tim murari

Love our politicians

2011-10-15T22:37:00.000-07:00

I absolutely love our politicians. I have to fall in worship and awe of their egos.
Who else but an Indian politician, a chief minister at that and therefore all-powerful, would build a massive, and I mean MASSIVE, statue of herself in a cathedral-like building that dwarfs the Chartres cathedral.
Of course Mayawati meant this monument to hers dalit self (and two dalit men standing behind her) to be a place of worship. It cost the state’s exchequer a mere 680 crore rupees. One moment while I convert that to US dollars – another mere 151 million USD, I think.
I’ve only seen the photographs of this Mayawati basilica. She stands in front of her edifice and just about reaches her own stone ankle. What I really love too is that her gigantic alter ego carries a huge handbag. It’s hard to get a perspective from a photograph but she looks, in real life, as the same height as her stone bag. What does she, in real life again, carry in this trademark handbag? Money? She needs cash to pay for the auto rickshaw, buy flowers from the roadside seller, a cup of chai too, and to tip the waiter in a dhabba. Or does it hold her makeup kit? Lipstick, powder, rouge, perfume, a comb?
Politicians never carry anything, their chamchas do. Indira didn’t, Sonia and Jayalalithaa don’t carry bags. They have black cats to do that. Besides, politicians never ever need to carry money. It’s a given that they’re LOADED with it, either in India or elsewhere. So why her handbag and what is in it, to return to my puzzlement? To prove her femininity, probably.
We love our statues of our politicians. They sprout, like some deity, in every street corner, square, maidan, traffic roundabout. They’re religious garlanded on their birth and death anniversaries, riots break out if they’re forgotten. At least for Mohandas Gandhi, the statues of him were built, and scattered like confetti all over India, long after he was dead. Now, being dead and statues after is out of fashion. They’re erected while the ‘great’ person is still alive so he or she can garland it, and admire it, while they’re still alive.
Mayawati should read Percy Byshee Shelley’s poem, Ozymandis:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Hostile Witnesses

2011-09-24T22:07:00.000-07:00

As there seems to be a countless number of ‘hostile witnesses’ wandering around our judicial system today, I thought I’d better find out a bit more about this tribe. One moment a case, years after the event took place, is about to start and the next day I read that someone has become a ‘hostile witness’. I must presume he was a friendly witness before the case started. The people belonging to this category range across from movie stars and accountants to bus drivers and government servants. Obviously, this ‘hostile witness’ disease isn’t a respecter of persons.
I figured a good murder case would be a start. There are enough murders going around to make a dozen good movies. Like a good detective, I tracked down the cop who investigated the murder and interviewed the witnesses. He was sitting at his desk in the Crime department looking very morose. At the same time he was emptying his desk drawers and packing a small case.
‘So you messed up again?’ I said. ‘You got the wrong witness.’
‘Wrong witness!’ he was very sour. ‘This person was sitting three feet away when the killer hacked the victim to death. My witness was so close that some drops of blood fell on his shirt. When I interviewed him three years ago at the time of the crime, he gave a detailed eye witness description of the killer and exactly what happened.’
‘Where did this murder take place?’
‘In a well-known tea kadai at ten o’clock in the morning. The kadai was crowded with tea drinkers, and they all witnessed the murder. After the hacking the killer paid for his tea and walked out. It was an open and shut case.’ He paused dramatically. ‘Except, for one small detail that I hadn’t taken into my investigation.’
‘What was that?’
‘The killer belonged to a political party. Of course then, the party was out of power. Until then, it was open and shut.’
‘Why should that make a difference? A dozen witnesses saw the murder in broad daylight. It was open and shut.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed mournfully. ‘The other problem began when his political party won the election and came to power. You see that changes the whole equation in our judicial system. As long as the party people who committed the crimes are out of power we have open and shut cases against the perpetrators. The moment the party returns to power the whole equation changes. We no longer have open and shut and no witnesses at all.’
‘Where can I find a hostile witness?’
‘Try the tea kadai. They all hang together, bureaucrats, movie stars, auditors, registrars, and bus drivers. It’s called the Hostile Witness tea kadai.’
He rose and picked up his case, giving the shabby office a last fond look around.
‘Are you retiring?’
‘No, I’ve been taken off the case and posted to the Andaman Islands. I’ll have to stay there until the next election, I suppose.’
The tea kadai was just a stone’s throw from our majestic High Court. It was a small, dark place, with barely enough light to illuminate your cup of tea. A dozen or so hostile witnesses shifted uneasily when I sat down among them.
‘Why have you all turned hostile? Once you were such friendly and co-operative witnesses and now you’re furtive as rats.’
‘It’s all very well for you to talk but what can we do,’ the murder witness, a small, worried said. ‘The murd…I mean the gentleman who allegedly killed this other person in this very kadai three years ago came to see me. He was now a ruling party member. He was most polite and asked if I recognised him. When I said ‘yes’, he and ten others came that night and threw stones at my house and threatened my wife and children. So when he came the next morning and asked the same question, I had to honestly reply that I’d never seen him ever in my life.’ He shrugged. ‘And that’s what I said in the witness box.’
‘But there must be some crooks out there who aren’t connected to any political party?’
‘Even if they weren’t connected at the start of their careers, they soon joined a political party. You cannot remain a criminal in this country without being a member of a political party. It’s mandatory now a days. It’s a smart career move for all criminal types. First commit the crime, then join the party, and then get elected. In this way, they can continue to commit crimes.’
‘But what about you movie stars and auditors and bureaucrats? You can call the police for protection, can’t you?’
‘You are an innocent. The police also belong to the ruling party, depending on which party. The ones who belong to the party in opposition don’t have the power to protect us at all. They’ve all been posted to the Andaman Islands.’

The OPIATE

2011-09-24T21:39:00.001-07:00

DO TERRORISTS make good rulers? I know they are good at terror but do they actually administer the country they have won over by terrorism? Do they feed and educate the people they rule? We know from their latest statements that they love dying while the Americans love living. It is much harder to live than to die.
I have yet to figure out how the Taliban ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001. I have read countless articles on them but they remain veiled behind their beards and clerical garb. I know they issued edicts frequently. These edicts were terse and mainly had to do with their religious beliefs. Like the edicts that ordered the destruction of the giant statues of the Buddha. The Taliban spent a fair amount of money and ammunition on that exercise, despite the worlds protests. What did that achieve? Did it feed the starving people or give them employment? It was said to be destruction for the sake of the purity of Afghanistan.
Then the Taliban issued other edicts, equally terse but quite terrifying. Men had to grow beards to a certain length. I scanned the articles to discover what length, but they failed to give me the information. So a man could be walking down the street ith a four-inch beard and the Religious Police could whip out a scale, measure it and whip him if it was too short or too long.
Women had been driven behind the veil. They could not work, they could not get an education. They could not leave their homes without the Talibans written permission. According to an eyewitness report, a woman taking her dying child to the nearest hospital was stopped by a Taliban cop. When she pleaded with him that her child was dying and that she did not have a pass, he hit her and tried to drive her back home. She dodged past him and began running, with her child in her arms, to the hospital. The cop shot her in the back and walked away.
Having come to power through a brutal civil war, I have yet to figure out how the Taliban ruled their country. I have not read about a Finance Minister making any economic statements or planning for the future. Was there a Finance Ministry? The Taliban made a lot of their money out of drugs enough to pay for shells and bullets. I know there was a Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but it must have been one of the most under-employed ministries in the world. The only foreign affairs they deal with related to Pakistan.
I had noticed how extremely well-fed the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan was. He looked like he was fed well with naan, butter chicken, lamb kebabs and lassi. In contrast, his compatriots in Kabul looked undernourished and thin. I was surprised they still remained upright. Equally emaciated were the two million refugees in Pakistans various refugee camps. The Taliban, naturally, dened their existence.
Terror and religion have long been bedfellows. The Roman Catholic Church practised its brand of terror the Inquisition in the 13th century. If you were judged a heretic, you were burned at the stake. Such persecution arises out of a sense of deep insec urity and the fear that the prevailing beliefs will be diluted by mans progress. In those days, only the priests were educated and gave their own interpretations of the religious texts. Gradually, through education and the spread of information, they los t this monopoly over knowledge.
Today, Islam is also going through a period of insecurity. It wants to protect its followers from all the contamination of a more powerful culture. The Taliban clerics learn the Koran by heart and are prone to interpreting it whichever way they choose. In India, we have the saffron brigade that also wants to regress to the golden age of Hinduism. If they grab power (as it is attempting), we would have our own version of the Taliban dictating the way we dress and behave.
Change frightens people and our world is constantly changing. Although, at times, it looks as if it is for the worse, huge numbers of people have found a better life than their fathers and grandfathers. And with change they abandon the old ways and take up the new to fit into their increased economic freedom. It is possible that religion becomes less important in their lives.
As Karl Marx wrote: Religion is the opiate of the masses. For those religious fanatics everywhere, it still is.

