowed a free play by politicians in cases where only masses are involved. In such cases the judges can afford to have some discretion, be honest if they want and take money from one of the parties through the lawyers (like they generally do) to tilt the hammer of justice this or that way. But in cases where ruling government’s interests are at stake directly, no judge can afford to feel the pinch at his bottom if he decides to go as per integrity and honesty. Once in a blue moon, some odd case is deliberately picked up where the court gives verdict against the government and it is put on the front pages. It is just to keep people believing in the assumption that judiciary is fair. Poor masses do not know, under one such case highlighted, thousands of other cases where judiciary toes political line go unnoticed. One hammer of dissent against government is at the cost of hundreds of political facilitations by condescending judges to appease political masters. Led by the instinct of self preservation most of the judges do not prefer to rub shoulders against the system. In this clattering noise of self gratification, the voice of justice gets buried in the stampede towards profits and promotions.

Politicians as the masters of the public and private economy are offered oblations by the business class. We have the biggest industrial houses of the country pouring unaccounted and illegitimate money in political pockets. Since it is a fight to further one’s own interests as far as possible, using any means possible depending on one’s own skills and shrewdness—it is just as per Darwain’s principle of natural and social selection—we come across the cut throat competition in the social jungle having its social lions and social deer. So we have the people who would never think twice before striking others’ head to boost their own chances. Of all the scoundrels, politics draws the fittest scoundrels who form a nexus among various scions of exploitative elements. Those who are left out of this fold become the poor, dispossessed, suffering underclass.

In the social jungle, the principles of raw nature like superior kills the inferior’, ‘might is right’, ‘stronger meat chucks the easy meat’ are prevalent in humane, implicit form. Whole façade of civilization has been created to screen the blind passions and intentions to kill and decimate each other. Instead of killing and exterminating each other, the human version is through cheating, forgery and outwitting. A lion is at the peak of natural pyramid and food chain, eating away the last interests and easy meat that successively struggle at the lower hierarchies to emerge victor at the next stage to be gobbled up by the more potent, powerful and skilled at the next stage. In social jungle’s pyramid, the apex of our food chain of interests is occupied by the social lion, the politician. It its guts every lower interest at the lower hierarchies is finally destined to be deposited and digested expertly.

Politicians, thus, are the new age monarchs who are able to outsmart fellow human beings both at the individual and mass levels. Where will we end up with passage of time? Will the progenies of exploitation change in future? Or the politicians will even allow their own progenies to change them? Politicians seem invincible, not to be defeated by any change!! 

The Artist

The most distinguished, defining and branding commonality among the artistic people is their lives predominantly over-arched with sorrow, suffering and hardness at the hands of the contemporary society. Mere mention of the word is sufficient to make one envision a life full of destitution, impracticality bordering foolishness, and self-absorbed persona taking the occupant in a cornered reality where he stands in muted aloofness.

Now the question arises why have such artistic people suffered all along the march of civilization. Simple! It is their affliction with this germ of creativity that ever lynches them to create something subtle, nuanced and an everlasting symbol of their caliber that will continue to fight against the swiping sand of time, to keep shining forever as an interminable legacy. This creative urge to leave an artistic progeny--which is so powerful among all natural objects that it results in sexual procreation willy-nilly in all species--in case of artists this ‘will to life’ strives to leave a creative legacy. They do not strive for a biological legacy; they slog out off-stream to leave an undying object of their artistry. In a way, it is some effort to move towards immortality in some artistic form, to leave a trace of this self-absorbed self in some form because it is not possible to achieve mortality in physical form. At the common level, people are so inclined to leave their genes in the form of kids; it is just an effort to ward off mortality’s hammer-work that will see us lying in dust at the end of our journey. So we have elaborate social system of inheritance and patriarchy. An artist’s sense of survival is through his body of work that will stand solid against the cycle of life that does not allow anything or anybody to stand on stage forever.

The artistic target being so noble and high, spanning so much time in the future, relatively longer account in public memory, the investment of soul’s blood and toil is also of the same Herculean scale. It includes devotion; worship; virtual surrender to the Almighty urge to create the masterpiece. Aah, so much for this urge to immortalize the self!! It requires penance, solitude, loneliness during those long spread out hours, while the world around walks smarty with immediate gains to still highlight the artist’s fruitless work. Kudos to this common man’s safe rut where so many move uncreatively, safely, smartly, efficiently, practically gathering puny perks and profits falling on the way as a result of tiny efforts and Lilliputian endeavors. So the rutted, beaten path of convention, of sheep-sleep-walking masses following the same path involves littlest risks, almost assured returns, monotonous efforts, repetitive patterns of life resulting in ever so expectable bits of money and the status of a similar mass colored sheep. By following the path of convention, a man just puts in a very small, short term investment. It can be very easily followed, for you need not be an exception in any regard; need not take any risk whatsoever; need not put up any type of experimentation. You just imitate others; you just do what other hundreds of thousands are doing; you can even do it like a donkey yoked in its little cart going for miles of its own without using even a chit of its dull brain and the carter happily asleep dropping his reins and lines lose. The wheels trapped in deep furrows themselves guide the beast. To walk on this dusty, smooth, defined, clear pair of ruts it needs no special effort or creativity. Here just above-average skilled fake combatants run ahead to grab the lumps of tiny gains lying in the ruts, followed by the average skilled laggards trying to reach the front part of the mob, and at the end trail the less skilled struggling to defeat the tag of failure. So the pack train lurches ahead with its saddle bags full of little trophies and tiny rewards.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the artists do not toe this line of man-mules. They revolt and resist this mechanic soulless movement from nowhere to nowhere. The creativity in them enables them to see mammoth rewards at distant off-rut, off route places. However, the muleteers jostling around force the artist to move at the mass mobbed pace. Filled with artistic fury, the creative soul revolts and steps out of the rut to move on fresh earth to reach its own set of rewards and bounties. Meanwhile, boonfully jesting and shouting train of human mules jeers at the artist’s first steps on the solitary path; they brandish their tiny trophies at him; try their best to distract and dislodge him from the unconventional path; bait him with Lilliputian trophies glittering under the conventional sun of their pack train. Not having anything else to distract him, they discard and condemn him as unfit for the mobbed completion in the dusty safe ruts. They shout ‘escapist’. But he just laughs them away, soulfully drenched in the drudgery of his soul’s creative instinct. He is fully immersed in the divine purpose of creating something unique, having a totally new meaning. In revulsion they punish him with pauperization and ostracizing.

