Luck, the Slippery Eel

 

He vividly remembers one Holi. At least seven or eight years back. Drunk and mired in cheap colours like toads in filthy waters, they had hitched upon a tractor and went to the district city to spoil the appearance of their friend's beautiful wife. After spreading disharmony in his household, the Holi-smitten lampoons were coming back to the village. The tractor was giving a stiff competition even to the cars on the potholed road. They yelled at the top of their ebriated, coloured rascality. There was a scene by the roadside. Such a scene instantly gives an ecstatic high to almost all Haryanvis. A man was thrashing his wifie; possibly the result of an argument while they travelled on their scooter. Poor Bajaj Chetak was the mute spectator to this gross act. The hooligan-carrier tractor came to a halt and the first instinctive reaction of the demonic group of friends was: 'Aur maro s*** ko!' And they laughed all inclined to get free entertainment from the spectacle.

As a presumably better educated human being his instincts immediately clobbered down the common Haryanvi instinct and he yelled: 'Aurat pe attyachhaar!' They respected him, those father-defying idiots. So they just jumped down and many heart-felt fist strikes found the man bleeding from mouth in just few seconds. The lady cried: 'Harramjado he is your jeejaji and works with Haryana police!' So all daredevilry was gone in an instant. Totally slouched, civil-dress-clad policeman was dazed beyond all limits. He looked a perfect Hindi movie villain. They were aware of the consequence, even though he was not on duty and was doing something that should have taken him behind the bars. But then it is not the convention. The policemen can be allowed such freebies sometimes. Realising this they just chickened out of the scene even more efficiently than a murderer ever did. His friends cursed him, ‘Your bookish ideology got us in trouble. It would have been better to laugh. The Police in Haryana is held in fearful awe by the common mortals, at least by those who are just common citizens without any background defined by wealth, prestige and the so called connections.

A bloodied policeman can get you in serious trouble. The tractor was mired in mud, even the number plates. So by appearance it just gave clue to its manufacturing company, nothing more. All nasha gone, they washed it clean in the village pond and took a vow to send it to the sheltered barn for at least a month. He had heard the fabled stories how the policeman spanked the naked bum with a leathered monster. His poor bum already twitching against the painful strikes, he prayed to all his Gods for rescue. But luck certainly falls in our laps however unlucky one might be feeling. He could not believe what happened onwards. Next day, one guy from the beating squad was reading newspaper by a roadside barber shop in the village. A policeman came and asked for the approach route to a neighbouring village. 'What happened' the scared reader asked. 'Yaar yesterday some goons on a red tractor gave a bloodied jaw to one of our policeman! Look at the guts!'  

It happened like this. The lady who was being beaten had her maternal uncles in the said neighbouring village. She had spent some part of her pre-marriage time at her mamaji’s place and was seriously aware of the family feud going on between her mamaji’s family and a peasant family in their neighbourhood. That day some elders from this rival family had reached the eventful spot and intervened while the real culprit group chickened out. Nursing insult and unfathomable anger, and not being able to find the real rascals, she and her husband had conveniently farmed these people who had in fact resolved the issue. Pure bad luck for them. Well, somebody’s good luck is at the cost of someone’s bad luck. Luck changes hands man, impersonally, mechanically, like the coins flow from one pocket to the other in the bazaar. It might slip out of a King and land up in the beggar’s bowl and the vice versa.     

 

Homage to the Martyrs

 

The professor with unconventional historical sense was fighting his mini battle of rights. He took it as his little movement against the exploiters. His pension and other funds on hold, he was waging a war in the court. It was just a week short of the first anniversary of his revolt, the fateful speech. So much tortured by the injustice to his righteous self by the stronger exploitative state force, he drew massive parallels between himself and the martyrs who had sacrificed their lives on this day, March 23. Having lost his enthusiasm for dust-raising speech, he now appeared all eager to vent out his angst in his journal. He firmly believed, and now more than ever, that those who really shed their blood for independence occupy just a few pages in the history books, and the ones who enjoyed the fruits of independence have manipulated history books. He was writing some more pages on behalf of the revolutionaries, thinking it would be handier for more convenient times under a more suitable government. His heartbeat up patriotically, he was jotting down: 