SELL THE POOR

2011-06-06T00:52:00.000-07:00

I have to admit those Chinese are a lot smarter than we Indians are are. We may think we’re on the cutting edge of technology in the IT revolution and smarter than any one else in the world. Our NRIs may be the richest ethnic group in the US and we now have our first Indian dollar billionaire. However, when it comes to making money, the Chinese have us beat easily.
Here we are, doing our level best – within the restrictive parameters of our babus- to make a fast buck. We’re selling shoes, brains, spices, cloth and whatever else we can lay our hands on. We’re begging those rich foreign tourists to visit the Taj Mahal, stay in a Rajasthan Palace and sun bathe in Goa. All for what? It costs us money to advertise these attractions in Harper’s Bazaar and The New York Times.
What we don’t know is that we’re sitting on a gold mine. We have 400-odd million of our wonderful citizens living below the poverty level and we’re just not exploiting them properly. That’s where the Chinese are smarter than us. They’re now arranging guided tours for the rich tourists to visit and see how the poor live. Each tour costs $35 for a city slum and a lot more for a rural poverty tour.
Now don’t you think that’s clever? Sell the poor as a tourist attraction. We have worse slums than the Chinese can boast about. Just stroll through any Indian city and you’ll see slums that will make a Chinese tour guide’s mouth water with envy. We can boast of sewage water for drinking (that’s if they’re a rich slum), non-existent drainage, no sewage (apart from drinking), no schools, skinny people, no lighting, slush and garbage everywhere. At $30 a head (we should undercut the Chinese as this is a very competitive age) we could show them kids working in sweat shops – if they’re lucky- or in surroundings that make sweat shops look like paradise, men drunk in despair, women with too many children and all of them living on a diet of a handful of rice and kanji.
That’s only for openers. Just imagine how much money we could make off the tourists by guiding them around Bihar or Orissa or any one of our extremely poor states. Stop the air-conditioned bus. Jump off and see people eating boiled leaves, men women and children illiterate in this 21st century. See the Dalits. Now that’s something the Chinese don’t have. We could charge $75 a head for the rich tourist to see how Dalits are treated in some villages. In fact, I’m sure the Thakurs or others could put on a show of gunning them down.
I was wondering why the Chinese were having such success with their ‘See the poor’ tourist attraction. Of course, the rich have no idea how the poor live. Admittedly, most of the tourists were Americans but Americans do have a greater curiosity than other nationalities. So here they are in China, having flown business or first, staying in a five star, looking at the Great Wall and other sites. Then what? Back for a dumpling dinner? They want to know whether the poor eat dumplings, have American Express Gold cards, shop in Rodeo Drive and eat McDonalds or McChinese.
I know our slums appall tourists coming to India. But that’s because they don’t know them, haven’t lived in one, chatted to a starving man, drunk filthy water (or watch others drink as we don’t want to jeopardise their health and lose their money). We must copy the Chinese. Don’t let our tourists sink back into air-conditioned rooms in the Taj hotel, whip them out on a tour of the poor.
They’ll love our poor; it will be the last great adventure. They’ll take snaps, go back, and tell their friends in Ohio about how awful and ugly Indian poverty is. This is far better than hearsay and TV documentaries. On top of that, we coin money showing off our poor. Naturally, we won’t give the poor the tourist dollars, this would ruin them totally and might even uplift them. Just think what our politicians would do if they couldn’t spout ‘uplift the poor’ in every speech.
I believe we should test out our new tourist attraction as soon as possible so that we can start coining the money. What’s the point of showing foreigners hi-tech India? They have higher tech back home in his toilet.
No, our leaders should have him inaugurate our new ‘visit the poor’ tourists programme and charge them $35. And the rest of us will get rich quick.

FROM A HUMBLE POLITICIAN

2011-05-09T20:01:00.000-07:00

From: The Lok Sabha.
Dear Constituent,
As your elected representative to the Lok Sabha, I am aware that you do not have a high opinion of us politicians. We may give the impression that we’re in this political business only to disagree, sometimes violently by throwing chairs and microphones and storming the well, with the ruling party. As members of the opposition, our job is to oppose whatever the ruling party proposes, whether the proposal is good for the nation or not is beside the point. Otherwise, there would be no need for an opposition party. When the ruling party is in opposition, they will perform the same role when we’re the ruling party.
However, I am delighted to inform you that for once in our long history of political conflicts, all the political parties are in total agreement. I wish to point out that such harmony has never been witnessed before in the Lok Sabha and I am certain you will be proud of your parliament and the smooth functioning of the democratic process.
I write only to explain to you why we – all the members of the Lok Sabha – so strongly oppose any electoral reforms. First of all , to be frank as I know you will understand such things being an Indian voter, I am not in this political business to serve you or the nation. I might give that impression during an election but I know that you do not believe a word I speak and you are there only to support my ambitions. Politics is about making money, even as business – an industrialist or a shopkeeper is also about making money. If it weren’t for the vast amounts of money there for the taking, why would any sane human being enter the political arena? I ask you.
My sole purpose, as you well know, is to make money swiftly as possible. Five years is a very short time to make enough money for me, my children, my grandchildren, my great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren. I cannot leave so many generations destitute and I will be long remembered by my descendants and given thanks for great foresight that they can lead lives of luxury and comfort.
You are very aware, having read the lies in the newspapers, that I have a 150 criminal cases pending against me in various courts. Among my colleagues in the Lok Sabha I am known as the ‘King of Courts’, while they’re mere princelings and petty zamindars in our courts. Some of them have only four or five criminal cases pending against them, which shows how they lack ambition to greatness.
I began my political career as a petty criminal – theft and extortion . While in prison, I was recruited into politics by my party leader who was also in prison on politically motivated charges for corruption. He was my guru who pointed out that there was more money to be made in politics than in owning an oil well. He needed my criminal mind and contacts to build up the party, so we became partners in politics. And through sheer will power, I rose up the ranks, committing murders and performing corrupt deed to magnificent proportions.
I am truly the embodiment of the Indian Dream – to amass as much wealth and power without performing any creditable deeds. But that’s why so many are eager to enter politics. Believe me, it’s not cheap getting a ticket to a ruling or major opposition party. It costs lakhs, sometimes a crore or two, and then we have to spend on our elections. By the time we reach the Lok Sabha or a State Assembly, we’re in deep debt. How else to pay off this debt? And then, further, how else to accrue as much as possible as, no doubt, in five years time, you will throw me out of my lucrative office.
You must understand now why all the political parties in the Lok Sabha oppose any electoral reforms. I began with nothing except a petty criminal record and lived in a hovel. Today I am worth crores and crores. Tell me, is it your business how much money I have? Making money is all luck and it was my luck to enter politics. Why should I reveal my bank accounts, properties, stocks, shares, benami properties. Now, I pay no income tax. What will happen, I ask, once all these acquired assets are revealed to everyone’s gaze? Income tax will demand their share of my hard-earned wealth. I don’t ask you how much money you have or how you got it. I firmly believe – as the American people do too – that this is an invasion of privacy.
I trust you will, like us all, strong oppose any electoral reforms. We know, at the end of the day, they will be easily subverted (our Indian minds are experts at this) and this process is just a waste of our time. We have better things to do – like making money.
Yours Sincerely, Gulabjaman-ji, Member of the Lok Sabha.

OUR ROYAL WEDDING

2011-04-29T02:35:00.001-07:00

As you may have heard Prince William waited for the my arrival in London to announce his engagement to Kate Middleton. They had a nine year relationship, and when William called me for advice, I told him ‘Go for it. England needs a big tamasha.’ When I got to London I called to congratulate William on his decision, as we knew he was doing it for the flag, The Queen and the British economy. Kate, or the future Queen Kate as she is now known, is a beautiful woman and the media just can’t get enough of her. We’re told she is middle class, whatever that may mean in the British class system.
The whole media rejoiced when they heard the news and bells rang out across the length and breadth of this emerald Isle. The British PM interrupted a discussion on the ailing economy to let allow three cheers in the cabinet room. In print, television and the radio, every pundit who could be hauled out of the pub, discussed the engagement and the coming marriage today. They all agreed that the wedding, like the one between Prince Charles and Diana, will bring in millions of tourists to witness this splendid spectacle. And millions of tourists mean many more million pounds spent on hotels, hot dogs, flags, souvenir mugs and quaff beer. The sagging economy and the sagging spirits of the British empire, or what’s left of it, will be uplifted by the sight of the young handsome couple sitting in a golden carriage and accompanied by the horseguards with their golden helmets and breast plates. The last royal wedding also took place when the British spirits and the economy was on a low, and we all know what happened to tha marriage.
I have to admit the British are very good at mounting spectacles. They have that down to a fine art – colourful horsemen, soldiers with bearskin hats and marching bands. We learned from them on how to mount colourful spectacles but we only do that on Republic Day. I do believe we have the untapped potential to make better use of our splendid army uniforms, bands, camel corps, elephant parades and our natural love of a big tamasha.
Now, what we need to bring this together is a royal wedding. I know there was one recently when a Rajasthan royal married another royal and it was covered by the world media as Mick Jagger and Bono were in the guest list. I doubt those two spent the millions that the British hope their royal wedding will generate.
We do have a much more important royal family – an Indo-Italian one – and what we need is a grand wedding for the young, or not so young, prince who still remains single. Prince William found his Kate and I am praying that Rahul will find his mate soon. Once he does, we can then learn from the Brits how to stage a royal wedding. They have Westminister Abbey and BuckinghamPalace we have the Raj Bhavan and that awe inspiring sweep up to it. We too have carriages, now only used for the President to travel in, and it can be the wedding carriage. So the couple start their regal drive from there and end up in the Red Fort which now is wasted with boring speeches by a PM on Indpendence Day. They’ll wave from the rampants to the adoring masses. I am certain once the wedding is announced, our media, especially TV, will make it an event that will put President Obama’s visit in the shade. There will be hysteria and second by second updates of the happy couple.
And, ofcourse, millions of tourists will line the drive to wave Indian flags, spend millions of rupees, buy souvernirs of the happy couple on lotas, and drink as much Black Label as they can.