Hundreds and hundreds of artist revolutionaries die an unknown and unsung death on the freezing cold slopes after moving away or parting ways from the normal path. Some of course reach the distant cave of their destination and carve out a masterpiece that is visible from the common rutted path and the commoners tired and bored throw praise and coins at him. From the craggy ridges its rays even entertain the streaming mass and they even sometimes praise his achievement after all the excommunication and call his self-imposed exile even a fruitful endeavor. The real artist is but still exiled in soul even though physically shoved by the hustle and bustle of common rutted brains.

There is a very simple reason why artistry is judged along very poor lines. It is all about money-making principles. We judge the effort in proportion to its money-making prospects. Since most of money-making is institutionalized within the parameters of the rutted path, the tools of artistry are redundant in the common thoroughfare. So the mob constantly yells failure at the artist while he sweats it out to leave his name written shiningly on time’s fabric. The undifferentiated mass snubs the artistic revolt like a master pokes an errant slave, meanwhile the sun of ignominy and poverty shines on the bent artistic head absorbed in soul-work on the anvil of his creativity. For each word of praise, the poor artist has withstood uncountable number of chidings, snubs, hooting, lampooning puns and mocking looks. He but silently bears it like a strike from the ramrod of fate. Silently he just chips away the stones of adversities to reach the ever-shining gem of creativity, whose hook has been fastened in his heart, and the unrelenting line ever keeps pulling. He is helpless in the grasp of this passion encrusted cord that would not let him go, even if they try against it.

He is the helpless moth, ever attracted to the fire of his creative passion. He just cannot help it even if that continuous fluttering around the glow means a final dive into the flames to be charred to ashes. Whatever might be the end, the artistic soul lives triumphantly, victoriously in the glory of its artistic passion. He sets his own goals and gets his own self-derived rewards, so societal acceptance or non-acceptance does not matter. Every little creative streak taken to its completion brings him own set of adulations and salutations. His stomach might starve; but his soul is ever satiated with big draughts drawn from the fathomless pool of his creative urge. Society may dub him as a failure but his ever sweating out conscience is perpetually vouchsafing and singing eulogies for his diehard spirit and really, really genuine efforts.         

Cosmic Shades of Hinduism

Hinduism

Hinduism has been, perhaps, scribbled down most comprehensively and ingenuously by the Supreme Power. Blurring dark clad exorcists; the ever wandering mendicant friars; totally unattached meditating yogis in the toughest climes of the Himalayas; alm-asking peregrinators; the temple priests; the ashram dwellers on the collective path of faith; as many sects and further derivations as there are individuals: All of them embaled in one pious knot. Such is the greatness of Hinduism: so many paths to be followed according to an individual soul’s intonation; the overspreading saffron colour of God, colouring each and every soul, from the most scheming ones to the perfectly surrendering ones; the infallible, ineffable God’s regimen containing everything from the complete vacuous calm to bellicose verbosity, with little coquettish gurgitation of the masses, swaying to the tunes of both extremities, lying in between.

About 5000 years ago, the nascent forms of this present institutionalised faith were emerging. The Rig Vedic age, beyond the misdating anachronism; the era of profound cosmic outpours from the wonderstruck hearts eulogising the nature’s play in whose womb the Godhood lay in its self-referral unconsciousness. The sages, the mystics---whose 5000 years old descendant lay under the banyan tree---sang the ‘self revealed truth’ in their unchecked poetry. Hinduism sprouted forth from this gay-spiritual-abundance.

How broad Hinduism is! Mystical auras of the legendary figures have their relevance to the farthest limits of space and time. To those rigid, rational souls who’re ever caught in the grumpy facade of intellectual rumination, it at last provides a simplistic presentment of the ultimate truth; leaving them sinking into the comfortable and peaceful chairs of faith, where only the ‘realisation’ rules dormitively.

It’s really wonderful to see how majestically Hinduism has flowed like a subtle murmury river over the distortionist terrain of time. In a divinely concordant way to the social reality this vast spiritual stream has confluenced into the mighty sea of ultimate reality. Numerous tributaries join the mainstream flowing though the vale of peerless capacity to absorb the waters of different sources. Then the unstinted mirth of the mighty mother-stream once again drifts apart to dyad, triad... to myriad distributaries. The result: a divinely diversified spiritual confluence on the seabed of ultimate reality.

