I’ll complete eight years in Hyderabad next month. When I came to this city in 2001, it was a very different place. There was no City Centre Mall, no Shopper’s Stop and no Hyderabad Central as well. There was no Angeethi, Indijoe’s or 100 degrees. The place where Prasad’s stands today was a swampy marsh. Necklace Road was anything but a road. Karkhana beyond Vac’s was open jungle. The airport was bang in the centre of the city and Shamshabad was a pleasant little village where one stopped for a cup of tea while driving on the Bangalore highway. Hi-Tec City was mostly shrubs and rocks. Auto fares started at Rs. 5 and Barkatpura was where NALSAR was. Whatever makes life bearable for NALSARites was yet to come up back then. It is however thanks to this place that I’ll get to spend a few more years in this city. My city.

More welcoming than Bombay or Bangalore, better behaved than Dehli, more cosmopolitan than Madras and more alive than Calcutta; Hyderabad I love thee.

I came to NALSAR a year and a half ago. I’ll be honest. NALSAR’s USP (that of 100% placement) never interested me. For me it was just a stepping stone to another career: a career in the Civil Services. The law student holy trinity of moots, papers and conferences were asides for me. Marks, occasional co curricular activities (quizzes, debates and the likes) and an academic environment were all I expected from this place.

I have never been more sorely disappointed.

Arbitrariness, incompetence and “khushamad” are the reigning deities here. Right from attendance to your marks, nothing is above fudging! You are born in a certain part of the country? Here is an O for you! You are not? Fact to say, too bad sir! Why did I give you less in the exam? Well..Sir..lack of clarity in the handwriting Sir! Quiz? You want to quiz? Now look here!! What are your priorities in life? Kya ukhaad loge quiz karke! Yes Sir, your answer is right Sir, but you did not follow my pattern sir! Hello my friend. In the case of any inconvenient please call.

I could have written reams of pages on this. But I guess I must stop.

I am not disgruntled. I do get good grades and hard as it may have tried, NALSAR has not managed to fuck my happiness. Atleast not yet! I have a great bunch of classmates and an amazing set of friends. That, and a feeling that things just cannot get any worse, make me keep going (and I assume most of NALSAR as well).

I’ll end with words of wisdom.

“Kauwwe ne cheel ka chumma liya..aur cheel ne chuwwe ka bachcha paida kiya“

- Tandyeah in Loha.

What abstrusity! What reconditeness! What profundity!

PS- It is 7 years since the release of my favourite Bond movie. The title is a reference to that.

The more I see Gunda, the more I realise the abodh, naadan baalak that I am.

Of course we have all seen Gunda. Bulla, Chutiya and Potey are as familiar to us as Ramu Kaka-the wise naukar and Shanti Bai-the tharkan jhaadu waali. Whenever a sentence happens to end in an “a” we automatically kheenchtaan it to “aaaaa”. We dont say “I am sorry” whenever a tragedy happens to befall an unfortunate acquaintance, we say “Bahut bura huaaa“. Such has been the impact of Bulla & Co. on us.

Imagine my surprise then when on seeing Gunda for the 113th time I realised all was not that khullam khulla in the movie. That there were indeed details, rather obvious ones at that, which I had completely missed. For the Gunda bhakts then here are some intricacies which we had missed.

* Gulshan is farsighted

Yes folks! The handsome, chikna, haseenaon ke dil mein maske ka tadka lagaanewala Gulshan suffers from Hyperopia. What! You didnt know that? Remember the scene where he walks into Lucky Chikna’s latakta kotha-cum-Circus and does not see Prabhuji till he knocks the living daylights out of his plexiglass? And that when Prabhuji also happened to be his ex-brother-in-law. Get it now?

Alternate explanation: Prabhuji can become invisible at will…So there..you never know again!

* Homosexuality in Gunda

Remember the guy beside the foul mouthed woman at Kamala’s mother’s funeral who carries Gulshan’s pic in his pocket? Now why would anybody carry another man’s pic that close to his heart? But then again we know that Gulshan was chikna and all who aroused even Chutiya (no less!) . The far sighted man that Kanti Shah is, he had obviously foreseen a day when such pyaar shall not remain condemned by law and society. To all those feminists and liberals who deride Gunda as regressive: EAT SHIT!