PERNICIOUS INFLUENCE

2011-04-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

Influence distorts our daily lives. It demeans and belittles our efforts. It’s not insidious but blatant. The laws are bent and twisted so as to allow our polticians to get away with murder, rape and extortion; our industrialists to scamming thousands of crores out of our pockets, with the connivance of the concerned ministries.
Influence gets you what you do not deserve. It gravitates, like water down a hill, to the rich. Political influence is of course the most powerful and the most coveted of all influences. We see it at work daily. It distorts, twists and mangles all the laws of our land, making them meaningless. Influence helps the politicians to escape retribution for their, to put it mildly, misdeeds. We see it at work in the Prime Ministers office and all the way down to the Panchayat level. Ministers, with FIRs against them and court judgements hanging over them are forgiven and embraced like naughty children. No matter that men have died in the course of the minister’s transgression and the nation’s future placed in jeopardy.
We all know that the guilty minister will threaten to resign. This is to impress his gullible public that he is a man or honour and high morality. Of course he knows, and we know, that if he has the right influence with those in power, his resignation will not be accepted. In Japan, when a minister is disgraced, being honourable men, they may occasionally commit hara-kiri. It’s fortunate that such an extreme form of self punishment does not exist in our country. If it did, most of our politicians would dead and gone.
Some ministers commit murder and that it’s just by sheer chance, because their party lost power, they are investigated. We’re fortunate they have reached the investigation stage at all. We all know, without any doubt, there will not be a prosecution, a trail and a guilty verdict. The course of justice doesn’t flow that smoothly if you have influence, it gets lost somewhere in the alleys and by-ways of lethargy. It’s only a matter of time before his party wins back power, the case is closed and the minister reinstated with all his pomp and glory. If his party had not lost power there wouldn’t have even be this minor hiccup in his life.
Of course, we’re all guilty of trying to use our influence with those who hold such influence in our lives. We actively conspire with them to change the course of our social and legal system for our benefit. We believe our laws are elastic; they can be stretched for our special sakes. If we drive through a red light and the police book us, we try to intimidate him through our influence with the local MLA, an assistant commissioner of police or the Chief Minister. If the names fail to impress him we always resort to the bribe, which usually does. We use influence to get our child into school or university, we use influence to get a job, and we use influence to evade taxes. We also use influence in a court of law to get a judgement that was against us over-turned. That’s if we’re fortunate enough to be in the position to influence the right people.
The poor, of course, have no such influence. For them, the law is the law, no matter how twisted out of shape it has become for them. They don’t even have the influence to get their daily necessities of food and clean water. They don’t have the influence to escape their poverty, they don’t have the influence to free themselves from the humiliation of bonded labour, and they don’t have the influence to squeeze justice out of a system far from their reach.
We all hear our politicians pronounce that ‘the law will take its course’. They don’t tell us which course. That depends on their influence.

GADDAFI and Company

2011-03-06T20:56:00.000-08:00

I am seriously considering applying for a job as a dictator. The pay is pretty good, you chose your own working hours, you get any number of freebees and you do not pay income tax. Of course the downside, and there is always a downside to any good job, is that you have people gunning for you. I could live with that. It could not be any worse than driving in India where the gods dice with your fate every moment you are on the road.
Fortune magazine publishes its list of the world’s richest people annually. Naturally, Gates and Buffet tops it again, legitimately, with mere $40 billions. I figure this must make him richer than many nations. I skipped the names lower down, as they were loose change to Bill Gates. Fortune also publishes a list of the richest dictators. I am not certain how accurate their figures are but they certainly made interesting reading.
I wondered whether Fortune sends out a form to the dictators, like the ones you get from credit card companies soliciting your patronage. There is always a column ‘Tell us about your profession and income’. Are dictators self-employed or are they employed by the State? I guess they will tick the CEO box, as it is tough getting a platinum credit card if you are self-employed. I am sure they must ponder a long time over the income box. How will they tick those boxes? Real Estate? – the whole country. That is not chump change. Other assets? – everything in the country, dams, power stations, roads, railways, tanks, fighter jets. They would have to add an extra sheet to complete the list. Number of people employed in your company? – the whole population, including the ones in prison. How many four wheelers? – lost count. The name of your bank and account number? Now, I wonder how they answer that. They must use, again, a separate sheet of paper to name all the banks and total up how much each bank holds. What about the ‘last income tax filed’ question. At this point, I figure they send in their Gestapo to deal with the stupid questioner and sling him into their private prisons.
According to Fortune, President Fidel Castro is worth $110 millions. My admiration for the man only increases at his moderation. He had been in power in Cuba for nearly 50 years. This works out to an annual salary of $2.2 millions a year! You could not hire any CEO for that kind of small change. The big guys in GE, GM pull in forty to fifty million dollars a year, and that is not including stock options and other perks. And all they have to do is run a corporation and not a complex nation that has been living under the guns and missiles and blockades of the United States.
Now you may say Cuba is not exactly the richest nation in the world. However, compare Castro’s fortune against the ex-President Hosni Mubarak who has stashed away 70 billion dollars during his 30-year-old rule of the country. Did you know that his pin stripped suits cost around $25,000 dollars because the stripes are his name ‘Hosni Mubarak’. Now, that’s an admirable ego.
There are other dictators in the Fortune list. They include the embattled Gaddafi, whose worth is around 300 billion dollars.
However, what I am waiting for is for the Fortune investigation team to descend on India. They would have a field day. Mubarak’s 70 billion and Gaddafi’s 300 billion would look like peanuts compared to what our democratically elected leaders have stashed away in bank vaults across the world. Every Chief Minister of his or her State lives like a dictator. They have the same style of functioning – the armed guards, the fawning acolytes, the motorcades, the gangsters imposing the dictator’s will, a compliant police force, a rubber stamp bureaucracy. Every five years they have to stand for elections and, in many states, it is a mere formality for them to continue their rule. In some States, a new Dictator is formally elected and he or she quickly falls into the same pattern of rule as their predecessor.
The only difference between India and those other nations is that we elect our dictators and allow them to rule for five years and loot our treasury. Unfortunately, our leaders do not have the same sense of moderation as a Fidel Castro.

ALL LIES

2011-02-15T20:25:00.001-08:00

I love the sayings of brain dead politicians and demented dictators. The statements that they give to the press are a camaflouge for what they really mean. So, having an insatiable curiosity to discover the meaning behind those mis-leading words, I had to ask them what they thought. I flew into Cairo, after I heard President Hosni Mubarak, tell his people that he would not stand for elections again and that he was needed for the stability of Egypt.
‘What did you want to say exactly?’ I asked him in a private interview.
‘Over my dead body. I’m not going to give up all this juicy power just because people are fed up of my 30 year rule. I will stay another 30 years and I will outlive all those protesters. They can return to their grinding poverty as it’s no business of mine how they live as long as my family and I can make our billions. In the next election, my party will win 99 per cent of the seats and my thugs will beat up everyone who doesn’t vote for me.’
From Cairo, I took a flight over to Harare where President Mugabe had announced that Zimbabwe will soon be holding fresh elections. The present-shared-power-deal with Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara was not working and for the sake of upholding the democratic ideals of Zimbabwe and for stability of the country a new election will ensure a prosperous Zimbabwe.
‘I have been in power over 30 years,’ he told me in private. ‘I will not share my power with anyone else as they won’t let me do what I want to do. So it’s best to get rid of them. And I’m not about to walk out just because the people are suffering and Zimbabwe is flat broke. I have my palaces and wives to keep up. In the new elections I’ll have the whole opposition in jail and my party will party will win 99 per cent of the seats. I’ll make damn sure of that this time.’
From there I flew directly to Naypydaw (try saying that after a couple of drinks and jet lag), the new capital of Myanmar. The Generals had just held democratic elections in the country but to become a member of parliament, you need not to win any election. The government announced that the new president is a civilian, the first one in 50 years. ‘This proves we’re a democratic country now with civilian rule,’ a statement said.
‘Of course nothing has changed,’ President Thein Sein said, wearing his suit and tie. ‘I was a general and will always be a general and we have no intention of ever giving up power and all our perks just because the rest of the world wants us to be democratic. I wear a suit in the office but at home I relax in my military uniform with all its medals.’
In Delhi, the city which holds the Guinness book of Records for ‘100 scams a minute’, I met the PM who had announced that on all these scams, ‘The Law will take its course.’ You will notice that this is an incomplete sentence; it stops short of explaining what it means.
‘What I mean is that the law will take its course and by then the people will have forgotten which course and which scam,’ the PM told me.
In Tamilnadu the CM also stated. ‘The law will take its course.’
‘What I mean is that the law will take its course and avoid prosecuting anyone involved in the 2G scam and every other scam here,’ the CM said to me.
In Maharashtra the CM told me: ‘What I mean is that the law will take its course in about 100 years.’
See how lucky we are living in a democratic country. I didn’t really need to tell you what they meant, did I?. You already knew.