How fundamentalist Islam can be made a well behaved buddy!!

Educated Hindus love flaunting their pseudo-secularism. They crow at their artificial best when it comes to exaggerating the perils of Hindu fanatics, and downplaying the devilish deeds of Muslim daredevils. Let us be clear on this: the angriest of a Hindu is still better than the coolest of a Muslim for world peace. Let us have a look at the history sheet of Hindu so called 'fanatics'. At the climax of their nationalistic chauvinism, they have just broken a medieval structure, i.e., Babri Masjid. And that too where? At a place where the supreme Icon of their religion was born! So Ramlalla’s religious legacy has been hijacked in the name of justifying secularism on paper and in theory. Can you imagine a place on earth where the faith of 100 crore people has been allowed to be hijacked to politically appease 20 crore people. Congress and Co. in alliance with regional satraps like Mullah Mulayam have ensured that political gains theory considers Muslims as the most important element in vote-catch theory. Just imagine who is dubbed communal?! It is BJP!!!!! Educated Hindus are the most vocal champions of raising dissenting chorus against anything aggressive related to Hinduism!! 

Why 100 crore Hindus are comfortable with the idea of a makeshift tent at Ramlalla’s birthplace? The reason is simple!! Hinduism has been left unattended! It is lying in open to be misinterpreted and misused by all and sundry including both Hindus and non-Hindus. Result is we have so many stigmatized characters, so called Godmen, within Hinduism who bring farce and shame to Hindus. There is nothing left related to Hinduism that cannot be twisted and changed to suit individual, collective, political and social choices. No sinew related to Hinduism is inviolable. If Bhagwat Geeta is lying at a public square, it is not a religious scandal. Somebody might just step on it to move ahead; another may move sideways to go ahead; someone might just pick it up and put at a safe place; and top of it, somebody might just kick it to land it at even worse place. This someone can be anyone, of any religion. When you leave your faith system to be misused at a level, where you end up having godmen like Asha Ram and Guru Ram Rahim, and where the supreme scripture can be kicked without even raising the dust around, where you do not leave even a single sinew related to it inviolable, you weaken yourself as a religioner, as a person, as a race! In Islam it is just the opposite. Just imagine a Koran instead of Geeta in the incident mentioned above. Do you think even a fanatic Hindu will dare to even come near Koranic papers??! No!!! Reason is very simple! Islamists have not left even a single thing violable in their domain. That is why Islam is surviving like a hard-woven knot for so long. That is the reason why its holy priests have such influence on the followers. That is the reason why we still see medieval barbaric things being committed by Muslim fanatics. If things have to be changed, let more and more things related to Islam be brought into conformity with the present times. That is the only way to break that final knot, to melt that blind adherence to misrepresented rigidity nurtured by blindfolding mullahs.                     

It is even foolish to compare Hindu and Islamic fanaticism. When RSS and company get too agitated what does it result into? Long marches in khaki; lathi training; lessons for patriotism, ineffectual lectures from podiums because what can be expected from educated Hindus and even masses who will just move ahead with this solace that they are paying lip service to secularism. And pseudo secularists crow foul...bloody shitheads. On the contrary fundamentalist Islamic criminality is holding world peace at bay. I need not mention countless blood-bathed episodes resulting from the blinding mullahs.

If Islam can be misinterpreted in such dehumanized manner to unleash hell on earth, it is high time we fight to dismantle fundamentalist Islamic stranglehold over its followers. Islam has to be brought under new set of liberal rules. The so called inviolable set of blind beliefs should be mellowed down as per the contemporary requirements and it has to be made liberal like other religions. Demon creating mullahs who misinterpret the lines in holy books should be made accountable. Poison sprouting mullahs should be held by their goatee and made to eat sense for all this bloodshed. Shame ...shame. This earth will be such a nice place without the blind religious followers, whatever religion they belong to.

The only way the world can be saved from Islamic fundamentalist deluge is to break the myth of old, outdated Islamic principles. Muslims and non-Muslims both have been chained in the fear of a deadly retaliation if there is any effort to reform Islam. Sporadic incidences to change have been met with killings, because these have been tried by individuals. Result is that there are primitive mullahs who interpret the sacred lines as per their convenience. The only way change can be forced is to break the myth of inviolability of the archaic, misinterpreted Islamic injunctions written in stone. Let it be a frequent event. Let it be done by faceless institutions at public places so that anger-stricken Maulvis do not know who has done it. Let it occur so many times at so many places so that it becomes a normal issue like it is with other religions. This is the only way to take out Islamists imprisoned in medieval principles. Once they frequently see cudgels being taken at the centuries old blindfolding, misrepresented principles, they will be more receptive to change...larger forces in non-Islamic world have to manage it with faceless players.

Better to have a Godless world now!!

Better to have a Godless world now!!

Let us be clear on this! The concept of God was a nice production of human thought to give answers to unanswerable happenings, mishappenings, chance throw of dice and destinies, hard fought struggles and expectedly-unexpectedly varying outcomes. And then out of this motley mix of fires, misfires; success and failure; rise and fall; ecstasies and miseries, there arose natural questions--Why?? Why?? The concept of God was offered as a panacea for numerous puzzling symptoms plaguing distraught humans seeking answers to this 'why'.