* A Case for Separation of Powers

The Assembly and the High Court (or is it the Trial Court?) are shown as one in Gunda. This is of course fodder for many fools who, unable to appreciate Kanti Shah’s genius, label Gunda a harebrained movie. The truth however is just the opposite. The dystopian society with Gunda-gardi khullam khulla, corrupt poolis and leader, total breakdown of law and order are but a logical consequence of the lack of separation of powers. By portraying this Kanti Bhai is backhandedly making a case for  democracy and a separate legislature and judiciary. Baron de Montesquieu couldn’t have done it better. Jai Ho!

* Equanimity

Villains as vile as Bulla preach virtues in Gunda. Surprised? Dont be!

When Bulla’s man is killed by Lambu Aata, Bulla does not beat his ample breasts nor does he break bangles. Instead he calmly pulls the sword out, watches the poor man die a horrible death and calmly says, “Mera naam hai bulla..Main rakhta hoon sab khulla.” Later when Haseena discloses the fact of her pregnancy, he very nonchalantly remarks, “Aey Haseena! Is bachche ko giraa daal..warna main teri jaan le loongaaaa.”

This is referred to as “Upeksha” in Hindu and Buddhist philosophies. Patanjali’s yoga sutra makes a mention of this. Its the sign of a great human being. Despicable he may be, but Bulla was a great man. Just like Ravana. And Prabhuji being prabhu is obviously Ram. Get the connection?

Hey Prabhuji, Aapki leela apaar hai!

The last time I blogged Michael Jackson was still alive.

Goodness! How things have changed.

I am in love with Bhojpuri songs. Totally, absolutely and madly. They are unsurpassed in the range of feelings they convey (lust being the main one), the subtleties and intricacies found in them can put Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Manali musings to shame!

“Sainyya godi mein hamko bulaawein…..Hai dayya! Hum kaa bataayen…duty double sasuraal mein!”

“Bhor ho gayi babalam..Hamra laagey saram..”

And of course the immortal classic by Radheshyam Rasia from the album “Labh Ke Coaching”

“Hamra saali ke choli mein bhaiyya du tho aitum bombwa!!!”

The other parts of Bhaiyyaland struggle in vain to catch up with the Purvanchalis. The best that Harit Pradesh could manage was

“Gaanv mein mach gaya roda…ke Chandu ki bahu aa gayi”..

Another creditable attempt was

“Madam baith Bolero pe…”

While extremely catchy, these songs are no match (tharak or otherwise) for the brilliance of Purvi UP and Paschim Bihar. Mujic ka baap, Bhojpur is thy name!

I blog after Kalki-Avatar-knows-how-long and I write about bazaaru songs. Heavens have mercy.

Ram Ram….

By Paul Craig Roberts, Fmr. Asst. Secretary of the Treasury (1980-84), Associate Editor, The Wall Street Journal, Legion de’ Honour

How much attention do elections in Japan, India, Argentina, or any other country, get from the US media? How many Americans and American journalists even know who is in political office in other countries besides England, France, and Germany? Who can name the political leaders of Switzerland, Holland, Brazil, Japan, or even China?

Yet, many know of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad. The reason is obvious. He is daily demonized in the US media.

The US media’s demonization of Ahmadinejad itself demonstrates American ignorance. The President of Iran is not the ruler. He is not the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He cannot set policies outside the boundaries set by Iran’s rulers, the ayatollahs who are not willing for the Iranian Revolution to be overturned by American money in some color-coded “revolution.”

Iranians have a bitter experience with the United States government. Their first democratic election, after emerging from occupied and colonized status, in the 1950s was overturned by the US government. The US government installed in place of the elected candidate a dictator who tortured and murdered dissidents who thought Iran should be an independent country and not ruled by an American puppet.

The US “superpower” has never forgiven the Iranian Islamic ayatollahs for the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s, which overthrew the US puppet government and held hostage US embassy personnel, regarded as “a den of spies,” while Iranian students pieced together shredded embassy documents that proved America’s complicity in the destruction of Iranian democracy.

The government-controlled US corporate media, a Ministry of Propaganda, has responded to the re-election of Ahmadinejad with non-stop reports of violent Iranians protests to a stolen election. A stolen election is presented as a fact, even thought there is no evidence whatsoever. The US media’s response to the documented stolen elections during the George W. Bush/Karl Rove era was to ignore the massive documented evidence of real stolen elections.