While you go full throttle on weekend enjoyments, take out a moment to remember three martyrs who on this day decades ago kissed the noose of death with such love and affection that no pining pair of lips can ever match the selfless compassion behind the lock. March 23, Sahid Divas of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev! At each step we take liberty for granted. We see the signs of growth and prosperity for ourselves in all directions, we can go out and shout regarding the causes of our grudges, we can afford to be totally individualistic and still be counted as the best people around, we can afford to allow the greatest injustices right there before our eyes and still be counted as legally clean, we are even free to take socially permitted actions to cut down the freedom of our fellow citizen, we are free man! Free for the best and the worst. But they were not free. At each step they knew that their fates lay in outsiders' hands. Their spirit always felt the cold iron of fisticuffs. They knew one single step as a free man is far better than 100 miles travelled as a slave. Even if it meant cutting their lives in the nip, while their youth was blossoming like a spring rose. They had their sip of justice and freedom. For a larger cause they defied this strongest instinct of self-preservation. They found themselves defined by their identity as Indians, not just self-seeking individuals. They died for a vision. For freedom. Was it just from the colonial rule? No, it was a dream to set all individuals and Indians from the slaving chains inside, chains of narrow parochial means, of moral apathy, of criminal negligence of murderous assault on ones fellow human being, of blindness to self-evident acts of abuse, of saddest old eyes left on road looking at the Mercedes shooting away, of abused young women left on the roads to bear more and more criminalised behaviour by the people of the same species. As a homage to these martyrs, let us open our eyes and see the larger picture. At least be a bit more caring for the world around us. As free individuals we have to pay this nominal fee at least!   

Nirbhya

 

She was somebody’s daughter with common girlish dreams. She had a name like any other girl. She was looking up to future like any other girl. She was just like any other girl seeking her share of happiness in the hustle and bustle of Delhi. Now she has an official name Nirbhya, the fearless. But as she died, it is unimaginable to gauge the fear she must have faced, the agony she must have undergone. People know her as the victim of an unimaginably gory crime. Her honour decimated, her innards pulled out by the rapists. She died to bring many surviving dead souls to life from the killing apathy. There are no Christmas festivities in Delhi. There is no festive air. Nobody is bothered about welcoming the year 2013 waiting less than a week’s soufflés away in the dying wintery year. India is in the grip of a mass realisation: It’s high time they show respect to the girls and the women.   

This is the longest night! Our conscience frozen into an inhuman hibernation! In the frigid gloom, the devils shed bloods on the white snowy sheet of our social fabric. A painful cry echoes through the land of lifeless corpses! It pulls the dead souls out of their quilted, warm graves and they swarm around the tombstone of the higher mortals’ graves, crying and shouting to awake them out of their perennial, impotent sleep!

 

The cold-smitten dates of the third week of December raise some hopes! Anna Movement, Kejriwal Movement, Ramdev Movement, all had a leader fighting for a common cause. But the people gathered on Rajpath to march towards the Rashtrapati Bhavan and Parliament House to shout at their indifferent red stone walls are not doing it for glory. They are driven by a mammoth shame; a collective feeling of guilt; they need an outlet to shed their share in the tragedy. These young boys and girls are no followers of some socially conscious individual. Each and every individual braving the cold water and police batons is a leader to himself/herself! It is not for media; it is not for a long plan of action for a dream future; it is no systematised stage show! It is simple; it is from the heart; it is fought with a faceless, selfless bravery! These are the bleeding hearts; carrying over the plight and pain of the girl fighting for life in the hospital. Thousands shout her plight; thousands cry for justice. Caught in the jaws of death; her life torn apart by the very hands that could well have been solacing brotherly, if the devil inside the perpetrators would have been aware of the word ‘sister’—she now has a reason to get a forgiving smile for these thousands of brothers and sisters crying for justice from her side.  

Thousands of young people throng the area around the citadel of power. Each and every member is a pioneer, a leader! It is a movement started by the leaders. Busy in petty household chores, and guiltily watching it on the TV, even in the most Hindi-movie-driven heroic fancy, one cannot visualise himself/herself more than pissing on the Parliament after somehow managing to sneak through the barricade. The beholder of such impotent law that allows such criminal acts against women, and that too one after another, does not deserve better treatment.

