Nawaz Sharif, the ‘lion of Punjab’, has returned to power in Pakistan for the third time, sweeping the historic 2013 elections. Considering Pakistan’s political history – his survival (both physically and politically) seems amazing, although his victory follows an established pattern of replacing the Pakistan People’s Party when they got too...Go on]]>

Nawaz Sharif, the ‘lion of Punjab’, has returned to power in Pakistan for the third time, sweeping the historic 2013 elections. Considering Pakistan’s political history – his survival (both physically and politically) seems amazing, although his victory follows an established pattern of replacing the Pakistan People’s Party when they got too corrupt.

A quick run down of Nawaz Sharif -

He is one of Pakistan’s richest mens and a feudal lord. His family was from Kashmir and has settled in Punjab since Independence. Punjab is a province he continues to dominate through family ties. He owns and operates several businesses, mostly iron production, in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. That and a healthy dose of corruption and nepotism has made him and his family wealthy.

He is a religious conservative and a firm Islamist.

His political outlook is capitalistic and free market. He privatized Pakistani industry. But also bought it’s accompanying features – family owned businesses, favouritism, black money, heavy industrialization, development and a good GDP.

He was one of the military’s strongest supporters and is a student of the Islamist dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. The 1999 Musharraf-led coup that overthrew him has soured relations between him and the Armed forces.

He does remain a popular and one of the most strongest Prime Ministers Pakistan has ever seen. His moves have always appeared to be that of a man who likes to take firm, strong action. The moves are also those of someone who is too strong to be controlled when he flies off the track – which happens often.

On the positive side -

• He is all for free markets and as a successful businessman, he knows how to get things working in Pakistan.
• He is strong and unlikely to bend to various pressure groups – be they military or political.
• As a strong personality, he implements quick solutions by barreling through opposition.
• His conservative side gives him general mass appeal.

On the negative side -

• He hasn’t been able to stabilize Pakistan’s finances, bringing the country close to default twice.
• He bought amendments to the Constitution that weakened the Judiciary, the Executive and the Legislature, increased corruption and political  immunity and strengthened the ruling party.

(Ex: His third term is due to an amendment he only introduced that removed the two-term restriction for Pakistani Prime Ministers)

• He is an Islamist, doing his utmost best to make Pakistan an Islamic country and he is soft on the Taliban.

(To put this is perspective: He allied with and takes funding from Sunni terrorists who proudly go kill Shias. He is friendly with other extremist, fundamentalist and terrorist groups also. Although he might be using them to win elections – their presence worries. )

• He is the best living example of corruption, nepotism, favouritism, intimidation, misuse of government assets and bribery in Pakistan today.

What does he mean for India?

On the surface, he is a mixed bag.

He claims to be friendly with India and has reached out a few times, but he is also the same PM who conducted Pakistan’s first nuclear tests and Kargil happened under his watch (though he claims that Musharraf did that without telling him. )

Most Indians remember him as the Pak PM who tested nuclear weapons. However, he did that in response to India’s test of her weapons.

He is one the few Pakistani leaders who had said that he would sign non-proliferation nuclear treaties, provided India signs them first. He has his own nuclear policy and appears to favour peaceful nuclear projects over aggressive anti-Indian weaponization. But he is allied with Jihadists and other religious terrorists.

As a Punjabi, he is closer to India that his counterparts from Sindh or the Balouch provinces. He is one of the few Pakistani leaders to meet with his Indian counterpart. He got the Indian PM to visit Pakistan in 1999. (that PM was Vajpayee)

Although, considering how he has wormed and squirmed his way through the maze of Pakistani politics, it’s possible that his pro-India stance is realpolitik.

However, at least publicly, he has maintained a moderate stance towards India.

Here are some quotes from a 2011 speech to the South Asia Free Media Association -

“How terrific would it be if India built a motorway from the Wagha border crossing to Calcutta and the two countries do trade? When we constructed the motorway it was our plan to take it to Kabul via Peshawar as well as to Gwadar and Tashkent.”