Leaders of the American puppet states of Great Britain and Germany have fallen in line with the American psychological warfare operation. The discredited British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, expressed his “ serious doubt “ about Ahmadinejad’s victory to a meeting of European Union ministers in Luxembourg. Miliband, of course, has no source of independent information. He is simply following Washington’s instructions and relying on unsupported claims by the defeated candidate preferred by the US Government.

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, had her arm twisted, too. She called in the Iranian ambassador to demand “more transparency” on the elections.

Even the American left-wing has endorsed the US government’s propaganda. Writing in The Nation, Robert Dreyfuss presents the hysterical views ofone Iranian dissident as if they are the definitive truth about “the illegitimate election,” terming it “a coup d’etat.”

What is the source of the information for the US media and the American puppet states?

Nothing but the assertions of the defeated candidate, the one America prefers.

However, there is hard evidence to the contrary. An independent, objective poll was conducted in Iran by American pollsters prior to the election. The pollsters, Ken Ballen of the nonprofit Center for Public Opinion and Patrick Doherty of the nonprofit New America Foundation, describe their poll results in the June 15 Washington Post. The polling was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and was conducted in Farsi “by a polling company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award.”

You can find their report here.

The poll results, the only real information we have at this time, indicate that the election results reflect the will of the Iranian voters. Among the extremely interesting information revealed by the poll is the following:

“Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin — greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday’s election.

“While Western news reports from Tehran in the days leading up to the voting portrayed an Iranian public enthusiastic about Ahmadinejad’s principal opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, our scientific sampling from across all 30 of Iran’s provinces showed Ahmadinejad well ahead.

“The breadth of Ahmadinejad’s support was apparent in our pre-election survey. During the campaign, for instance, Mousavi emphasized his identity as an Azeri, the second-largest ethnic group in Iran after Persians, to woo Azeri voters. Our survey indicated, though, that Azeris favored Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 over Mousavi.

“Much commentary has portrayed Iranian youth and the Internet as harbingers of change in this election. But our poll found that only a third of Iranians even have access to the Internet, while 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all age groups.

“The only demographic groups in which our survey found Mousavi leading or competitive with Ahmadinejad were university students and graduates, and the highest-income Iranians. When our poll was taken, almost a third of Iranians were also still undecided. Yet the baseline distributions we found then mirror the results reported by the Iranian authorities, indicating the possibility that the vote is not the product of widespread fraud.”

There have been numerous news reports that the US government has implemented a program to destabilize Iran. There have been reports that the US government has financed bombings and assassinations within Iran. The US media treats these reports in a braggadocio manner as illustrations of the American Superpower’s ability to bring dissenting countries to heel, while some foreign media see these reports as evidence of the US government’s inherent immorality.

Pakistan’s former military chief, General Mirza Aslam Beig, said on Pashto Radio on Monday, June 15, that undisputed intelligence proves the US interfered in the Iranian election. “The documents prove that the CIA spent 400 million dollars inside Iran to prop up a colorful but hollow revolution following the election.”

The success of the US government in financing color revolutions in former Soviet Georgia and Ukraine and in other parts of the former Soviet empire have been widely reported and discussed, with the US media treating it as an indication of US omnipotence and natural right and some foreign media as a sign of US interference in the internal affairs of other countries. It is certainly within the realm of possibility that Mir Hossein Mousavi is a bought and paid for operative of the US government.

We know for a fact that the US government has psychological warfare operations that target both Americans and foreigners through the US and foreign media. Many articles have been published on this subject.

Think about the Iranian election from a common sense standpoint. Neither myself nor the vast majority of readers are Iranian experts. But from a common sense standpoint, if your country was under constant threat of attack, even nuclear attack, from two countries with much more powerful military establishments, as is Iran from the US and Israel, would you desert your country’s best defender and elect the preferred candidate of the US and Israel?

Do you believe that the Iranian people would have voted to become an American puppet state?

Iran is an ancient and sophisticated society. Much of the intellectual class is secularized. A significant, but small, percentage of the youth has fallen in thrall to Western sexual promiscuity, to personal pleasure, and to self-absorption. These people are easily organized with American money to give their government and Islamic constraints on personal behavior the bird.

The US government is taking advantage of these westernized Iranians to create a basis for discrediting the Iranian election and the Iranian government.