You have to believe with a blind faith if at all you want to get some solace or unproven blessing. If you suffer unjustifiably, religion tells you that you might be suffering on account of bad deeds in previous birth. If you are not getting the results of your good deeds, it tells you that you will get it post death. Both things are not proven, previous birth and after-death status. God is not proven. All the proofs to verify His existence are themselves contrived in a way that even these cannot be proven. So the final nail in confirming His existence is: ‘He cannot be known! He can just be realized and felt!’ So ultimately it boils down to a feeling, a realization! So very smartly it has been brought down to a level of feeling, a zone where logic is pushed aside without and rhyme or reason! And this feeling and realization is shaped by unquestionable belief in His existence.

So where do we land up??!! Like we are the owners and makers of rest of all the feelings in us, here as well we also possess this feeling in us. Sum and summary: Aham Brahma Asmi, means ‘I am the God I am seeking!’ It started in human brain and is realized in human brain as well. Rituals that are meant to appease Him, are just smart ways of keeping social order and keep people believe in the thin line dividing good and bad, moral and immoral, otherwise there will be a chaos.            

After a debatable journey, the concept of God has outlived its utility. Mankind framed the idea of God to create a psychological field of safety against natural forces that were beyond his knowledge and comprehension. Those mysteries have been explained quite well now. So we need not continue to pay lip service to it anymore. Doing so is proving more harmful to the creator of God, the human brain, the mankind. Religion is a thriving unquestioned business. Do you remember Asha Ram harami?? Similarly, there are hundreds of Godmen exploiting people for their belief in the concept of God. Millions are dying in the name of various Gods. Political parties are pulling votes in the name of religion. High time we abandon this redundant concept!! At the practical and mass level, it is doing more harm than the psychological advantage it provides against unknown apprehensions and insecurities at the individual level. Disadvantages and losses at the collective level are far more than the individual sips of solace driven by surrendering the self to the divinity.

Times changed over centuries. Almost everything changed in its wake. But religious differences are the same. Blood-shedding in the name of religion is the same. Isn't it high time that the world community starts dismantling the hold of exclusive religious principles on people and states? It is the time for an all inclusive world religion, the religion of all humanity, humanism. It is the time to contrive a better idea than exclusive Gods for various groups. We can think better to have a more relevant concept. The new concept can have Allah, Jesus, Buddha, Hindu Gods and other major deities in its fold. Main issue is how can Islamists be convinced to see beyond the rigid confines of their unchanging tradition?! All other religions are melting under the warm sun of internationalism. But icy blocks of Islam are holding their medieval solidly crystallized layers like polar snows. Will Islam ever be lenient to non Muslims!? World peace and harmony depends on the answer to this question. If internationalism succeeds to liberate humanism buried inside Islamic fanaticism, we can expect to have a peaceful world following the religion of humanism. In any case religion has to be systematically dismantled to lay the foundation of a common world, like it was earlier constructed in ancient times to stamp man's authority on earth under subservience to natural forces!

We can analyse the factors that gave birth and then supported the concept of God. God is just an incalculable sum of infinite series of chance factors.

If at all there is divinity, it is chance, coincidence! Chance is divinity! If ever there is a force that shapes things in universe and consequently human life, it is the chance factor. Random forces shape even the patterns that appear constant and infallible to us. Suppose you hold ten playing marbles in your hand. You keep these on your palm and take utmost focus to throw in a way so that you get maximum pieces in the hole. The chain of event that proceeds is utterly carried and pulled by the chance factor. Who knows with what balance and from what height, distance or tilt you decide to go for your throw!? You have numerous options as per the aforementioned variants! Then by chance you get carried to think one particular position more suitable than others. Who knows in what funny ways the marbles float in air? These can float in relatively favorable and unfavorable arrangement to hit earth in who knows how many ways to scatter in who knows in which directions and strike each other in who knows how many ways and how many angles to result in who knows how many moving away or into the hole?????? It is a long and endless series of independent still minutely dependent possibilities. One conscious act of taking the marbles in hand driven by the intention of putting as many as possible in the hole results in an endless serious of probabilities that work independently in between the throwing stage with particular intention and the resulting stage emerging as an independent result. The result is free, so are the numerous bits of independent realities driven by the free will of the chance factor. From micro to macro levels this factor works to coincidentally shape destinies and the way universe functions.

In the fathomless domains of this chancy super-quotient, we have independent units that recur in patterns with regularity to substantiate our scientific theories. These are but particular outcomes carried by the swift forces of chance. Universe is an outcome of some chancy explosion. Life on earth is pleasant coincidence, divine chance. See the dance of prince chance in all its charm around you and in your life and you will feel its superweight!

Allow me to call myself a Jat please!!!

Concepts carry certain mental weight. If not more, at least they help us in proving that, just because we are aware of their existence and pay them lip service, without doing anything practically to substantiate them, we are modern, educated, secular, non-casteist etc., etc. One such concept is the concept of casteism. Let anybody tell, and of all let it be a Jat mentioning his status, thousands will grab the opportunity to condemn and claim their status as modern and educated individuals.