Forget about law, justice and the government. People are foremost. A cause has to first jolt the courts in their hearts. We are responsible for this nasty assault on humanity. We have allowed things to culminate in such an inhuman tragedy. Thousands of cases of molestation in varying degrees pass on a daily basis as routine things. People allow them to occur; criminal apathy! This pandering of the smaller evils by the court of conscience in the thousands of spectators on the footbaths, crowded buses and metros and bazaars just leads to criminal loopholes at the administrative levels. First thing: If you are a good human being and theoretically shout ‘Capital Punishment to the rapists!’, you have to get eligibility to shout this slogan by at least taking a vow to interfere when some petty male molests a girl or women in any form or degree before your eyes. If the courts of humanity inside us will not allow thousands of such indecent things on a daily basis, the higher courts and administration will also not spare the evil-doers at bigger chronic stages.

We are the law! We hold the court inside our civilized hearts. Leave the bigger crime acts to the judiciary. We, as the carriers of that tiny court of humanity inside us, can well afford to dispense justice from our own ends in street-side regular cases of violations of norms against women, by promptly condemning the criminal for the deed, to be followed by a few hard slaps to serve the cause of justice. The case has to be closed then and there and spare the over-burdened judiciary to continue settling thousands of self-evident ghastly crime acts that are pending for decades.

The latest incidence is not in abstract. It has come to hit the last nail in the coffin of women plight in Delhi to seal its fate to suffer and survive in fear and insecurity even in the broad day light. Hundreds of such cases and incidences have been tonking at the courts of our conscience and the thick walls of governance for decades. It has been caused by a bigger criminal act by all: individuals, society, government, police and judiciary. Delhi is being run by an experienced old lady for a decade and half. If the intensity of crime against the women is getting sharper teeth to tear the moral fabric to pieces, then shame should loom large on her face if ever her inner voice gives her some credit for being a successful administrator! India is being handled in proxy by another lady for a decade. It is high time that she feels finally like a woman and not like a mechanically principled Nehru family Queen thinking 365×24×7 just about retaining the political clout of the family to ultimately install the Yuvraj as the King of India.

This country is not short of those bookish theologians who will drag you into the psychology of crime to prove the ineffectivity of the capital punishment. To be hell with such idiots and put their analytical brains in boiling oil and feed to the rapists in jails who fatten themselves on our public money. Capital punishment serves its purpose. Hang these six bastards and then see the crime graph in Delhi.

There are undercurrents of good and bad in almost all human beings. We came out of the caves to civilise ourselves by taming the beast by putting up chains of deterrence in various forms: social conventions, ethics, family relationships, beliefs and lawful punishment. When they started wagging tongues against the capital punishment, it was under the blind belief that we have become sufficiently civilised to self-contain the bad in us to a degree that would not allow us to get into heinous manifestations of crime. But dears, these assumptions fail miserably in the devils still lurking around in stinking corridors of sub-human existence interspersed with the cleaner faces of our society. Socio-economic development in these grey areas is a generational shift and the theoreticians can dump their capital and jobs and work in these slums to change their surroundings and material possessions and then later on clean the shit of their brains. We but in the cleaner by lanes of the society want safety for our law-abiding generation by having this feeling that there is capital punishment against the crime that is tormenting the body and souls of almost all the women and girls in Delhi.

Hang them please!

 

Political Cauldron

 

India is celebrating the 66^th Independence Day today! Nations are not supposed to be like humans, growing old with age; they are supposed to grow shinier like gold with passing years. The 66-year-old Hindustan but looks groping around for support like a poor patriarch that cannot support its horde of kids and grand-kids. It looks with its feeble eyes and dispirited face into the distances to find a benefactor, a saviour. Will a lotus bloom in the muddied political waters? With elections not even couple of years away, will the saviour arrive on the scene?

The Indian political scene is in disarray. It was bound to happen. Even after 66 annual democratic rituals, frankly speaking the meaning of freedom is as elusive like it was during the British period. Power is power, it corrupts almost by instinct. Its law is impersonal. Under its sway the colonial exploiter is as unsparing as the brown post-independence man. If with a pinch of salt, you can afford to rejoice at the idea that at least our own people are reaping the fruits at the cost of the collective good, it is then suitable reason to feel elated and take part in 15^thAugust festivities. But the real freedom and real democracy lie beyond such blind adherence to the rituals. We have to come out of the ever-forgiving festivities going on for almost seven decades and settle down to some real business.