On June 14, the McClatchy Washington Bureau, which sometimes attempts to report the real news, acquiesced to Washington’s psychological warfare and declared : “Iran election result makes Obama’s outreach efforts harder.” What we see here is the raising of the ugly head of the excuse for “diplomatic failure,” leaving only a military solution.

As a person who has seen it all from inside the US government, I believe that the purpose of the US government’s manipulation of the American and puppet government media is to discredit the Iranian government by portraying the Iranian government as an oppressor of the Iranian people and a frustrater of the Iranian people’s will. This is how the US government is setting up Iran for military attack.

With the help of Mousavi, the US government is creating another “oppressed people,” like Iraqis under Saddam Hussein, who require American blood and treasure to liberate. Has Mousavi, the American candidate in the Iranian election who was roundly trounced, been chosen by Washington to become the American puppet ruler of Iran?

The great macho superpower is eager to restore its hegemony over the Iranian people, thus settling the score with the ayatollahs who overthrew American rule of Iran in 1978.

That is the script. You are watching it every minute on US television.

There is no end of “experts” to support the script. For one example among hundreds, we have Gary Sick, appropriately named, who formerly served on the National Security Council and currently teaches at Columbia University:

“If they’d been a little more modest and said Ahmadinejad had won by 51 percent,” Sick said, Iranians might have been dubious but more accepting. But the government’s assertion that Ahmadinejad won with 62.6 percent of the vote, “is not credible.”

“I think,” continued Sick, “it does mark a real transition point in the Iranian Revolution, from a position of claiming to have its legitimacy based on the support of the population, to a position that has increasingly relied on repression. The voice of the people is ignored.”

The only hard information available is the poll referenced above. The poll found that Ahmadinejad was the favored candidate by a margin of two to one.

But as in everything else having to do with American hegemony over other peoples, facts and truth play no part. Lies and propaganda rule.

Consumed by its passion for hegemony, America is driven prevail over others, morality and justice be damned. This world-threatening script will play until America bankrupts itself and has so alienated the rest of the world that it is isolated and universally despised.

Came across this excellent translation of Faiz’s all time classic ‘Kutte‘  by the British Marxist V.G Kiernan.

With fiery zeal endowed-to beg,

They roam the street on idle leg,

And earn and own the general curse,

The abuse of all the Universe;

At night no comfort, at dawn no banquet,

Gutter for lodging, mud for blanket.

Whenever you find them any bother,

Show them a crust they will fight one another,

Those curs that all and sundry kick,

Destined to die of hunger’s prick.

- If those whipped creatures raised their heads,

Man’s insolence would be pulled to shreds:

Once roused, they’d make this earth their own

And gnaw their betters to the bone-

If someone made their misery itch,

Just gave their sluggish tails a twist

Baarah Inch? Indeed!! The reduction from 1.5 feet is a trifle difficult to understand though!

(Photo courtesy: Arnab)

Happiness and more than that relief is what I feel after the election results of yesterday. This election has witnessed the resurgence of the Congress and how! From being a no-hoper that was stuck at a 114 seats in 1998, the Congress led alliance has scripted a memorable turnaround by winning 258 seats in General Elections No. 15. For the past 2 decades India was plagued by politics of caste, religion and division. The BJP rose to power riding on the Ram Mandir wave, The SP, BSP, RJD et al. exploited caste divisions to come to power, The Shiv Sena’s rise was largely due to its vitriol spewing against Muslims and North Indians. In all this, the one truly middle of the path, pan India nationalistic party was left out in the loop. Defeat after defeat decimated the party’s structure. Opportunistic satraps like Sharad Pawar saw the writing on the wall and left to form their own parties. Across a vast swathe of Northern India, the Congress ceased to even exist. While 2004 revived it to some extent, it was still absent from a huge section of the heartland. Not any more. The reasons for this are not hard to seek.

First and foremost was the politics of development that Manmohan Singh represented. And development not only for the Urban rich, the favoured sons of the BJP, but inclusive progress. The NREGA is by far the best experiment in social welfare ever attempted in India. For 400 million Indians, the  NREGA symbolises the promise of work and the means to achieve their dreams. No wonder Rural India voted for the Congress with its feet. Other beneficiaries of the development card include Nitish Kumar in Bihar, Raman Singh of Chhattisgarh and Modi in Gujarat.