FAMILY AFFAIRS

2011-01-29T21:40:00.001-08:00

Dear Congress Party,
I don’t know whether you’ve been following the international news recently. Probably not as you’ve enough problems with domestic politics and your multi-scams. Just to bring you up to speed, a couple of weeks ago the Tunisians, who had had enough of their president, Zine al-Abidin Ben Ali, revolted against his 30-odd year rule. Apart from rising prices and repression, they were also fed up with his corruption. Now, something like this had never happened before and old Ben Ali was in a state of shock. His police shot a few people to keep them quiet and when that didn’t work, he took the hint and skipped the country. His wife too skipped away, taking along with her about 30 billion dollars worth of gold bars in her private ‘shopping’ jet.
Every dictator in the Middle East held their collective, corrupt breaths. They were sure that this sort of disruptive behaviour by the people against their leader would not cross the borders into their countries. Unfortunately, anger is contagious. No one ever expected the Egyptians, a most placid people, would also revolt against their president Hosni Mubarak. He too has been in power for 30 years and is as corrupt as Ben Ali. The Egyptians, to everyone’s surprise, took to the streets, demanding the end of the 82-year-old President’s repressive rule. Posters of Mubarak and his son, Gamel, the heir apparent, were burned. Every corner of Egypt, it seems, has risen up to cast off their iron chains.
No doubt, this contagious idea of overthrowing dictatorships will soon spread to the other Middle East nations. We’re going to soon see many leaders skipping their countries in their private jets for safer locations, along with as much gold as they can carry, and their Swiss Bank accounts as a cushion against future hardship.
Now, you may think what have all these revolutions in foreign countries to do with us here in India? There are very close similarities. One family ruled those countries for 30 years; one family has ruled your party for over 60 years. Isn’t it about time that the peasants in the Congress Party rebelled against this one family’s rule? For a party that preaches democracy, you certainly don’t practice it within the party and have allowed one family to dictate who rules it. And through your obedience to this family, they rule a nation. A good revolution within will purge your party of the family and open it up for younger, hopefully not so corrupt, brighter minds than those in power at this time. You will be rejuvenated as a party by getting rid of all those ancient, brain-dead people and their chamchas, and find a new, exciting role for yourself in the country.
You will worry that, with this revolution, what will happen to your ruling family if it has to skip the country, like Ben Ali and his. Believe me, they’ll be just fine. I read recently that a serious Swiss magazine reported back in 1991 that your crown prince, Rahul, had 2.5 billion dollars in his bank account there. With interest over the last 20 years, he’ll be worth about nine or ten billion dollars. I know this doesn’t match the Ben Ali’s fortune but the family will still live very comfortably for a few generations on this amount. And, the best part, they won’t have to find shelter in Saudi or any of these other Gulf States. They could buy a villa on Lake Como, next to the American movie Star, George Clooney, and his pals. Or even a palazzo in Venice, if they prefer a sea facing palace or an apartment on Park Avenue. Maybe, they already own such real estates but I’m not aware of this.
Once you free yourself from this one family rule, this internal revolution will inspire the Indian people to take your party more seriously. We may even vote for you again.

The Old Rajah

2011-01-22T19:26:00.000-08:00

Old Rajah
Once upon a time (this means it isn’t true) there was a Rajah who wanted to live happily ever after. He had been ruler of his state for decades, but not continuously. Every few years a usurper would attack his kingdom, wrestle him off the gadi and send him into exile. Then, he girded his loins, gathered his army and marched back into the capital to reclaim his gadi, sending the usurper into exile. This happened quite frequently and confused his subjects who only wanted to get on with their lives without these constant wars for the gadi. However, they knew that whichever person sat on the gadi, their lives would not change. They would be thrown a few scraps (called sops) to keep them quiet, while the one on the gadi enjoyed life to the fullest, along with their many courtiers.
As it was the custom in those days, the Rajah had a few wives. No one knew how many exactly as this was a palace secret. Of course, the wives had children as wives are bound to do. So he had a few sons and daughters to look after, apart from the wives and his courtiers. But the Rajah was getting older and older, and he began to worry about how he was going to care for his progeny who were demanding that they too rule the state.
The Rajah loved power very much and was reluctant to share it with anyone, even his kids. When they grew more insistent, as they knew that one day the old Rajah could again lose the gadi, he agreed to divide up his kingdom. He appointed one son as the Prince Regent who sat on his right side wherever he went so that the citizens could see whom he favoured to take his place, should he die. He didn’t believe this would happen to him for, as he grew older, he felt stronger and stronger. To another son, he granted a portion of his kingdom far from the capital. The sons were half brothers and their mothers were very possessive and jealous ladies. Each one wanted their child to have the whole kingdom to himself instead of sharing.
The Rajah, being a wise man, knew half a kingdom was better than no kingdom at all. This made sure that the two sons had a goodly income to support them in the lifestyles they had grown accustomed to when their father was on the gadi. The Rajah also had a daughter whom he loved very much and seeing her half brothers getting halves of the kingdom, she wanted her share too. His favourite cousins also wanted a piece of the half. But there were no halves left to give them so the Rajah sent them all as his ambassador to the Maharajah’s court very far away in the hope they would be happy. And keep quiet.
In the Maharajah’s court there would be even more pomp, ceremony and riches for any ambassador. Having disposed of his quarrelsome progeny the Rajah thought he could now live a quiet and peaceful life on his gadi. So, for a while, the family was at peace too. The kids enjoyed their bounty to the fullest and so did their courtiers. The son who was Crown Prince went everywhere with his father in his chariot and the citizens saw how devoted he was to the old Rajah.
However, sons being sons and daughters being daughters the children were not happy with their presents. They were like any family’s typical kids. They were greedy and they wanted what the other one had. They began to quarrel among themselves first and then with the old Rajah, demanding he get rid of the other kids. And so the old Rajah’s peace and quiet was shattered and he couldn’t live happily ever after.

An Honest Man

2010-12-31T23:23:00.000-08:00

AN HONEST MAN
Yesterday, the CBI, the IB, Income Tax, RAW, the State Police, Central Vigilance and other enforcement agencies raided my friend, Sri H (to protect his identity). He lives down a lane in a two bedroom house (with a mortgage), has two children, drives a 1990 Maruti 800 and owns an old colour TV. He’s a handsome man of around 46 who works as an assistant secretary in a central government department. Fifty official vehicles blocked the lane, the road and tailed back to the traffic lights. Beyond the lights were television OB vans and 200 reporters baying for the story. At least 120 officials were crowded into his home, every one of them wanting to be the first to interrogate Sri H.
‘I was here first,’ the CBI officials screamed and brandished their orders from the very highest Delhi command in the land.
‘No, we were,’ the IB officials also waved orders from the same highest command.
‘We have first priority,’ Income tax shouted. They had the same orders. As did the State Police and all the others
Sri H, trapped in a corner with his wife and children hiding behind him, asked in his polite voice. ‘What have I done? Someone please explain why I am being raided.’ He had to then shout to be heard above the din.
There was a moment of stunned silence, before all the officials laughed and slapped each other on their backs. ‘What has he done? he wants to know, acting innocent. We’ll tell you what you’ve done.’ They all took out their orders and read the charges in unison. ‘You have committed sedition against the State, you have acted against the constitution of the country and you have ruined India’s reputation all around the world.’
‘Can you please be more specific?’ Sri H asked.
‘Specific!’ They all screamed. ‘Sri H you are charged for being the only honest man in Bharat which is a crime liable for 200 years imprisonment. Here we are trying for India to make it to Number One as the most corrupt country in the world, and you have ruined our chances with your reputation for being an honest official. This is an act of sedition as you have acted against the all the amoral laws of the State. You sign papers without demanding bribes, you don’t possess a Swiss Bank account, you don’t even send your children to expensive schools, you don’t possess secret bank lockers, you only own this cheap house, you constantly report corrupt officials and politicians to Vigilance who are sick and tired of you. You have ruined the scam careers of officials and politicians.’
A CBI official silenced the furious officials. ‘Sri H, we’re a very understanding people. We can dismiss all these charges and I guarantee nothing will happen to you if you take a bribe. You can build a palatial home, drive a BWM, and have an account in Switzerland.’ He turned to his juniors. ‘Who is holding the bribe money?’
Immediately, CBI, IB, Income Tax, State Police all of them rushed forwards waving 1,000 rupee notes. ‘Take my money, take my money…’ They all screamed. They had their cameras ready to photograph Sri H taking the first bribe for doing absolutely nothing. At least 10 crores fell at his feet.
Sri H drew himself up to his full height. ‘I refuse to take a bribe from any private person, corporate honcho, communications companies, industrialists, politicians, goondas and enforcement officials.’
They all immediately arrested Sri H and took him to prison. There they beat him up, applied electrodes to tender parts, burnt him with cigarettes and poured money into his cell. He still refused to accept a bribe. A year later, he was produced in court for committing sedition and treason against the State for being an honest man. The judge was so shocked that he sentenced Sri H to 250 years in prison.