“to resolve all problems including the problem of Jammu and Kashmir. Vajpayee even suggested announcing 1999 as the year for resolving the Kashmir dispute, but our government was toppled,”

“If India buys a tank Pakistan does the same. This has damaged our social sector and infrastructure,”

The same speech, he also claimed that he felt India and Pakistan shared a language and a culture, and hence should not hate each other.

(This is that Punjabi connection at work in his mind. After all, it is clear Tamil Nadu and Sindh have nothing to do with each other)

In January 2013, he gave an interview to the Times of India, where he said (on India and Pakistan) -

“We will pick up from where we left off. The process was subverted by Mr Musharraf. We will get back to the same process of understanding each other’s concerns and addressing them.”

Recently, during the election campaign, here is what he had to say in a CNN-IBN interview -

“If I become the prime minister I will make sure that the Pakistani soil is not used for any such designs against India,”

This shows a man who is cultivating a moderate stance towards India.

However, it would be a mistake to assume that he is pro-India.

His military and terrorist connections and his previous inability to control the military point to a man might say many things in public, but may or may not be able to control things in private.

Plus, now that America is leaving Pakistan, the entire country is free to turn its attention to India. Can Sharif control that? Would he even want to?

When one considers Sharif’s political career and his various maneuvers, the picture that emerges is of a man who has clear favourites that he will lavish with care, while ignoring everything else. And though his will is focused on a small area or a small picture, he can assert his will on a larger scale.

Right now Nawaz Sharif’s attention will be on Pakistan. The country is failing and one heartbeat from a coup.

(Though the military has been remarkably restrained – is this thanks to General Kayani?).

After all that has happened to him since 1999, Sharif has many a grudge, especially with the army, which will keep him occupied.

For the short while at least, he will not want any problems with India – until he can sort his own house out. And whatever else, he is certainly someone who does like to have control over his house.

So for now, in India, we can send him some wary congratulations.

Fun fact: Nawaz Sharif’s closest enemies were the Bhuttos. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a Prime Minister deposed in coup and the military hanged him. Benazir Bhutto was deposed by unpopularity and then assassinated when she tried to get reelected. Nawaz survived being deposed by a military coup, being deposed due to unpopularity and the bloodiest election campaign in Pakistan yet, thanks to the Taliban. He is really is some sort of lion.

Good bye Lenin! is a feel good movie – in it’s true form.

This is not one of those movies where someone suffers and we get to ‘feel good’ by laughing at their pain. It is not one where the girl dumps one guy and leaps into the arms of the other – thereby...Go on]]>

Good bye Lenin! is a feel good movie – in it’s true form.

This is not one of those movies where someone suffers and we get to ‘feel good’ by laughing at their pain. It is not one where the girl dumps one guy and leaps into the arms of the other – thereby giving us fantasies of the same happening to us and letting us ‘feel good’.

There are no heroes and no villains – but not because the characters are ‘gray’ or making ‘difficult choices’.

This is ‘feel good’ boiled down to it’s very essence – a movie that will give you such a good experience, you wish you were a part of it.

Here is the plot -

It’s 1990. Alex (Daniel Brühl) is the good son of a staunchly socialist single mother living in the (now former)  German Democratic Republic – or as it is colloquially known – East Germany.

However, Alex goes for an anti-socialist protest where he is arrested on live TV. Alex’s mother, on witnessing her son’s arrest and obvious capitalistic basis, suffers a great shock, a heart attack and then slips into a coma.

Flash forward eight months and it is the eve of the a new world. The Berlin wall has fallen and for the first time after WW2, East and West Germany are on the verge of reuniting into a new and whole Germany.  Socialism and Mother Russia are on the way out. Capitalism, the West and the Fatherland are on the way in.