So where do we stand post jesting Bihari-type political breed? Issues like political corruption were never accepted by the society at large as the ones capable of turning the political tides against the wrong-doers. So it is a folly to expect the political class to go into elf-remedial mode and cleanse the system by itself. It is simple: we the common voters never questioned them so they thought if the ones who carry our destiny on their thumb impression are comfortable with it then where is the need for changing the ways and mean of the political business.

So buddies we reached the UPA era. If coalition compulsions required the government to reach the pinnacle of compromises at all levels, against the background of teeming millions living like animals in their struggle and nonchalant educated middle class lost in the dream of reaching still higher rungs of an apolitical ladder, then what is wrong with that. But then the river of corruption broke all check-dams. It was only when the ever-rising costs of living stabbed deep into the so-called self-uprighteous, educated middle class that corruption became a major issue. It is simple mathematics. Hundreds of millions stashed in foreign accounts have not appeared from thin air. It is born of the pathetic conditions of the farmers who still continue to work harder, put more inputs in fields and are left with lesser and lesser money at the end of the season. Millions of daily wage earners add to the weight in dubious accounts through their ever-piling miseries through more work and less and less savings. Millions of salaried middle class people contribute to it through mindless spending on costlier and costlier consumer items and paying taxes. Simple: We work, suffer, struggle unquestioningly and they gather the rewards through direct and indirect means.

Thankfully the balloon of corruption burst finally. Everything has its limits man. Its blast shook the collective consciousness at many levels. Anna and Ramdev movements are nothing but collective sighs of dissent against the mindless compromises by the UPA government. If nothing more at least corruption is a political issue now. Anna and company might go into politics now. How will they manage to fight elections in an arena where the victory so far has been defined by money, violence and all the rest manipulative deeds, is a big question. At least they represent those Indians who are educated, earn their bread and butter through hard work in tough-tasked corridors. Their chances of success depend upon the rate of participation and growth in this section. If managed properly it can become a good counter-force in Indian politics. As far as Ramdev is concerned, he appears driven more by a stubborn self-lorn charisma that always keeps him on tenterhooks even though he amasses thousands of millions through his corporate Yoga. The target of his fury is too narrow to leave a holistic effect on the overall fates. He can hog nationalistic limelight through fiery statements like much-in-demand politicians, but we all still remember the weeping woman-cloth-clad-baba.

The BJP is still not as strong as it should be against the background of anti-UPA breeze. It appears undecided about what kind of top-tier leadership to stick to, unlike Congress which is at least true to its archaic aristocracy specific to a family. Within Congress the issue of leadership is accepted and spelt out clearly thus leaving little space for infighting, giving it with all the time, energy and resources to fight against the slingshots directed at it. It’s simple: One dissenter or enemy inside the house is far more dangerous than the hundred of outside foes baying for your blood. The BJP can learn a few lessons from the grand old party in this regard.

So what are our political prospects in the near future? It is very hard to tell. Just wait and watch. It’s really dicey! 

 

Nehru Vs. Advani

 

It had become clear that Advani’s dream to lead India will of course remain a dream. The octogenarian having failed twice before Sonia’s inexplicable charisma was being asked to step down from his claim to the throne and facilitate somebody still better to wage the next parliamentary battle. Political pundits might very well analyse it as a symbol of the democratic prospects in the BJP.

Nearly all political parties in India bear the same foul-smelling tricks and strategies in their secret books. However, in one democratic aspect the BJP scores over the Congress. We can call it intra-party democracy. The BJP can very well look above even those who literally shaped its rise. The Congress on the other hand is bound by its definition to only one particular legacy inherited by a specific family.

Let us start with their respective fortune turners in independent India—JL Nehru and LK Advani.