We have hierarchy of identities linked to us--our definitions. As per our concept-based clarification, I should say I am a ‘human’ instead of Sandeep Dahiya. But I do not, because doing so will just leave me clueless in the final melting sea of humanity. I am human, but yaa I am also Sandeep Dahiya. Our identities starting from the self evolve upwards. Starting from my family, I am a Jat, then I am defined as a Hindu, then as the resident of a particular village, then a state, then country, then continent, then earth (if there are aliens). Now you tell where is my strongest self of belonging? Simple, it is with the ‘self’. So basically I identify myself with my name, my surname, my family name, my caste name. I call myself ‘Sandeep Dahiya’ and that gives me an identity among the sea of humanity. Will I prefer being called ‘Sandeep Dutt’? Or will ‘Pushp Dutt’ like to be called ‘Pushp Dahiya’? Absolutely no! So if we are so possessive about our caste-born names, why do we start croaking like mad frogs the moment somebody declares the identity?! All those who absolutely do not believe in casteism, should call themselves ‘insaan’ as their surnames, e.g., Push Insaan. We are digitally advanced enough to have unique identifying numbers among all the enmassed humanity of ‘insaans’.

When we talk of basic identity, it is at the cost of exclusivity. When I say I am ‘Sandeep Dahiya’ I exclude other names. When I say, I am an Indian, I exclude other countries. When I say, I am from Haryana, I exclude other states. When I say, I am a Hindu, I exclude other religions. So when I say, I am a Jat, am I committing a crime? When I express my opinions regarding political dominance for my community, am I committing a crime? Do not we fight to keep our identities alive starting from the basic identity with the self? Do not we read for ourselves and settle in career so that family name becomes more popular? Or do we just do it for the neighbor to help them in their economic struggle? Do not we feel happy when the village earns a name in some regard? Do not we feel happy for the state when we read about its progress? Do not we feel happy for an Indian winning at the world level? So why should not I feel happy and proud of my status as a Jat casteman?! Why should not I aspire for better prospects for my community at the political and social level, like I do for myself, with my basic identity? When I am struggling to make my life better, am I always lost in the beautiful world of better life for my neighbor?! It is just our basic instinct man! It simply is basic instinct to hope to, aspire for and work for the betterment of things related to our basic identities starting from our families onward?  

Do not we prefer one thing over the other in even most mundane aspects of life, such as food, footwear and clothes? Or we just abandon our priorities and preferences just to wear kurta dhoti, because half of India is clad in that? Or we just force ourselves to eat plain rice and daal because Indian masses survive on it? We do not! We have distinct preferences! This preference is basically derived by excluding something from the other. And when I exclude something to retain for something else for myself, I do it as per my convenience, for my own sake! Do not all of us do the same? Is not caste a major factor in India? Does not our constitution show positive discrimination in jobs reservation and political representation? Is not our whole fabric dependent on caste? All those concept-blinded people, who start shrieking at casteism, should prove their genuineness by putting surname ‘insaan’ after their main name, because ‘insaan’ is our basic identity. If they cannot do it, then I shout ‘bloody hypocrites’ in their faces!

If RSS treats itself as a parivaar, does not it come on the basis of excluding other political streams. Do not they have a very strong identity which helps them survive as a strong and effective unit, whose effects we have just seen in Haryana and Maharashtra assembly elections? Should they shed their uniqueness and merge into the sea of political neutrality?

If they cannot, then why the hell I should shed my casteist identity and stop thinking about the welfare of my community?!

Self-driven as per my family name, if I do good for myself and my family, do not I do something good for the country as well? As a member of a strong Jat community, that bravely contributes to armed forces and farm production, do not I add to the total Indian strength if I fight for better prospects for my community? Or just paying theoretical lip service, like our so called educated class does usually, in the form of justifying concepts in innocuous debates is going to make this country stronger?

The Need to Redefine and Reform Islam

We can help this world by helping our Muslim brothers to redefine themselves in ways in parallelism with global world involving blending of cultures and openness to beliefs and lifestyles. More than anything, it will save non-Muslims from hair-raising problems at many levels in future.

Secular theorists should be gagged for some time and allow some real practical talk and do some reality check. We have to find ways to gradually melt paranoid apprehension in Muslim minds regarding anything non-Muslim, be it dress, places of worship, mode of prayer, food, relationships and what not!

We have to ensure that next generation of Muslims is more tolerant to those beyond the Muslim walls having their own distinct ways of life. We have to tell educated next generation of Muslims that touching a Hindu temple’s walls from outside does not mean they have lost their Muslimhood. We Hindus are very lenient in that we accommodate multiple realities linked to inter-religious strains. We hardly have any qualms about entering and even offering prayers in dargahas and mosques. Muslims are conditioned to take any such bravado into others’ shrines as blasphemous. An ultra-modern, educated Muslim colleague of mine in corporate used to openly throw Tuesday prashada into the dustbin. Well it was just a simple ritual by God-abiding Hindu employees to collect money on Tuesday and distribute prashada on the floor. If the educated lot behaves that way, imagine the situation in crammed slum type Muslim neighborhoods!

Islam has to be fundamentally redefined to inculcate mercy at its core philosophy like other world religions. A lady colleague of mine still gets palpitations when she recalls an incident from her childhood in an African country. Her father had taken her to visit his Muslim friend’s house. All went well till she saw the host’s small kid catching a mouse and scooping out its eyes with playful relish. The proud father just looked droolingly. The fundamental philosophy is to kill the softer side in the young ones to make them less tolerant, less humane, aggressive and merciless so as to annihilate the kafirs and non-believers. We have seen the consequences of this fundamental Islamic approach in war-torn and strife-lorn Muslim countries where kid jehadis commit heinous crimes against humanity with the ease of performing something holy!