But Alex’s mother has awakened and, as per doctor’s orders, is too weak to survive another shock. Unfortunately, the news that her entire ideology, country and world view was on the verge of being shunted to a mere footnote in history was most certainly a shock that just might kill her.

Alex’s solution? The DDR can fall all around them, but not in the tiny apartment that his mother resides in – here nothing has changed..at all.

What begins with just refurnishing his mother’s room to an old look, quickly escalates to fake news broadcasts, scripts for everyone who drops by, fake products and a whole manufactured world view. And then things really spin out of control.

The hilarious, moving and surprisingly deep crux of the movie is how (or for how long) Alex keeps up the charade of an unchanged world, before the truth (via things like Coca Cola and Burger King) inevitably intrudes.

Through amazingly subtle and nuanced performances, we journey with the characters as they analyze and interpret both worlds – the changed reality and the ‘unchanged world’ performance they have to put up. And it is about how some things like families, the threads that bind us together and the weird things that love makes us do for each other – remain unchanged, even when all of history is changing around us.

This is not a movie that will cause you to laugh out loud. But it will make you smile and keep you smiling when flashes of the film come back to you over time.

*********SPOILERS*********

Should you look for them, the metaphors are thick and all reaching,

One of the examples which occurred to me was this -

Alex’s father had abandoned the family to go live in West Germany. His mother – both loyal to the party and a ideological believer – stayed behind in the East and raised her kids.

Or so it seems.

Alex initially sees his father’s move to the West as a betrayal to, and an abandonment of, both Alex’s  mother and Alex himself. But as the movie progresses, you learn that actually what happened was that the entire family was supposed to go (the father just went first) but Alex’s mother, fearing for her children, stayed behind at the last minute.

She kept up the act of the being a good socialist to further enforce her family’s good credentials before the all-powerful state.  Alex does realizes the truth and reunites with his father in the West. He even comes to feel that the father might have been right and the mother was possibly wrong. But at the same time he does not end up hating his mother. He realizes that she was also a victim of her times, her circumstances.

She did what she felt was right for her children. The father, in a different way, tried to do the same thing.

Nobody’s exact dreams came true and everyone tried their best to make do with what was at hand.

Interestingly, Germans are one of the few people who consider their homeland as a ‘Fatherland’ while Russians are the most vocal about referring to their home as ‘Mother Russia’ .

Alex’s ‘Father’ is in the West. His ‘Mother’ is in the East. Alex the East German remains a ‘child’ of both the ‘Father’ and the ‘Mother’, of West and East.

While the above may just be an exercise into cinematic pretension by me, it is true that there are a lot of heavy themes and ideas scattered throughout the film.

Things like – love, the inevitability of change, our attempts to control it, and our great wish for inevitable changes to happen in a certain way.

This brings me to the best aspect of the film – how the truth is bought forward.

In the end, realizing that he has to somehow tell his mother the truth,  Alex constructs a long broadcast where he makes it appear that the socialist East has decided to open it’s borders to the West, so that the West  may come and live with them, since “Socialism means we all should live together.”.

The scene where the mother, who by this time has already figured out the truth by herself, smilingly watches the son show her a version of the truth that he feels would be acceptable to her world view, is both poignant and an amazing round up to the film.

The whole scene has a surreal aspect to it, like a glimpse into an alternate time line where the result was the same, just the reasons were different.

In the end fake speech, we get to see the hopes and dreams of an entire ideology. This was what people like his mother had hoped for, had dreamed for – an open and free society for all. And even if that was not how it turned out, it was perhaps how people wanted to things to turn out.

This is what we all want, in a way. We want the future…just on our terms.

Not that the movie skips through the hard stuff. That is there – in moments like when his mother loses all of her life savings simply because they missed the deadline to change the money into the new currency. Serious problems that undoubtedly plagued those who were living through the transition.

But, whether you take it metaphorically or casually, ‘Good Bye Lenin!’ is definitely one of those experiences that will leave an impression.