MAP WARS BETWEEN CHINA & INDIA

2010-11-02T03:16:00.001-07:00

MAP WARS
You may have noticed that China has launched its equivalent of Google Earth. This website, Chinaon map, is China’s vision of the earth around the middle kingdom. As I’m a Google Earth traveller, I thought I’d better check out how China views us. Apart from Tibet and the disputed islands in the China Sea, a piece of India is also attached to China. We’ve lost Arunachal Pradesh to China in their map so I thought I’d better get over to the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping in Beijing to tell them that their Chinaonmap has made a serious mistake. AP is an integral part of India, still, or was until I saw their map.
‘We’re very sorry for the mistake,’ the spokesperson for SBSM told me, smiling. ‘We’ll make a correction. Please remember China once reached Siberia under the great Khan.’
‘He’s long dead and gone. The correction has to be done immediately. Google Earth updates their website every few minutes. And in their map of India AP is very much part of India.’
‘Very sorry,’ spokesperson said. ‘We only update once or twice a year. Next year maybe we will look into the problem.’
I thought this was an inadequate response to my courteous protest. On returning to a India, still whole, I hoped, I went to the one of the big IT companies.
‘I want us to upload an Indiaonmap website immediately. We will then get AP back within our borders and also claim a small chunk of Chinese territory. We’ll also make Tibet an independent country on our website. And Taiwan too can be freed from China. And while we’re at it, we’ll move Beijing next to Kolkata so that the communist party will be happy to have it as their new neighbour.’
In no time at all, we launched the Indiaonmap website. AP was back in our fold and Tibet had a new border around it.
I had to show off and returned to the SBSM office in Beijing, a short hop from Kolkata and showed them our Indiaonmap site. The spokesperson was furious and very insulted that his capital was next to the Hooghly.
‘We’ll see about that,’ the spokesperson said and opened up Chinaonmap website in front of me. He moved Beijing back to its original position, reclaimed Tibet and AP. He then shifted the border further west to take a chunk of Assam. ‘This where we were in the 1962 war,’ he said. For good measure, he gave Kashmir to Pakistan and then gave it Afghanistan too.
‘Right, it’s web war,’ I told him and returned to a much truncated India with Pakistan now twice its size. I told my hi-tech guy to re-claim AP and Tibet and push a 1,000 kilometres into China. As we couldn’t allow Pakistan to claim Kashmir and Afghanistan, we moved India’s borders west to Iran. I thought this would make that gas pipe line easier to lay. We re-named the China Sea to the Asian Sea and gave all the disputed islands in that new sea to Japan. This would help our trade relations, I thought.
When I went back to SBSM, they were waiting for me as they saw what we had done on Indiaonmap. This time, Chinaonmap pushed China’s order west up to Mumbai.
‘We’re more than happy for you to have Mumbai, the RSS and the Thackeray thugs,’ I told them. As China did not want any of our thugs, SBSM decided only to move to Nagpur, which divided India in half. The Indian Ocean became the China Ocean.
Back in India, we spread the Indian Ocean across the Pacific and Atlantic too and pushed India’s borders as far west to France. Chinaonmap then spread east and included the US and South America. Neither of us wanted Britain as it was an economic black hole, and the cause of all our problems.

Conversation with Lord Mountbattan

2010-11-02T03:13:00.000-07:00

The other day I bumped into Lord Louise Mountbattan. I know he’s dead (the IRA blew him up) but his spirit haunts India as he was the LastViceroy of India and can’t forget the great time he had living in the Raj Bhavan, riding in grand carriages, fawned over by us, dividing up India and spending time with his good pal Nehru. He didn’t mind his wife Edwina frolicking with the future PM of India as he believed India should continue to be ruled by a Raj type of person.
‘So what do you think of modern India, Dicky?’ I asked him. Dicky was his nickname and I thought I could be familiar with our Last Viceroy to make him feel at home in India Inc.
‘Not changed much, old chap,’ he replied. ‘You’ve got a many more motor cars, more buildings and a few billionaires, whatever that means, but it’s still ruled by the Raj.’
‘Raj! Nonsense. We’re an independent nation, part of BRIC, high GDP and a country to be reckoned with.’
‘When the British Raj left India we made sure that the reins were handed over to someone we could trust to continue our rule. In proxy of course. And that is why we chose the Congress party. It’s a fine, upstanding party that upholds everything that is British. India has faithfully followed the British way of life. We have a Queen, and so do you. Our Queen is a foreigner, more German blood than British blood. Your Queen too is a foreigner, more Italian blood than Indian. They are alike too. We have a Prime Minister who has to have the Queen to approve, in theory of course, his political agenda. In that, you have gone back a century to Empress Victoria as your Queen has more power than our Queen. Like Victoria your Queen formulates policy and instructs your Prime Minister. We have a royal family, so do you. Our royal family doesn’t dabble in politics though Charlie would love to. Our royal family just hunt and fish and party, as they’re supposed to do for the sake of our tabloid newspapers. Your royal family dabbles in politics constantly, instead of just being royal and party like our family. We have a feudal society, so do you. Look at all the children of politicians who now have seats in your parliament and state assemblies. You should copy our example and stuff all those children into an upper house. We call it House of Lords; yours is the Raja Sabha. That’s where the feudals should be kept so they don’t cause mischief.’
‘Not every one in India recognizes our royal family,’ I protested. ‘We’re a republic and want a good devious politician, like a Tony Blair, to be our PM. We’d prefer our Queen to stay at home and do her knitting. At least, she doesn’t love dogs like your Queen.’
‘But she can’t stay at home, can she?’ he countered. ‘The good ole Congress boys want a foreigner to lead them. We taught them how to be led by one of us and they cannot forget their lessons. They know full well that if your Queen didn’t campaign for them, they would lose every election. They have as much charisma as fleas. If tomorrow, our Queen campaigned for the Tories or the Labour or the Liberals, they would win the election hands down.’ He shook his head. ‘No, you love your feudals. Your Queen only campaigns as she wants the crown prince to take his rightful place on the throne. Charlie’s wating for his place but our Queen knows he’ll make a mess at being King. Just like yours will, one day.’
‘Our prince-in-waiting will do great. Who else do we have?’
‘True. If you know your history, we British called it his Divine Right to be King.’