By sticking to the rigid medieval line, Muslims still think that there are enemies around and they have to stay like a pack of wolves to ward off the danger. This psychology is reflected in crammed, unhygienic, slumish Muslim neighborhoods where the age-old lifestyles are forced to stay alive in semi dark behind closed walls overlooking narrow streets. Even those well-to-do Muslims who can afford to shift to better social environment prefer to stay here. In fact there has been a reverse trend. Upper class Muslim families have shifted to congested predominantly Muslim colonies from the earlier secular kafir-infested locations having better facilities. It does not augur well for a cosmopolitan society.

The governments world over have to devise direct and indirect, covert and overt ways and means to break this fear psychosis in Muslim minds to draw them out of the wolfish packs behind closed walls and redistribute and relocate them as prosperous neighbors of tolerant culture involving people of different religions.

Governments and their institutions have to bring about subtle fundamental changes in the ways Islamists lead their lives so that at least the next generation of Muslims would not look stealthily, apprehensively over the Islamic walls and peer at the world outside as an alien entity. If this is not done then the world inside Muslim neighborhoods and outside will become so different that it will have sky and earth differentials. Such differentials never allow stability. The remedial effort might even involve nurturing modern maulvis who keep Koran and computer together!!      

Haryanvi Hangama

Post Modi-wave in Haryana, BJP is set for heartbreak in Haryana assembly elections.

There are three boats in perilous political sea. Two are apparently under the risk of sinking. The third is apparently going to safe shores carried by the victorious swirls of Modi wave. So politicians of all hues and colors are jumping into the sea from the other two risky boats and board the safe BJP boat.

This is where the BJP boat, overenthusiastic about the sudden windfall to have more leaders in its famished cadre in the state, is allowing every tom dick and harry from INLD and Congress to board its boat. But do they realize the carrying capacity of their boat that is being crowded with contradicting political aspirants? It is like having lions, lambs and other animals that are inherently antagonistic to each other in nature in the same room. A lot of music is in store on board! So the overcrowded boat might collapse on account of liberality shown by the BJP managers in Delhi.

Parliamentary results in Haryana are in gross disproportion to the BJP's grass root reach and party infrastructure and local leadership in Haryana. They know it. So are accommodating everybody defecting from other parties. It is like puffing in too much air into the balloon. It might bust. Perhaps it is too late!

Hung assembly!!!! — feeling excited.

God, it would have been better to have a Godless world!!

Hafeez Sayeed is a fuckingly fabulous dreamer. Hafeez Sayeed, who?? He is that champion jehadi of Lashkar e Taibba fame!! Well the poor innocent Hindu in me gets scared whenever I see him thundering in public meetings in Pakistan. I have reasons to get scared! I have read enough of medieval Indian history to know Muslim zeal in cutting down Kafir Hindus to size and get them, the poor grass eaters, intimidated by the burly meat-eating champions of Islam.

Well, Lashkar e Taibba has taken up the goal of liberating Kashmir from India and then set up a Mughal state of Islamic India. It is a free world by the way! Hafeez Sayeed reserves the right to act and behave as per the norms set by his sanity or insanity (both are same by the way). Suppose he succeeds in installing some descendant of Mughal kings on throne (he has to find out peacock throne as well for this purpose), the main challenge facing him will be to find out the real claimant out of thousands of princes of royal blood who may turn up for the title. It will be still more arduous task given that most of these princes will comprise emaciated rickshawallas and beetle nut chewing ruffians. But even to claim that authority they need to know about Mughal history and for that you need at least a history book. So the dreamers of pre 1857 world should know that at least basic education is essential even for mindless work of jehad.

As a chicken-hearted Hindu, I at least pay namashkar to the Englishmen for weeding out the Mughal dynasty. We grass eaters would have continued to pay homage to the feeble most princelings for centuries to come. Somehow that era still rules the hearts of common Muslims and unfortunately even the educated ones. I had this Muslim friend as my colleague in corporate. He was dashing, handsome and his narcissism ever pampered by the adoring ogles of Hindu fillies. On top of that he got extra soft treatment by educated cultured Hindus because the latter are so damn crazy about proving their secular status. They will leave no stone unturned in mollycoddling the minority prince charming lest he felt bruised and broken hearted on account of majority tyranny. So this educated minority prince was my closest buddy. He would drag me to eat chicken and mutton biryanis by the mosque, muttering, ‘Enough of grass eating!! Eat the real food!!’ Then there was some issue where he let down because he found me lacking in overenthusiastic support of an educated Hindu for the cause of minority. Sullen faced, he just muttered over his lunch plate, ‘Yes bro!! Now this has to happen. We guys are surviving under your rule!’ It just seared through my heart. If an English speaking ultra modern Muslim still recalls Mughal era with such aggrieved nostalgia, what will be the situation of illiterate people in the minority! So at least Hafeez Sayeed is entitled to keep his Mughal Raj dream alive.