Secondly, the Congress was enormously helped by the negative campaign that BJP ran. Its constant harping on the weak PM line only served to diminish Advani’s stature. It had no coherent plan for India and no arguments to counter the Congress’ development claim. Its advertisements were disgusting at their best and repulsive at their worst. Advani’s hardline reputation too did not go down well with large sections of the population. Varun Gandhi’s discourse in communal hate, while seeing him through, ensured that the Muslims came back to the Congress, the one party that they believed could defeat the BJP. The fact that Muslims can decisively sway some 150 seats obviously helped the Congress. The shit that BJP threw on Manmohan and Sonia only ended up making them smell like roses. On one side you had a person like Manmohan with a squeaky clean record and in contrast you had the Rath-Yatri-cum-Hate-Monger-cum-Terrorist-escorter. The choice appears pretty clear. This was what swung Urban India too in Congress’ favour.

Ultimately the Indian voter has gone back to the Nehru model and voted for a party that promises stability, moderation and inclusive growth. Comrade Karat realised this too late for his own good! The Congress’ strategic alliances too paid off big time and for the very first time since 1957 we have had a pro-incumbency vote. Bad luck, Mr Advani! But the curse of the 10,000 people you killed for your selfish ends had to strike sooner or later. Your career has ended, and you have failed. Badly. A shame.

Finally some justice for the much harrassed Indian air traveller.

From this June 30, the compensation paid for loss of life or baggage during air travel shall be hiked tremendously. While currently the compensation paid for the death of a passenger due to an air mishap is around Rs 750,000, it will become Rs 7,000,000 post June 30th. A similar increase will take place in the compensation paid for baggage loss and delays. A significant delay due to the airline’s bungling up will make it shell out close to Rs 130,000 per passenger. For damage to uninsured checked in baggage, the compensation will go up to Rs 70,000, a 70 times increase.

This revision is because of India signing the Montreal Convention of the International Civil Aviation Organisation. Adopted in 1999, this convention seeks to bring about uniformity in the process of compensation payment and claims for damages. One of its main advantages is that it does away with prolonged litigation to claim proven damages. This treaty has already been signed by 90 countries including the US, China, EU, Canada, Japan etc. The Indian Parliament approved it through the Carriage by Air (Amendment) Act, 2008 in February this year. 

This laudable move shall end the disparity between damages paid in the Western countries and those paid in India. This has not come a day too soon as Indian airlines are already infamous for taking their passengers for granted. Hopefully this shall provide the travellers the much needed equality.

Yeah. There.

Elections almost done. The Great Indian Tamasha has had its 15th instalment. As things stand now I would predict a hung Lok Sabha with the UPA about 20 odd seats ahead of the NDA. The Third Front will crumble under the weight of its own contradictions with most of its constituents coming over to the Secular side. The perennial Prime-Minister-in-waiting will have to wait some more. Not that he’ll last that long.  I hope not. 

While the Nirnayak-sarkar-with-mazboot-neta at the helm appears pretty unlikely, there is another issue that demands attention. The Urban Youth vote. (Okay, thats a rather far fetched segue. Who cares!). Voting percentage in the cities stood at a measly 40%. While Delhi and Hyderabad performed rather well, Bombay and Bangalore disappointed (not really surprising). I saw one blockhead on TV make the ludicruos claim that 40 was not such a bad percentage after all. What was left unsaid was that much of the 40% came from the poorer sections of the population. South Bombay’s voting figures seemed to be competing with Srinagar’s! 

The reason for this apathy is not the “nothing will change, so why vote” crap that the media dishes out. It is something much more fundamental. Voting day is a holiday. It’s for hanging out. Meeting up with friends. Chilling. Who wants to go to some goddamned municipal school, stand in a queue for an hour under the harsh sun with probably your servant and doodh-waala ahead of you, have a fool smear some ink on your finger and then vote for somebody whom you have probably never heard of. Political ignorance is rampant in urban India. Not because they dont want to know who their MP is, but because they never need him. You have all you need. Who cares about the MP? So while the voter in Virar needs to know his MP so that he may get the long pending road sanctioned or the drains refurbished, the one in Malabar Hill will never have such mundane issues bother him. 

There are three kinds of power in India. Money, jugaad and vote. The reason why 60% of Indians still vote is because they only have that power available to them. The 10% of rich, jugaadwaala Indians who vote do so either because they are genuinely interested in the political process or because its a photo-opportunity. (The Bachchan family’s infamous middle finger gesture!)

Democracy fails in many ways. This is but one.