Give it a watch!

Film:

Good Bye Lenin!

Director:

Wolfgang Becker

Starring:

Daniel Brühl
Katrin Saß
Chulpan Khamatova
Maria Simon
Alexander Beyer

Released on:

13 February 2003

Image: Stańczyk by Jan Matejko

“Modi magic fails in Karnataka”

After the Congress swept the May 103 Assemby elections in Karnataka, this was one of the first bits of information to float around.

This line was pushed out by the Congress (who were busy salaaming Rahul Gandhi, the media (to whom balanced reporting is...Go on]]>

Image: Stańczyk by Jan Matejko

“Modi magic fails in Karnataka”

After the Congress swept the May 103 Assemby elections in Karnataka, this was one of the first bits of information to float around.

This line was pushed out by the Congress (who were busy salaaming Rahul Gandhi, the media (to whom balanced reporting is the first and only sin) and by the online and twitter anti-Modi club (who have nothing better to do)

You can’t really blame them. The Congress has to say that, the media will do anything to get more viewers and the anti-Modi club is merely fulfilling its imperative of blind Modi-bashing every five minutes to fulfill a self-proclaimed ‘liberal’ quota.

But how did we even get walking down this road?

I blame the BJP.

Bekagitta BJP?

There was never a single moment of doubt, from the past year at least, that the BJP was going to lose the mandate in Karnataka. The party has practically thrown itself out of power thanks to its mindless infighting, unnecessary collusion with flamboyantly corrupt businessmen, petty nepotism and internal corruption. Also – Three chief ministers in five years? Really?

Most people dig their own graves, but the BJP in Karnataka dug their own illegal mine and then covered the hole with uncollected garbage.

So what was the point of bringing Narendra Modi to Karnataka?

And he was undoubtedly bought. For a man as pragmatic as Modi, it is difficult to believe he suddenly grew a messiah complex and rushed to ‘save’ the BJP in Karnataka. After all, this was not the national election. It was a State Assembly election.

Besides, Modi made his own displeasure at this circus clear when he only agreed to poll in iron-tight no-doubt–about-it constituencies. And as expected, where he ‘campaigned’ the BJP did win.

How was a man – who has nothing to do with Karnataka, will not stay in Karnataka after the speeches and generally has no influence in or even around Karnataka – supposed to win you votes?

How was he supposed to win votes when the message the BJP gives in Karnataka is the polar opposite of everything that Modi is popular for?

The BJP in Karnataka is built on caste politics and practices populist schemes to try and buy the voter. For the past two years the Government of Karnataka has been frozen. Business investment has come to a halt and in general the state has become symbolic of a dysfunctional government.

Modi is popular only because he did away with all of the above in his own state.

The BJP, nudged along by its secretive controller the RSS, seems to operate under the silly delusion that Narendra Modi is only popular because he is in the BJP.

Why else would they treat him – arguably their lone star and best chance – like a show donkey, trotting him out on to the stage for the Karnataka voters when a loss thanks to local bungling was an absolute certainty?

Yeah, Karnataka voters are gullible, buy-able and caste-ist and they routinely vote to power the dishonest and the corrupt. But they are not stupid.

It is obvious to even the blindest fanatics out there that Narendra Modi was bought here to ‘impress’ them, much like how we take out the ‘good’ cups when the guests come.

But everybody knows that once the guest is gone, the leaking steel tumblers will be right back on the table.

If the BJP wants Narendra Modi to have a pan-Indian influence, they better put their money where their mouth is, stand up to the RSS, and make him a pan-Indian leader.

No one cares that he is the member of some committee in the BJP. I am sure that looks impressive on paper and that Modi will do a fine job for the internal workings of the Party. But no one cares because we are told that Modi is just one of your ‘many’ stars (yeah right)

This is why, in this particular instance, Rahul Gandhi can legitimately claim to have gotten one over Modi. As the declared leader of his party – he came, he campaigned, his party won.