A friend of mine was passing through a really tough phase in life. Somebody suggested the help of a tantric-type-mullah from a mosque. The happy glutton arrived at my friend’s place; got pampered by the royal treatment; suggested a few things to dispel the evil spirits; and made us cram ‘La ilaha illaha, Mohamed rasool-ul-ullah, salal illaha vassalam!!’ thousands of times. Whole peasant family of my friend chanted this new Vedic mantra for months, hoping that at least Allah’s angels will bring them happy days. Even though the fucker was just a single Muslim entity in the neighborhood, he still had a last laugh on our poor Hindu heads. I realized it four years later in a sleepy suburb of North African town. Meanwhile, just like a typical educated Hindu I never missed an opportunity to chant out the Islamic mantra to every tom dick and harry Muslim coming my way, just to showcase my secular spirit and that I also know about Islam. But the secret was busted that sultry evening on the residential outskirts of Djibouti in East Africa. I was talking to this young chap Moosa, sipping coke in their small eating point round the corner of their house. Moosa had been to Pune in India for studies. Again to prove my Hindu secular credentials, I started the Islamic mantra. I was expecting appreciation. But lo what happens! Moosa was dying with laughter. He nearly choked over. Almost fell down from the wooden chair. He frantically called dozens of his siblings. They rushed in for entertainment. Being asked to cite it again, and to prove my secular status to a larger audience now, I sang out with more enthusiasm. It created a flutter of curious, proud peals of laughter.  Then Moosa the great told me the secret. Now I got to know it was in fact the hymn of somebody getting initiated into Islam. ‘Anybody saying it even once becomes a Muslim’, educated and enthused Moosa informed me. Fuckers!! He seemed to believe it. Thank God my friend somewhere in me did not get a taste of Muslim religious initiation by getting a cut on its head!!

At the general level, Muslim society believes in quantity. The more the numbers, the better!! The food, even certain postures seem to be meant to add to the men’s libido to keep four wives and produce as many kids as possible. In the distant future, it is expected, when they will have numbers on their side, they will teach grass-eating Hindus a mighty lesson. A few months back a Muslim family took up a rented accommodation in our part. Miyanji was a burly man. But as a carpenter he earned almost negligible in comparison to his Himalayan libido targeting his emaciated wife. Result?! They were poorest of the poor and had six children. In his heart of heart he must have been thinking, ‘Even I am contributing to Hafeez Sayeed’s dream of a Mughal India in 21^st century through bringing as many true species of Allah as possible!’

Muslim society is haunted by this massive insecurity that puts them closeted within a claustrophobic sphere. It pervades in Muslim neighborhoods. From first world countries to the poorest ones, the very same pattern of Muslim neighborhoods shows a deep sense of distrust for anything un-Islamic. The streets are so narrow that you just find it difficult to sneak out once you are unlucky to get in. The doors are shut. Almost no windows! They just do not want to see the world globalizing in beautiful blend of cross-cultural sinews. It is a world lost in its own strange maze. I never felt more insecure as I did when I committed the mistake of searching a Muslim merchant in the claustrophobic Muslim neighborhood in Colombo, Sri Lanka. To make it worse I was having a vermilion mark on my poor Hindu brow, put by a smiling priest in a Tamil temple in some other quarter of the city. The first person whom I asked about the concerned individual just shot through my Hindu-marked forehead with his blood shot aggressive eyes. I could feel that typical antagonism for the kafir. Afterwards, while I walked lanes after lanes of lost world, I felt my feet giving under me. To be hell with metropolitan Colombo, this world ruled itself in its narrow lanes, dim light, dingy shut-doored and windowless houses, foul smelling stagnated air!! ‘If they decide to slaughter me, the outer world would not even come to know in which quarter I had my last breath!!’ I felt horrified. Thanks to the Hindu priest’s blessing hand, I came out in one piece. I had exactly the same feeling in Rangoon where my Muslim friends found me intimidated while I just chickened out of their quarters like a rabbit runs away from a pack of wolves.

Travelling in a train across the snowbound wastes of central Asian republics, me and my group was scanned by the blood-shot eyes of another Islamic zealot. Baring his gold-plated fangs, that allowed him to tear any type of meat, he asked, ‘From Pakistan?’ ‘From India!’ we the lambs bleated. There was a queer aggression in his eyes. A joker friend of mine had the audacity to say, ‘I am Hamidullha!’ God, how I wish if you guys had seen the sense of relief and composure pervading his tensed being after meeting a co-religionist!!

No hesitation in confessing that I am feeling more and more scared of Islam and Islamists. And more so because I have just closed my doors to Hindu rituals and that means Hindu Gods would not have anything to do in saving this newly turned atheist. How did I come to turn an atheist? Well about that sometime later!! Till that time some God of some true religion save me from Muslim tyranny!!

   

Modi Sir, Congress is yet to be defeated!

We are lucky to have an un-politician type Prime Minister of India. Narendra Modi’s administration in Gujarat fetches him enough credit points to be taken as an administrator first and a politician second. The new educated generation has high hopes from him. Right from the evening of May 16 when election results were declared Modi has been busy like a true son of mother India and has started drawing the roadmap for a better India for majority of the Indians. We don’t have any reason to be skeptics regarding his capability to take India ahead on the path of multi-dimensional progress.