OSAMA'S CLIMATE CHANGE PROBLEMS

2010-11-02T03:06:00.000-07:00

OSAMA CLIMATE CHANGE
Osama Bin Laden is very worried about Climate Change. He released an audio tape recently complaining that no one else, apart from him, is worried about Climate Change. The earth, he believes, is going down the tubes because of man’s destruction of the environment. Believe me, if Osama’s worried about this, we had all better get worried too. I worried so much that I thought I’d better meet Osama to discuss the subject with him, face-to-face, instead of listening to his disembodied voice. The CIA wasn’t sure it was him speaking or the Al-Qaeda Climatologist.
As it’s impossible to find this elusive man, I opened Google Earth, wrote in his name and clicked on Find. The camera zeroed in just east of the Hindu Kush and down to ‘Osama Lives here’. I even had a 3-D street view of the entrance with his bodyguards posed with their AKs. I made it through Kabul, a hairy jeep ride up the mountains to his home and kept the taxi waiting, illegally parked under a ‘No Drone Parking’ sign.
Osama was delighted to find someone else as worried as he was on Climate Change and welcomed me, after I was searched. His penthouse was a bit damp. Water dripped down from the ceiling, the Persian carpet smelled mouldy and Osama was wrapped up in a blanket. His Climatologist was in a corner, pouring over parchment maps, checking the CNN weather map on his laptop and making calculations.
‘Osama when do you have the time to be worried about Climate Change?’ I asked.
‘I make time,’ he said. ‘I have nothing else better to do stuck up here.’
‘But you have so many more important projects on your agenda. Like the defeat of America, conquering Europe, planning Mumbai Style attacks on foreign cities, like New York, London, Paris with your Taliban business partners…’
He stopped me. ‘We must stick to Climate Change. It keeps me awake at night worrying about the earth. There is a conspiracy going on under my very nose.’
‘What kind of a conspiracy?’
‘A conspiracy,’ he shouted. ‘You tell me why it rained so heavily only on Pakistan? Nowhere else on the earth was there such heavy rain. This was a conspiracy between the Americans and the Indians to cause big problems for the country I love with all my heart. They both used their software to send a virus into the clouds so it upset the cloud balance. The clouds couldn’t move because of the virus…’
‘But Osama no one can send a virus into the clouds to stop them moving.’
‘Then you tell me.’
‘Deforestation for a start and the mud slides down into the rivers, they silt up and are not as deep as they used to be.’
‘No. The Drones are shifting the winds. They heard it like goats.’
‘It rained very heavily on India too. Delhi was flooded, Commonwealth Game bridges fell down, hundreds drowned’
‘A few hundred Indians drowned!’ he scoffed at me. ‘You have a billion and won’t miss them. But this Climate Change conspiracy has affected the very government of Pakistan, as the leaders are safe making money. It’s the Americans who have caused all these problems with the climate.’ He turned to his Climatologist. ‘Tell this unbeliever.’
‘The earth’s winds blow from west to east,’ he pronounced. ‘All of Asia is polluted by greenhouse gases and airplane emissions.’ He called up a website. ‘See, we get all that polluted air which is why Americans fly so many planes, only to kill us with their pollutants.’
‘I had read that too. But how else does Climate Change affect you up here, Osama?’
‘My arthritis gets worse with the rains.’ He waved goodbye and called out. ‘Watch out for the Drones. They can’t tell the difference between you and us. We all look alike on the screens in Vegas.’

PETITION FROM VOTERS

2010-11-02T03:02:00.000-07:00

A PETITION FROM THE CONSTITUENTS OF A LOK SABHA MP TO THE UNION CABINET.
(Kindly circulate in my constituency and ensure it has one lakh signatures)
We, the undersigned, believe the Union Cabinet has erred grievously in its recent announcement of a mere 300 per cent increase in the salaries and perquisites of our most honourable member of parliament. He is an upstanding man of great integrity who has worked hard to serve us, his constituents, to the best of his abilities. He visits us annually to ensure that we are benefitting from all his good work.
He is a most humble man and wears only the kurtas and dhotis; often we noted his clothing has been patched. We appreciate his humility as we know he possesses many Gucci suits, especially hand-made for him, whenever he travels to a place called Milan. His wife possesses many Dolce Gabba items of clothing and accessories too from this very place but as we never see her we appreciate her humility too. He does not come in a grand vehicle but in a 1999 Tata Sumo which he has possessed for many years as he cannot travel on our kutcha roads in his BMW SUV.
On his annual visit yesterday, we gathered as always, under the bodhi tree to hear his problems. As he does not have much time, being a busy man, he does not hear our problems. They are simple – no electricity, no schools, no health clinics, no roads, no jobs, no food - and not worth his valuable time. Which we understand.
His problems brought tears to our eyes that the unjust Union Cabinet only granted a 300 per cent pay increase. He wept as he told us how hard it was for him to maintain himself, his family, his friends, his chamchas, and his many homes, on such a paltry amount. And we wept along with him. And how could he visit twice a year when all he was given was 30 air coupons? By the time he flew weekly to Mumbai to attend the parties thrown by his Bollywood friends (who campaign here with him once in five years but we have not seen their films as we have no electricity or a cinema house), he has no air coupons left to visit us.
He cannot even telephone us, not because we don’t have any telephone connections, but he has to make hundreds of calls to his bankers, investment advisers, real estate agents, Swiss banks, Cayman Island banks. The cost of making such long distance calls to phoren countries consumed his 1.5 lakh annual free calls. He had us weeping for him when he pointed to his old Sumo. How could he pay for his BMW SUV when the cabinet gave him a mere five lakhs advance when the vehicle costs nearly one crore.
Don’t you want to be proud of your MP arriving at parties in his BMW? He asked. ‘Yes, yes,’ we agreed. He also pleaded with us to understand that, as a humble MP, he was not at all corrupt. He only took a 50 per cent commission on projects allocated to our constituency. Ministers, he told us, took 90 per cent and he wasn’t as greedy as they were.
For our school (he laid the foundation stone four years ago) it wasn’t his fault that only 20 bricks and a bag of cement was delivered; it wasn’t his fault that the electric cables fell 10 kilometres short of our constituency; it wasn’t his fault that the clinic wasn’t built with the 40 bricks; it wasn’t his fault the telephone cable didn’t reach us.
Therefore, we all sign this petition demanding that the Union Cabinet grant our MP a 600 per cent increase in salary and perquisites.

HARMONIOUS INDIAN GOVERNANCE RULES

2010-11-02T02:29:00.000-07:00

HARMONIOUS RELATIONS
WikiLeaks sent me their latest Leak the other day. The Leak was from the Cabinet Office of the Government of India. The document is the standing instruction to every Prime Minister, and his cabinet, from 1947. It is required reading of every PM and Minister. It is titled ‘Harmonious Centre-State Relations in 10 Easy Lessons.’
Rule 1. Total Neglect. Do not give the State anything. Deny the state’s existence and allocate zero funds for its development. Do not build roads, railways, schools, hospitals, universities, cricket stadiums. This is a waste of public funds which can be better utilised in Swiss Bank accounts. The citizens of the state are happy and joyful to just belong to the great country of India and do not wish for anything more. If possible prevent those citizens from travelling to other parts of the country as this will raise their expectations. A few will return and demonstrate peacefully. Arrest them immediately.
Rule 2. Benign Neglect. If the arrest of the agitators (foreign hand) does not calm the situation, the government may then throw the State a few sops. It may build a road or two, a school here and there and a hospital. Ensure there are no doctors or nurses in the hospital. It may even be worthwhile to hold an election. This will give the people a belief in our great democracy. However, ensure that the political party is firmly aligned to the central government of the time. Do not allow the new CM of the state any opportunity to act independently.
Rule 3. The Big Sop. If the people are unhappy with their democracy and continue to agitate peacefully arrest them all. At the same time, announce that the centre will allocate one hundred crores to the State’s development. When five crores (taken into account leakages) reaches the State, ensure it is spent on building 5-star hotels, cinema halls and beautiful parks. Hold a big conference for government officials to stay in the 5-star hotel to discuss the problems of the State. This will ensure the employment of the unemployed youths as waiters and water carriers. If the people demonstrate peacefully about the waste of funds, arrest them all. Do not start a dialogue.
Rule 4. The Bigger Sop. Call the media (who will slavishly report what we want) and announce that the cabinet will allocate 1,000 crores for the State’s development. With the 100 crores (see above) invite major industrialist to set up industries to exploit the forest, valleys, jungles and whatever else there is, for minerals, oil, gas, silicon, manganese, iron. These projects will generate employment for the people to cut down the trees, dig up their forests and pollute their rivers and their air. At the same time build three schools, one university and send doctors nurses to staff the hospital built 30 years ago. As we know the State’s citizens are never grateful for all that the Central Government does for them and will agitate for more. Arrest them all. Brand their leaders as Naxals/communists/jihadists/ISI employees/Chinamen/CIA operatives.
Rule 5. Hold another election. Ensure that the election is fixed so that a ruling government’s party wins. Announce that this proves that democracy does work and it is the agitators who are to blame for all the troubles in an otherwise peaceful state. To prove that it is peaceful the PM or the HM should make a flying visit to the state and be seen with the new CM. Fly back immediately. Announce that a railway line will connect the state to rest of the country. The Naxals/communists/jihadists/ISI employees/Chinamen/CIA operatives will demonstrate and throw stones.
Rule 6. Send in the police. Shoot on sight.
Rule 7. Send in more police. Shoot more on sight.
Rule 8. Call in State CM for serious discussions.
Rule 9. Send in more police. Shoot everyone on sight.
Rule 10. See Rule One.