(Yes, yes I know his party lost badly in other states like Uttar Prasdesh and Bihar. But even in those cases, he was undoubtedly their leader-which is why the blame in those cases comes to him. You can’t be selective about such things. )

The BJP needs to grow a spine and tell the RSS the truth that it seems to love to deny while sitting in its bubble of delusion –

Hindutva is good for about 10 lakh right-wingers in the fringes. But a temple in UP is literally meaningless to a mining victim in Bellary and a Bangalorean shuffling around a giant mound of uncleared garbage. The face of Hindutva in Karnataka is a hooligan beating up girls in pubs and pink chaddies being sent by the thousands to a deluded opportunist with a Thackeray complex.

Development was the key word. The BJP got that right…but…their thought process seemed to be -

“We need development and stuff. We have no such candidate in Karnataka? Quick! Grab the best BJP fellow out there with development credentials! He is from 1000 kilometers away and speaks Hindi? Who cares!”

The BJP must stop damaging Modi this way and acting on the whims of the Sangh parivar. It needs to let go of its arrogance of “anyway we will win” in regards to the 2014 elections.

If any lessons need to be learned in Karnataka it is this – you will lose if you do not show results on the ground where the voters are.

And don’t try to have both– a Modi confined to Gujarat where the RSS thinks he is ‘safe’ and a Modi who is useful to gather votes in places where the local organization has completely failed.

We do not all live in Gujarat.

Image: The Starry Night | Vincent van Gogh

My friend,

We see that you are going to do something that you know is not going to end well.

Sink into it. Sink in, in a sublime surrender…like you would sink into that’s lover’s first kiss.

If you cannot taste the victory, cannot feel the...Go on]]>

Image: The Starry Night | Vincent van Gogh

My friend,

We see that you are going to do something that you know is not going to end well.

Sink into it. Sink in, in a sublime surrender…like you would sink into that’s lover’s first kiss.

If you cannot taste the victory, cannot feel the black thrill of maddening oblivion and beyond, why bother at all?

If you cannot surrender, you may as well do the right thing. And at least then, you can sleep with the just pride of the righteous.

If you will not submit, then go now…and never return.

Though you don’t have to…you don’t have to go..little one.

For when you surrender, do you see that there is joy here in the darkened alleys. It burns briefly, but with a glow that other lights cannot match.

Once you travel to the blurry depths, you will find that your laughter is louder, because you are laughing at all the world now. Your smiles will be brighter for you have so much to hide now. Your eyes sparkle, for what moments you have seen now.

In our hidden places without shame, you may never see the truth…but you will be amidst the true.

The little games and subtle dances that are played in the brightness beyond do not matter here. Being here means that you have crossed the line. You are untethered now. And now you can go to them from behind the hidden veils. It doesn’t matter anymore – whether they called you or not, whether you were wanted or not.

Sometimes…it sickens you when you do what you do. We know….

But you will learn to laugh.

Sometimes…it sickens you what you do to them. We know…

But you will laugh louder.

You will laugh crouched in the corners and under shaded enclaves. You laugh louder and louder still…until you cannot remember the time when no one cried for you.

We know…though we may not stop for you.

For here the tears are of your own making. Here we are all to blame, and so none to blame at all. Here we do not stop or stand, so none may stand tall at all…to pass judgment on how little you mattered or how they mattered to you not at all.

But…there will always be hurried kisses and flurried whispers. There will always be wide-eyed fears and suppressed giggles. What promises cannot be made by hushed voices within dusky glades? What miracles cannot be promised when no faith is needed at all?

Here no one cares from where you came, and why, and what was won, and what cannot be found any more. Here we are only us, and with no one else.

Only when we mourn for our losses,  shall we weep together. But silently…for weakness travels…even in the dark.

To clarify, we are not the silly lost however, who stumbled in by accident. We do not blindly moan about injustices that treacherously drove our fallen selves here, unwanted and unwashed.