Nehru was a great statesman. Inevitably the legacy left behind by such impressive personalities cannot be expected to say a quiet bye to this world as soon as the holy flames kiss the body. It lingers on for a long period of time. In third world countries where the masses stay almost in animal state due to poverty and illiteracy such memories are carried over generations. After all they need a guiding light to their deprived selves; simply, because the masses have accepted to be the good followers of the God-ordained authority at the higher levels! There is paucity of charismatic and dynamic new leaders who can help the masses forget the past and move on with the times. So nothing wrong if the legacy escaping from the pyre of Nehru decides to stay back to serve his progenies!

Consolidation of the Nehruvian grasp over the very meaning of the Congress (and the consequent credit for winning the freedom for the country) was a natural corollary to the fact that much-obliged and jubilant masses as well as the second-tier leaders within the Congress clapped inapprehensively while the lighthouse of the Nehruvian legacy was slowly built up in the excitingly languid waters of free India during the initial decades. It overshadowed many a capable Congress leaders.

If we analyse Advani's efforts in taking a party having just two seats in the Parliament to the apostle of power within two decades, we can say that it somehow matched or even surpassed Nehruvian endeavour to turn Congress literally a family institution. But within the BJP the patriarch has been struggling to maintain his position amongst a fantastic crop of career-oriented politicians. The man who almost single-handedly took it to power has not been allowed to set it up as a sort of family institution. On this account, the BJP appears as a far more democratic set-up given the freedom of choice of leadership among its ranks.

On the other hand, when highly capable and very senior Congressmen line up to pay homage and kiss the Yuvraj's hands (the heir apparent), it unfortunately smacks of the typical Indian medieval mentality of treating rulers as the symbols of divinity. If Congress is a democratic party and believes in its rituals then it is high time we see its great leaders taking the centre-stage irrespective of the family they are born in. If Indians still accept Rahul Gandhi (the young man whose calibre and skills can be matched by many of the young Congress leaders) as their natural leader, it just tells that we are very God-abiding people and just would go behind anybody lucky to be born in the first political family of the country.

Sachin's Parliamentary Innings

 

In the summers of 2012 many of the non-congressite fans of the master blaster bore the brunt of Sachin’s political sixer and looked, their awful devotion dented with the mortal’s deft, humane leg-glance to a political delivery. Sachin accepted Rajya Sabha nomination by the Congress.

Of the millions of diehard fans of the batting God, a young man felt particularly let down. He claimed he was Sachin’s biggest fan in the world. The success and failure of his days was decided by the master’s willow in punishing the bowlers or staying stoic on a day. Sachin was the practical arm of his dreams, to soar his aspirations high in the sky with lofted shots, to pierce his ambition through the rivals with back- and front-footed punches to the fence. But there was an equally strong fact about the young man in that he was rabidly anti-congress. Only the Congress losing a seat somewhere could lit up his dejected face if Sachin’s bat did not speak some day and he got out on zero. His inherited hate for the Congress—his grandfather had been in the Zamindaar League, and his father had actively supported the Jan Sangh and had been to jail during the emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi—had made him shine in DUSU elections and after that a regional party had made him its district youth president to carry out his anti-congress tirade.

But the master blaster this time hit a sixer too high that landed in the pavilion and hurt many fingers and faces, the ball cascading across the sea of heads and faces. With Sachin’s consent to the Congress invitation of nomination to the Rajya Sabha, the young man was trying his level best to retain his worship for the cricketing God, but then political Gods are equally strong. There were many like him who voiced dissent, the erstwhile Sachin fans who criticised, jibed, expressed apprehension, showed soft anger and many like-minded reactions.

One thing was clear. It is almost impossible to be a successful Indian and still not be a politician at some level. Ironically the league of achievers, apart from the clean shirts, includes shadowy characters like big-time criminals, swindlers, tricky scamesters and all those spooky characters who cock snook at law and still be in influential positions. Now, coming back to the clean-shirted successful Indians. Sachin Tendulkar is in the front league of those whose cuts and pulls have helped the masses forget their individual miseries. He has given the Indian masses far too occasions to celebrate and be happy than they could manage with their limited capabilities. There might be a really bad day with any of the Indians but then the news of Sachin hitting another century found him/her taken in by the pleasant and welcoming pools of the sea of Indian humanity lost in the whirlpools of his classy hits. He has been the pain-killer and joy-giver. God bless him! Long live Sachin!