CABINET POSTS

2010-08-09T02:26:00.001-07:00

Ahre, you people don’t know how hard it is to be the new CM of my state. My first task is to pick my cabinet from among my many talented party men and women. To make this more streamlined, and fair, I have devised an application form which can be downloaded from the website cabinetposts.gov. Those of you wishing to join my cabinet are requested to fill in the form, answering all questions, and return it, online, to prove that I am a computer savvy CM. Please be assured I will review every application and choose the best person for the cabinet post.
Real Name: If you have a real name, please tell why you keep it.
False Names: List all the false names under which you have lived for the last 10 years. As this a free country you can have any number of names.
Date of Birth: Above 75 is the ideal age.
Place of birth: It would advisable for you to be born in this state but if not make up a village name and ensure that you have a false birth certificate to prove this.
Education: List all the fake degrees that you have acquired over the years and specify which fake subject interests you the most. This will help me in appointing you in the appropriate post to match your qualifications. For example, if you have a fake degree in computer science then you could be Minister of Telecommunications. This goes for other subjects – finance, agriculture, industry etc.
Employment: If you were employed by a powerful industrialist, a multi-national corporation, or a criminal gang, and have bent babu contacts, this will be of great help in positioning you in my cabinet. I will be able to use your connexions and contacts to further the interests of the state and help uplift the people. You will be expected to introduce your ex-employers to me so I may understand how they work and how I can further their interests, along with yours. If unemployed, do not mention this. Please list all the jobs you never had as this will help me in understanding your ambitions and make a correct choice. If you are under 30 and honestly employed, do not go further. Delete the form.
Criminal Record: List your entire criminal record and also all criminal charges pending against you so as to understand your expertise in such matters. If you have committed murders, kindly provide the names of the murdered and your advice on the matter. If you have committed rape, send me the list of the women at the earliest. If you are still in prison, list your police and prison contacts for character references.
Fake Encounters: List who, when, where, cop collaborators. And how to perform them, legally.
Ambitions: To ensure you will be the right person for the right cabinet post, I need to know your exact ambitions. For instance, do you wish to make one crore, ten crores or one hundred crores a year from your post? However, if you are truly very ambitious and believe that your talents deserve a greater reward for your presence in my cabinet and that your target is between one hundred to one thousand crores a year, I will suggest your name for a central cabinet position. The central cabinet is an equal opportunity to make money employer. However, they may expect you to occasionally attend cabinet meetings and speak in parliament but this is not compulsory. Overseas travel mandatory.
Hobbies: As the work of serving the people is very hard, to relieve the stress it is important you have a hobby. Throwing chappals, flower pots, assaulting the opposition is one of our most popular stress breakers. If you wish for training, please inform the minister of Sports.
Good luck.

Kabul Stories

2010-07-25T02:38:00.000-07:00

Checking into my flight to Kabul in Delhi, I chatted with an Afghan gentleman behind me. He asked me: ‘Which hotel are you staying in?’ I told him the name and then he continued: ‘I own a hotel in Kabul too.’ I thought, as my reservation wasn’t firm, I could stay in his hotel instead. He shook his head. ‘You can’t. It was bombed two months ago.’ Ohh! ‘But, it will ready in two weeks if you return.’
My hotel may not suffer the same fate but there’s no guarantee. The approach road has a steel barrier and a gunman #1 who checks my reservation. The road leads up through high blast walls to Gunman #2 also at his barrier. Finally, Gunman #3 does a security check on the car and signals for the steel gate to open before I reach the hotel’s reservation office. Taking a morning stroll after signing the exit register and reading the note that informs me the hotel is not responsible for anything that happens to me, I pass the palatial homes of Wazir Akbar Khan district protected by blast walls and their own gunmen. Some even have two as if they’re status symbols, and the weapons of choice are 9mm machine pistols, though here and there are the familiar AK47s. The roads are so damaged that I have to pick my way past, even as the SUVs (vehicles of choice) wallow towards me. Later, when I enquire who lives in these house, I get an ambiguous answer ‘Commanders’. Commanders? Military, police, drugs, warlords, and some of the poppy palaces even have a gunman perched on their roofs.
Earlier, I had climbed on my hotel roof to view the city. High above is a watchful eye, a tethered balloon with a 24x7 camera. Strangely, apart from a few sparrows in the hotel garden, there’s not another species of birds in the sky, not even the ubiquitous crow or a kite, not a parrot or a pigeon. Over the years, every tree was cut down and the birds fled to more habitable locations. I did finds birds Fa Karushi market in old Kabul. The fighting doves and finches are in elaborate cages and quite costly.
Kabul nestles in a valley, surrounded by anaemic green hills and I think that Kabulis have never seen the endless horizon that surrounds other cities. It must limit their imagination of the world, enclosed in this private space. The hills, like Sheer Darwaza to the south, also have the ruins of fortress walls along their spines but, despite the natural defences, a thousand invaders have over run this city and country. Hills also divide the city into sections, with narrow passes through which the city flows to connect up with its other parts. Behind my back, a hill rises steeply and, crowning it, as proof of Imperial Idiocy, is an Olympic-size swimming pool with many diving boards but not a drop of water. The Russians built and abandoned their folly, as they did the country in 1989. Old Kabul, the original city, rises on either side of the Kabul River. From my vantage point Kabul looks an easy city to navigate as my first meetings are to the south, in and around Kabul University. But, I discover, this is also the grid lock city of the world. We average 45 minutes to cover a kilometre and, sitting in these jams, I hope we won’t stop opposite a police station or alongside a military convoy. Those are favourite Talib targets. However, we do have a cultural connexion with Afghans – they are as bad drivers as Indians are. The blocked, high security roads passing the US and Indian embassies, NATO and ISAF compounds cause the grid locks. They are impassable and the traffic is diverted onto jammed roads, most of them badly damaged with deep pot holes.
Without a doubt, the Afghans are the most courteous, the most hospitable, gentle people I’ve come across. They enjoy conversation with their glass cups of green tea and biscuits, served whether you want it or not. But, their conversations also needs to be carefully interpreted as often it’s what they are not saying which is more important than what they do say. Professor Abdul Waste, a tall, thick-set man, clean shaven, hesitates a long moment on my Taliban question. We’re in his spacious office on Kabul U campus and there are three others in the room. He lived in Kabul during their regime and with President Karzai opening a channel to the Talib, they could be back in the city like a bad dream. He says finally, ‘They forced us to grow beards and we had to pray regularly…but it was a very safe country under them. There was no crime, no murders and we could leave our doors open.’ I point out they had a very bad human rights records. ‘People tell many stories about the Talib. Under them we were safe.’ I believe he won’t be too critical of the Talib, hedging his bets that if/when they return there will a record of his comment somewhere. Maybe reported by one in the room. Others also tell me how safe it was under the Talib, the way some Indians nostalgically remember how everything worked smoothly during Indira Gandhi’s emergency rule. Fear is a good disciplinarian and makes people duck and weave in their thinking and speaking.
The Talib are not alone in the field of continuous wars. The mujahedeen are also prowling and some of the men I meet claim to be mujahedeen, and proclaim the Afghans would be better under their rule as the Talib are Pakistani, and not true Afghans. ‘The Talib are also Arabs and Uzbeks,’ I’m told and definitely Pakistanis. How far does Karzai’s government rule extend outside of Kabul? Omar Khan (name changed) works for the Ministry of Finance and his village is in south east Afghanistan. ‘The government has no power in my area. We can go to them to solve our problems but they do nothing. So the Talib solve the problem and everyone in the area obeys the Talibs. Yes, we’re Talibs because we cannot say anything else. They’ll kill us if we do.’ On the morning BBC news (yes satellite channels when once they only had Radio Shari under the Taliban) I heard that five American soldiers were killed that day. Omar shrugged indifferently. ‘Americans are killed every day.’ In this harsh, dusty land of mountains and defiles I do wonder what those boys from the 21st century make of this 15th century country. Omar adds. ‘It’s not always the Talib. There are mujahedeen killing too.’ Like the many other young men I spoke to their driving ambition was to leave the country and live legally (not with a smuggler’s help) in Canada, Australia, the US, anywhere safe.
Those blue burquas floating on women are not that common, except in the old city. Kabuli women dress fashionably in Shalwars, high heel shoes and hijabs lightly covering half their heads, more as symbols to their culture. They wear lipstick and eye shadow and paint their nails. Under the Talib if a woman painted her nails, a finger was chopped off!! And everywhere I saw school girls in their black trousers and jackets, with the white hijabs, loaded down with books. They are the fortunate ones as girls schools are only in Kabul. Or the unfortunate too, as should the Talib return their schools will be closed, and they will be confined to their homes.
‘The men had it much harder than us,’ Hanifa (name changed) a career woman says when I mentioned the compulsory burqua for women. She too lived in Kabul during the Talib rule. ‘It took some getting used to wearing the burqua but men had to grow beards, pray five times and go to the mosque. They were beaten if they didn’t.’ Other women I spoke to echo her defence – a hard life for the male. Najibia Ayubi, manager of programming of the Khillid group of radio stations, says, ‘It was a very depressing time for us all. We had to keep our mouths shut and survive the best we could. So many women were forced to leave their jobs as teachers, office workers, and professors and stay at home. If they didn’t have any men in the family they ended up begging in the streets. But the Talib allowed the women doctors to continue working.’ She laughs. ‘Their women needed medical help too.’
The city is undergoing a building boom – independent bungalows, high rise flats, massive wedding halls and shopping malls. And kilometers of new roads laid. Construction companies, financed by American aid and poppy money, are booming. A cynical Afghan told me, ‘To put up a building for the Americans costs around four lakh Afghanis (Re1= 1 Afg) but they charge the Americans four lakh dollars. That’s how they make their money.’
But Kabul is encircled by heart breaking poverty, bad as ours, as Afghanis escape their villages looking for work in the city. Children scavenge in the rubbish and push the carts through dense traffic. I never saw these children smile and nowhere did I see them playing, as do Indian children with gully cricket, marbles or other games.
‘What will happen when the US withdraws its troops?’ I asked everyone I met.
‘Civil war,’ they replied and didn’t want to think any further on their fragile future.