But there is a roadblock that might face Modi when he again fights for another innings in 2019. It is born of a certain Congress legacy. All of us do agree on taking Congress and Corruption as synonymous. And rightly so! But decades of Congress-type mis-governance ensured that the very roots of the tree got corrupted to the core. Corruption is not just about 2G Spectrum, Commonwealth Games and Coal Block distribution; it is also about common Indians’ belief that without shortcuts nothing can be done. It generates a mentality that does not consider the shortcuts or the typical Indian jugadbaji as the means and mechanism of corruption, but the simple convenient facilitators. People have come to accept the extra costs as additional service charges; officials in various departments have come to consider it as their well deserved unofficial bonus. These officials have set up their budgetary benchmarks to keep their families. Unofficial bonus plays a major part in satisfying this excessive-consumer-lorn mentality. Any cut in this part, which clean governance surely will result into, will find them recalling good old days with nostalgia.

Ask anybody what does government service mean. They will say it is about having safe money, almost no work, and unofficial bonus for the small amount of work that one is supposed to perform officially. For this great facility people pay lump sum amounts to get a government job. Since they start their journey after paying the unofficial bonus to somebody, they also get it back when they get the governmental chair. But Modi-style governance will mean full work and no bonus. That will find millions of government vallahas shaking their head in disapproval. Some of my friends are government teachers in Delhi. Their academic enthusiasm found them supporting Kejriwal vigorously. Straightaway Kejriwal talked of more effort by the idling government teachers. They were asked to stay in school for couple of extra hours daily to cover up the massive loopholes in public education system. Immediately their faces got shrunk. They started abusing Kejriwal and accepted their blunder in supporting him. So millions of public sector workers and their dependents will always prefer Congress-type work culture and governance. It will be very difficult to convince these guys in 2019 that the work they are being asked to perform without the unofficial bonus is a contribution to nation building.

Congress and its constituents abused power. But they were really kind in allowing it to be abused by anybody to the lowest rung. India is a free country in every sense. One can defecate by roadside, one can spit anywhere, one can cross red lights, one can call the prime minister a clown, one can molest women, etc., etc. Good governance will find things falling in place and people feeling cheated and that their wings have been clipped. Manmohan government had a bad reputation and they allowed anybody to throw jibes in media in whatever form one wanted. The top office in the country has lost its dignity. Modi will definitely try to get it back. But then people will start calling him a dictator. Even poor Manmohan will earn few credit points for being very lenient and allowing even beggars in Delhi to throw obscenities in his name.

Sum and summary is Congress leaves a ghost. Congress might be out of the seat, but it still survives in spirit in millions of Indians who are in a comfort zone based on the old mindset and its profits. Rectifying things in full vigor might see Indian infrastructure improving, but Modi losing votes as well. How long Modi can inspire people to come ahead for building the nation. It is bloody massively populated country. For one chapati there are ten claimants. At this level people cannot see the world beyond their home and hearth. So Modi’s nationalistic agenda might see India progressing in infrastructure, but at the cost of massive indents in his popularity since Congress is ruling India in terms of work culture, narrow mentality and unofficial bonus!! 

Getting 335 seats in Parliament is no guarantee that whole of India has given go ahead to the green signal of nation building. It is very easy to shout as a part of crowd baying for revolution. But it is far more difficult to come out of the self-centered zone and contribute extra for the nation in lieu of the same rewards. It is very easy to excite voters into a frenzy; but far more difficult to turn these frenzied zealots into responsible and self-governing citizens. Ask people to take extra responsibilities and their faces will shrink. I think already we have millions of shrunk faces because public sector will now be open for six days a week. I have already heard many babus lamenting why did they voted for a particular party. Mother of all political evils, the Congress, may still have something to smile about!!

Modi will have to focus on self-governance apart from good-governance. Only self-governance can make unruly Indians as responsible citizens who will positively contribute something extra required for good governance leading to a better India.

Mindless Talk

There is no absolute truth. All we have is just a pliantly swaying sea of fractional truths. We draw out our share of truths from this sea that will be suitable and complement our sense of identity with the self, i.e., ego, our perception of the world, our vision of the world and the people around.

A beautiful woman's beauty is nurtured and blossoms by the relentless stretch of appreciating words by her lover like a rose blossoms by the dewy intoxication during misty nights. But how long the poor lover can continue to shower the words of unquestioning praise?!! After caressing the rose, the lover also feels the pricks of reality around the beautiful flower. It is called the lover's awakening from the blindfolding slumber. So the words of all pervading praise dry up. The beauty sulks and her narcissism also feels deprived of its customary diet of acclaim. It is now better to go for a new lover. Because during the initial phase of courtship the new lover will again feed her narcissism to help it blossom at its peak again!

A beautiful woman is like a fragrant beauteous hedge. Beauties and aesthetics apart, it has a tendency to grow heavenwards driven and pulled against gravity by the soothing sun of narcissism. But this growth also tends to turn it wild. So the beauties, the hedge and the woman, need an upkeeper, the labouring pruner who maintains the shape. In case of gardener it is done through cutting tools. A man as a lover does it through much hyped love, care and share.

Women are humanist!! Almost perfect except one thing! Their humaneness crosses the zone of perfection and slightly touches an arena where bitchiness for their own sex starts in free flow. It is here that men's chance to appease their women opens up its welcoming arms. A man has to realise that it is more practical to say a few negatively critical remark about other women than millions of appreciating remarks about his woman!!