Looking at his apolitical strides on the path of inspiring and influencing millions of destinies, it appeared there were politics-free domains in this country where you can strive for perfection. But then how long an Indian after reaching the highest echelons and still not kiss the political maiden with its tempting pout?! It is just a matter of time. The inevitable countdown! So our Sachin finally surrendered to the temptation. Nothing wrong with that! But eating the political pie while still with gloves on was a bit disappointing. It would have been better with his willow in his restroom. Maybe he would have been in a better position to understand a bit of the Parliamentary game over public issues in the Rajya Sabha. Sachin, but, is Sachin—ever-lorn for new figures, targets and challenges. We agree that he does it for the Indians. Just wonder he will use the same single-minded determination in adding some voice of sanity to some debate over some bill. At least he can think of it when there is no Indian cricketing itinerary and the Parliament session begins.

Indians love him as the son of India. However, in a country where political opinions have the razor-sharp pugnacity to cut down relationships forever, it will be interesting to see whether he will lose some of his diehard fans because now he represents a particular party as well. By the natural law of it, all those who oppose this particular party may find Sachin less affable now. It is one of the toughest challenges in India to maintain a good relationship with a supporter of different political stream. Wonder there won't be a section of Indians who will jump with joy when the great man adds to the number of 0s in his kitty.

We can even surmise that the great man was just fed up with his status of the King of cricketing Gods feasting upon the mass accolades of hallucinated masses fed on rich cricket-opium diet. So just to realise his human avatar he like any of us wants to have some bad neighbours so that by hitting massive fours and sixes he can rub salt on their wounds and thus enjoy the sweet-sour taste of it. Excuse him please! It is just to be human.

 

 

The Dragon may Burn Out itself

 

There is every possibility that China may go the old Soviet way. Its impressive strides at the economic, scientific and military levels are being relentlessly fuelled by a collective national hoopla about mythical-level enemies in the outside world. It thrives on the mass hysteria of the nationhood and prevails over the shadowy undercurrent of well-managed antagonism to the prevalent system of powers in the world. Education is used to legitimise the collective insecurities against the backdrop of colonial facts of exploitation. Under such environment people get ready to sacrifice individual freedoms and profits to bask in the glory of more sophisticated weapons, more medals at international sports meets, more upswings in the graph of economy and trade, etc. But sorry to say, it cannot be sustained for a decent amount of decades. 


The power of such a dazzling rocket may impressively blind the eyes of supposed antagonistic outsiders, but the fuel in such a policy is not sufficient to land you in the stable geosynchronous orbit where the nation and its people will just effortlessly swim in peace and contentment. Hyper-specified distinctions as a race, as a nation cannot thrive unchallenged for too long in the ultramodern society. It somehow comes into conflict with the natural process of globalisation and integration. America is comfortably enjoying the superpower status for a long time. The reason is that the stormy drive towards massive achievements in different domains was not at the cost of individual freedom. Unlike China here the river of basic human freedoms was not tamed through check-dams of politburo to harness the human energy. Here it has always been allowed to flow decently free. The collective paranoia required to boost the rocket of superpower status was provided by the Soviet rivalry.

The Soviet rocket, on the other hand, fell a bit short of the desired orbit of stability and crashed. In technology they matched each other shoulder to shoulder, step in step. The extra fuel in the American rocket was provided by the deep murmurs of individual freedom in the common hearts of common Americans. It somehow provides stability; creates a sort of pedestal on which the results of super-rivalry can be enjoyed for a relatively longer period of time. China's rapidly rising balloon may also crashland. How can we ignore that behind the firm statistics in its achievement book, there are many statutes that strictly curtail basic human freedom. People will digest this as long as they are overfed with the diet of hate against a common, much vilified enemy. As the participants in this slowly smouldering cold war they think that they play a part by sacrificing a bit more due to more and more stringent rules. But after basking in the collective glory for decades, they will turn their heads back and analyse the sacrifices across generations.

It turns counterproductive. The sea of collective victory cannot sustain unless it is fed through the sinewy rivulets of small-small basic freedoms and enjoyments that create outlets for the common individuals to shine and feel victorious at the individual level as well. So this rising disparity between the verticals of its national glories at the international level on the one hand and the stagnant graph of political reforms may turn the table upside down, like it did in the case of the former USSR.