Shakespeare for Indians

2010-07-25T02:37:00.001-07:00

Recently, in Melbourne I watched a wonderful production of Richard III. It was set in a corporate environment, complete with laptops and messages on cell phone. It was a gripping production, filled with venom humour and, of course, lots of blood and betrayal. It opens with Richard’s soliloquy: ‘This is the winter of our discontent…’ And ends with ‘My kingdom for a horse…’
As I have said before, there is something everlasting about Shakespeare. He wouldn’t at all be out of place in India today. ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat; and we must take the current when it serves, Or Lose our Ventures’. (Julius Caesar). I’m sure our politicians must remember these lines as they push out their boats into the sea of absolute power.
I can well imagine what’s happening in Sonia-ji’s residence at this very moment. She’s turning to her chamchas and saying: ‘Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have immortal longings in me’. (Anthony & Cleopatra).
And while she prepares, we see her party man himself in the wings, Mr P.C ‘ whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath rides on the posting winds, and doth belie All corners of the world’. (Cymbeline). And surely, Sonia-ji must admit about her man, the PM: ‘An ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own.’ (As You Like it).
I thought old Will had a kind word for Mayawati too : ‘There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass’. (King Lear). And I guess we can apply that to all the politicians who swore undying allegiance to one party on the 7 o’clock news and switched sides by the 8 o’clock news swearing with equal fervour for the opposition. I suppose he would say of our political leaders: ‘Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile: Filth savour but themselves.’ (KL).
Unfortunately, our politicians can’t boast: ‘A jewel in a ten-times-barr’d-up chest is a bold spirit in a loyal breast. Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; Take honour from me, and my life is done.’ If this were the oath of loyalty to be taken by our politicians, I fear they’d all have to impale themselves on their party flags or drown in their money chests. Of course they wouldn’t dream of uttering such dangerous words. On second thoughts they would, as words mean little to them.
Most of them would be able to say with full truthfulness: ‘And thus I clothe my naked villainy with old odd ends stolen out of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil’, (Richard III).
On leaving his office as Minister of State in the Foreign Office and brooding over his resignation letter, pen in hand, our Shashi Tharoor must have thought to himself: ‘Is this is a dagger (or twitter) which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight? Or art thou but a twitter of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat oppressed brain?’ (Macbeth).
While those of us one billion-odd who watch from the sidelines can only say: ‘All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players, they have their exits and their entrances…’ and the speech finally ends: ‘ Last scene of all, that ends this strange history, is second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.'’(As You like it).

DRIVING IN THE INDIAN JUNGLE

2010-03-10T02:17:00.000-08:00

Mastering the laws of the Indian Jungle.
I picked up my friend, Mark, from the airport the other day. He had never visited India before and he was so keen to explore this incredible country.
‘I want to rent a car and drive,’ he said immediately. ‘That’s what I always do when I visit a new country. Which side do you drive on?’
‘Whichever side you like.’
‘In the UK and Australia you drive on the left, Europe and America the right. So which side in India?’
‘Both sides, right side and left side’ I repeated. ‘It depends on your mood. Now, look ahead. What do you see?’
‘A short traffic jam.’
‘No problem.’ I swung into the right lane. Oncoming traffic swerved away and allowed me a free passage. Mark cringed and looked back, a dozen cars were following me. ‘If there is a vacant lane, it’s your right to fill it up. You see what I’ve done – I’ve over taken four cars waiting stupidly in the left lane. Buses and trucks drive in the centre of the road, so you can’t over take. This is a free country and we have the freedom to drive the way we want to.’
I swung back into the left lane when the right lane blocked my passage. Ahead of us were traffic lights, the world familiar red, orange and green. As it was turning red, I drove right through.
‘Don’t you stop for lights?’
‘You kidding. If you stop for a light the cars behind you will crash into you. Just keep going. They don’t expect you to stop or slow down for any reason, including hitting a pedestrian or a cow. And never ever stop at a zebra crossing for a pedestrian. You’re condemning him or her to death as cars, buses and motor bikes on either side of you will just keep going.’
‘But where do pedestrians walk?’ He was looking out at very narrow strips of raised broken ledges on either side of the road. ‘I don’t see any pavements or sidewalks. In my country, they are given a lot of space.’
‘Not in India, as they waste valuable road space. See, in India, our politicians might make big speeches on the common man to get his votes but they don’t believe he has any right to a pavement. All the road space is reserved for us middle class in our big shiny new cars and I’d say 90 per cent of the owners have never even seen the inside of a polling booth.’
Reluctantly I stopped for a traffic light behind a car in the right side of the left lane. ‘Now you see that car in front. When the lights change he will turn left. And that bus on the far left of our lane is going to turn right. So while the two drivers disentangle themselves, the lights will change and we will still be sitting here. One of the great joys of driving here is to psychically try to figure out what the driver in front is going to do.’
I saw how nervous he was as a two wheeler missed us by inches. ‘Two wheelers are free to do whatever they want. It’s in the Indian constitution that they can jump lights, swerve into incoming traffic, squeeze in between two cars and if there is enough space when you stop at a traffic light they have the right to inch past you sideways so they’re a foot ahead of you.’
‘I notice you don’t have any rear view mirrors,’ he said quietly. ‘What about the traffic behind? In Europe you can be fined if you…’
‘The first lesson you learn is pay attention only to the front of your car. Never ever look in the rear view mirror, as you’ll have a nervous breakdown and turn to stone.’

sex clinic experiences

2010-02-14T02:50:00.000-08:00

Recently, I found myself living next door to Tiger Woods in the world famous F------D sex clinic, in Arizona. We were undergoing treatment for our addiction. He had a suite; I had a room, as I couldn’t afford those kinds of prices. On the other side of me was the England football captain, John Terry. We met only when we were allowed out of our luxurious quarters for our daily treatments. Tiger and Terry would hang out together in the hall, exchanging notes and cell phone numbers. As I had no notes or phone numbers worth their great talents, they excluded me from these intimate moments. As I had yet to start treatment for my addiction, I thought I should find out what happened in their therapy.
They were wary of this newcomer as they didn’t recognize me from the thousands of my photographs. Admittedly, their faces were seen in newspapers, magazines, online and on television. Mine were all in the family album.
‘So, guys, tell me what happens in therapy? Does the doctor show you a photograph of a beautiful girl and when you react to her you get zapped with a few heavy volts?’
‘What do you think we look like?’ Tiger growled. ‘We’re not mice or Pavlov dogs. I’m a tiger.’
‘Yah mate,’ Terry snapped. ‘Photographs may do things for you but does zip for guys like us. We get to see the real stuff, y’know, live, beautiful women to test our self-control. Nude too. And if we pass the test I get a pint of Fosters as a reward.’
‘What happens if, y’know, you don’t pass the test and make a grab for her?’ I riposted. ‘You get zapped or strapped down? Do they, y’know’ attach electrodes to your brain and delete nude women from the memory banks?’
‘You read too many comic books,’ Tiger said. ‘I dunno about Terry but everyone knows I’m a control freak so I have pretty good control when they show me these women. I think about a long putt on the 18th hole…’ His eyes went a bit dreamy and he chewed his finger nails.
Terry studied me, up and down. ‘You sure don’t look like a jock to me. I mean you’re kinda old, not too fit and what’s your sport mate? Marbles? I didn’t know women went crazy over that game.’
‘I’m a writer…’
‘Writer!!!’ They both fell over laughing. ‘Which woman would throw herself at a writer?’
‘Hey,’ I defended myself. ‘When I walk down the street hundreds of women throw themselves at me. Okay, 99 miss and I may be hit by the 100th. But writers were up there once with you guys. Hemingway, Norman Mailer, Proust, Sartre had women thrown themselves at them. They fought them off with their fountain pens, typewriters and pencils.’
Tiger being the only one who had read a book, said. ‘Those guys are dead and gone. Times change. Now a days the chicks throw themselves at jocks. The more money you make, the more famous you get, the more they fall on you like confetti at a wedding.’
‘More under you, Tiger,’ Terry laughed. ‘Hey, then we get blamed. What did we do? Tiger plays golf, I football. We’re minding our own business when …wham.. a thousand chicks hit on you. We’re only human, y’know. Why are we blamed? No one says anything when Warren Beatty sleeps with 12,000 women or when Mick Jagger makes out with 9,000.’
‘It’s all their fault,’ Tiger says mournfully. ‘Back in those days the women wouldn’t admit they screwed around with famous jocks.’ He glanced at me. ‘Or writers. I mean they kept it quiet for their diaries. Now, they sell their stories to the National Enquirer for a million bucks. There’s no integrity left in the world.’