We came because we came. And here we are the noble. We are the sublime. We are the shadows swirling around the smiles.  And soon we shall taste the surrender on your lips as well. Soon.

And when we are gone, others shall take our place. No one will remember. Only when you are visible are you immortal….in the dark, are we not all the same?

If a caution must be given, let it be this -

Here is not free – neither on body nor on soul. Many will promise you that it is. They will assure you that the outside is merely a mirage and that this is the true face of time.

They lie.

And you shall know the truth when you leave…or are pulled out.

When the laughter finally ends, it will happen outside. There won’t be any smokes and mirrors there. There they can all see your shame. There they can all see you weep.

…or so we are told. We have never known that for ourselves.

You see child…we have never left. And if you come, you will never have to either.

Yours,

The Eternal Us

Post Script –

Many times i find myself engaged in a lively debate on the topic of morals. I am always amused to see how different people generally refuse to see the black and whites of it. Instead the scenarios always spirals out into the most slimmest of nit pickings within a whole bonanzas of grays. My thoughts rarely go into such a varied palette.

Image: Thirty-Six Faces of Expression by Louis Boilly

A common complaint that is sweeping the country is that the grand (and largely self-imagined) brilliance that India could have been has been cut short thanks to the apathy of those most necessary to fix our problems – The middle class, the educated, the intellectual and...Go on]]>

Image: Thirty-Six Faces of Expression by Louis Boilly

A common complaint that is sweeping the country is that the grand (and largely self-imagined) brilliance that India could have been has been cut short thanks to the apathy of those most necessary to fix our problems – The middle class, the educated, the intellectual and the rich. They all failed to ‘react’.

I have found this desperate demand from every half-baked group out there that India ‘react’ to every single thing with great gallops of outrage and ‘anger’ nearly always ends in tears for somebody.

Unending, uncontrolled reactions always eventually reach the point where the original cause is long forgotten, but the engine of vengeance is well oiled and churning through the flesh of innocents.

I dislike ‘reacting’ and ‘reactions’ to everything,

The very word – Reaction – indicates its core philosophy. It is an action taken in response to an action that has already occurred.

Reacting is passive-aggressive. Reacting is creating an answer – hurriedly and with little foresight – to a situation that has already developed. When the moment is upon to us and the pressure is crushing, taking the decision that seems the best at the time is always a shot in the dark.

And reactions, by their very nature, are temporary.

Long term solutions cannot be found through reactions because the action taken was the solution to a very unique situation, that has already played out. It is so customized to the situation at hand, that it can never be used again.

In India, unfortunately, reacting has become official policy – be it of the man on the street to the latest gang rape or the hopelessly backward and clueless administration to anything.

India must stop reacting to everything.

This does not mean that Indians must stop acting. It means India needs definite actions, not simple and emotional reactions.

Protests have their part in any society. Protests register the urgent need of the moment. They are the most visible sign of the feeling of the public. They are absolutely necessary to shake up an inert  political class.

The Delhi gang rape protests were a brilliant display of what is possible if people get mobilized. And a law did get passed – though it was a highly butchered and diluted version of the original Justice Verma recommendations.

The arguments made against it’s stricter clauses in Parliament were ludicrous and obscene. Mulayam Singh, the man who dreams of becoming the PM one day, apparently felt no shame is telling us that stalking should not be made an offense because that is how men in India get their women. (It was not made an offense finally)

There were no large-scale protests about that. And the rapes have continued.

There is no blame here towards anyone – it is not possible to have protests of that scale to run eternally.

However it shows the vulnerability of issue based protests – they tend to very focused and blaze brightly, but inevitably fade away when the issue goes out of mind.

Where are the ‘I am Anna Hazare’ people I wonder? Less than 10% of them showed up for Arvind Kejriwal’s attempts to make the solutions long-term, I notice.

But since politics and foreign policy are hard-to-grasp and complicated issues, here is a simple one -

Traffic in India must improve. No one opposes the thought. All parties support it. It is equal to all – no reservations necessary. And nobody is claiming bad traffic is an Indian cultural thing.(yet)

The normal way to drive in India is to ignore every rule and every other person on the road, driving with ‘naked celebration of ignorance and causal disdain for the suffering of others’.

Side Note: There is an entire article on that one

The default ‘reaction’ to a traffic incident is to ignore the victim or silently watch the tamasha.

This is Indian apathy at work.

Sometimes, however, a mob forms and they burn a bus and beat up the nearest policeman before taking up an angry march to the Commissioner’s office.

That is also a reaction. That is also a protest. That is also proof that India is ‘angry’ and ‘motivated’.

If you manage to take out a protest of 1,00,000 people and halt traffic in the center of the city for three days – you will make a lot of noise. You might even believe that you, the non apathetic Indian, just did something meaningful.

You may bring about a dramatic change in the way we drive through this.  It is possible…though highly doubtful.

The only action that will definitely make a difference is this – follow the traffic rules, even if you are the only one in the entire district to do so.

This action does not require you to ‘react’. It requires you to keep calm and carry on. It requires you to understand that the traffic situation will not change in three days, but it will take three decades. It requires you to believe that you are making a difference, even if you cannot see the difference you are making.

It requires you to teach others, patiently and quietly, without hooliganism and beatings, the steps that will bring order to the roads.

You will not win any accolades. No newspaper will publish your face on it’s front page. No media will come to cover you. You will not be hailed as a ‘leader’ and politicians will not come to receive you in the airport. Most likely no one will even care.

But if you follow the rules, and convince even one other person to follow the rules – the traffic situation will change. Most importantly, it will be changed forever.

And that is what action means. A change that will last forever.

To quote Narendra Modi – “Solutions must be institutionalized”.

Actions are those deeds that are undertaken not to address a situation that has already happened, but in an effort to anticipate a problem that will happen.

Actions are proactive and long term. Actions depend on understanding all causes for a situation.

Actions are also slow and often in a minority.

It is fun to burn a bus. It is thrilling to scream and shout on the roads. It is easy to chant slogans. It is definitely easy to berate people with death threats when they don’ t do what you want them to do because you think you have the magic solution to all problems.

It is even easier to force a reaction and then completely lose control of the whole situation.

So next time, instead of blindly following whoever you like and threatening others into (temporarily) following you – Why not take the lead?

Convince us. Show us the path and teach us why we must walk it.

In short, take action…IF you can, that is.

The above has been inspired by a comment on Reddit. The comment -

“This zor dude represents exactly what is wrong with India’s so called educated class. The malaise of apathy that is afflicting our society. The attitude of unless something affects me personally, I am not going to get off my fat arse to change it. The naked celebration of ignorance and causal disdain for the suffering of others. India needs its own Cultural Revolution to get rid of such bad blood.”

Telling me that you want to cleanse my blood from this land…not a way to get me to follow you. Just FYI

When I was told that Sarabjit Singh was murdered in Pakistan, my first reaction was “Sarabjit who?”

I need not have feared. Apparently sensing the sheer depth of how little I cared about a man I had never heard about, the Indian media machine got to work with a gusto generally reserved for religious...Go on]]>

When I was told that Sarabjit Singh was murdered in Pakistan, my first reaction was “Sarabjit who?”

I need not have feared. Apparently sensing the sheer depth of how little I cared about a man I had never heard about, the Indian media machine got to work with a gusto generally reserved for religious fanatics when they catch a blasphemer.

So here we are three days later, when to call the drama over the corpse a “circus” is like shoving a toothpick into your jam sandwich and calling it ‘Haute Cuisine’.

And you know what? – I still can’t think of  any reason why I should cry for Sarabjit at all.

Death is the best thing that ever happened to him.

Alive, he was just another unknown Indian in a Pakistani jail. Alive, it was easy for every one to tell him to wait a while, we were busy hugging and making love across the border – Aman ki Asha and all that dude! We are all brothers from other mothers man!

But look at him now! Well look at It anyway – a corpse is not a person.

It is being hailed as a Punjabi Marytr! A real Punjab Da Puttar It is! VIPs, VVIPs, VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVIPs are busy tripping over themselves to go see it. It is like a magical stone now!

Quick! Dash to Amritsar! We must touch it! Or at least be photographed next to it!

Now people are fighting to see who will get to ride with It in choppers. People are making speeches about It’s bravery. People are asking for resignations in Its name! People are asking that It receive justice! People want It to be avenged! (whatever that means)   

Heck, Rahul Gandhi, hug-master extraordinaire, is also right next to It, delivering his patented Jadoo ki Jhappi to Its mother.

Side note: Another reason why I won’t cry is that I am pretty sure Rahul Gandhi is weeping enough for all of us combined.

It is not only world-famous in all of India, but It is also rich! One crore from State, some lakhs from Centre, Government job for it’s family! Pensions!

It’s seven generations also would not have earned so much money. That is a fact – because if anyone in It’s seven generations had earned this kind of money, It would not be an ‘It’ right now.

Moving right along though.

It is now being broadcast across the nation! It is causing Arnab to scream louder! It is causing NDTV to make fancier music and better graphics! It is making front page headlines yaar!

It is in Parliament, which can’t pass laws, but can and did pass a resolution for It! How amazing!

Tomorrow It will be heralded as the cause for new laws and new relationship lows. It will be the reason why some people can proudly say “I told you them Pakis were evil” and other people can loudly say “It suffered no worse than others, see how India treats it’s own inmates”.

It also gives people like me something to write about, thereby conveniently allowing me to finish my article quota of the day! Cool!

For eight thousand and thirty five days (give or take a few), he was a forgotten, worthless man – ignored by his country and left to die.

But now that he has died…HURRAY!..I mean…”So sad..so sad..very bad…very bad. Some one should resign na? Haan, Haan, photo-shoto le lo…video walla nahi aaya abhi tak?”

It is a bonanza for everybody involved.

So why should you cry? No reason to cry at all.

Indeed you need to stop crying because if our hypocrisy gets any more obscene, we will have to censor and ban ourselves for the sake of public decency.

The only people who need to cry for Sarabjit are the few handful who remembered him, fought for him, traveled to Pakistan repeatedly for him and in the end, waited and hoped every day for 22 years for his return.

They are crying – even when they are forced to do so surrounded by several thousand gawking Indians who like nothing better than a spectacle.

They are crying – even when they have to put up being hugged and condescended by a spectacle of VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVIPs who apparently have nothing better to do and know that elections are coming.

I presume at this very moment, the other hundreds (if not thousands) of Indian prisoners in Pakistan, some who have been there for close to three decades, are wandering the jails asking if anyone could please beat them to death.

It appears to be the best way to get that which they never seem to get as long as they are alive – salvation.

PS:

Dear Indian Media,

This is India. A thousand people will come out to watch anything, anywhere for any reason. Especially if the bade sahabs from Dilli are around.

Therefore, despite your fond fantasies, this does not translate to thousands “bid a tearful adieu“. (FYI – you used the same line when Vilasrao Deshmukh died)

Next time you reach for a fancy French word to sum up a similar situation – I suggest you go for ‘farce’.

Also, you seem to misunderstand what the term ‘India mourns’ means.  You want to see India mourn? Raise the price of petrol by 5 rupees. That is mourning. This is ‘India watching, Politicians acting’.

I have always found an amusing disconnect between how much India screams at every insult it suffers and what it actually does to avenge that insult.

I am even more tickled when I meet people on the street who tell me – “Man, Pakistan and China will totally eat us up, our Government never...Go on]]>