ज़िन्दगी गर तू ठहरे कुछ मिनट,
तो मुद्द के देखूं पीछे क्या छोड़ आया हूँ |
चंद हसीं पल दबाये हूँ मुट्ठी में,
वक़्त की बंदिशों जो तोड़ लाया हूँ |

As I lay on my bed, with a broken leg for company, with nothing else to do than ponder why isn’t Diwali as enjoyable now as it was as late as five years ago.

Now if only I had a beer to compliment the soothing voice Mohit Chauhan and complete the mood

Happy Diwali

The river in Varanasi flows in a northward direction such that the Ghats and temples (all of which are located on the western bank) are lit up with sunlight, the moment the first rays of sun fall on the river, turning the river it into flowing gold. Of the Ghats, it is said, that a keen observer can notice 72 various occupations of people (:o) on the Ghat itself. I have never tried such a count but can easily recall more than a dozen different pursuits that people had themselves indulged in, apart from praying and bathing there. Some of them like the garland sellers with their flowery fragrances, toy sellers with their attractive wares, noisy tourist guides, hotel agents, boatmen, pundits prospecting their clients, Japs taking pictures, Germans playing guitars, a jholawala writing something on his pad and a a chotiwala capturing the all this on his canvas must’ve been easy to identify, while others like the famous Banarasi thieves and tricksters must have been the last ones to be identified on every person’s list. Whatever be the add up of them all, the fact of the matter remains that the Ghats are always teeming with crowds, so that day, we chose to take a boatride and head off to the opposite (eastern) bank.

Here sanity prevailed; and the bank was sandy, the water cleaner (no soap lather or debris of offerings) and the crowd sparser. I got off the boat in no time and got my clothes off me in still lesser time. While other might have been busy dismounting our belongings from the boat and keeping it at some safe place where a designated family member can stand guard while other take the bath in the Ganges, I just went crazy the moment I got into the river. Jumping in and out of the boats in the shallow waters I was having much fun, when my aunt came up from behind and grabbed me and asked me something I could not comprehend. I nodded in confusion and soon she took me by my shoulders and plunged me into the water. More terrified than surprised, I had no time to recover as the process was repeated six more times. The water got into my nose, ears and eyes. Fortunately, I could gulp out most of the water that got into my mouth, but it still took me some time to get out of the shock and be able to enjoy the embracing waters of the Ganges again. Later when I told my elder sister about the incident, I came to know that it all was nothing more than the ritualistic seven holy dips in the Ganges. I realized that this was a lesson for a kid into fully understanding whatever is being said before responding but even this realization couldn’t do much to prevent my conscious efforts of ‘maintaining a safe distance’ from the Aunt for rest of my stay at her home.

THIS ARTICLE APPEARED IN “FINSCOOP”, THE MAGAZINE OF DEPTT. OF FINANCIAL STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF DELHI.

Even buckets of it do not suffice.

With the chilling air pinching the bones,

Just the warmth of the cup feels nice.

Its not that I don’t like bonfires,

The chat, the stories and that song.

Remain etched in memory forever,

Reminiscence for years coming along.

Its not that I don’t like my blanket,

Lazy mornings of slumber long & sound.

Its tender warmth being enough,

To make me carry it around.

But still God did create the Winters,

T’must have appealed to the Giver.

So lets dump that shawl & come out,

To feel the fog and cherish the shiver.

I’m won’t talk about the Julian Assange saga. And not about the RTI activists getting killed in Maharashtra. I won’t even seek the Muhurat of the ever elusive ‘next two months’ within which the government promises to bring down the prices. The issue is a much more ordinary one. The one for which competing with IPL auctions for headline space is impossible. But which is still sufficiently important for 2 lakh+ CAT aspirants to be giving them sleepless nights.

Ever since I saw the “Leaked CAT Result”, I have been waiting for any sort of official confirmation or denunciation of it, when neither of them have been forthcoming. I and others like me have been termed ‘unethical’ by Mr. Himanshu Rai, the CAT convener, and that has been it, no further (concrete) word from IIM over the Leak. We could be called curious ungalbaaz :p, much like Pippin the Hobbit, but certainly not someone devoid of morality or ethics just because we accessed a publicly available link that did not even reside on catiim.in’s servers (It was a Google Cached Copy ). But what has been more appalling is the (un)dignified silence maintained by the authorities concerned over the authenticity of the results. Should they not come clean with a proper statement after a goof up / glitch???

But on second thoughts, all this shouldn’t have been one bit appalling for me, or for anyone for that matter. Haven’t we yet gotten used to being kept in the dark, by the CWG OC about the preparations, by CBI on everycase it (mis)handles, by SC Judges on their assests, by the Government on Black Money and by the opposition on its disapproval of blatant ‘Hindu Terror’. How difficult could it be for those at helm to acknowledge a mistake or to apologize to the very people who gave them their power??? Hell. How difficult could it be to just let a curious candidate know if the scorecard he saw was genuine or not

They say Curiosity killed the CAT. It sure did for me. . Now waiting for 12^th Jan to see what bursts on that day my bhaag or chhappad.

When the head of a state ceases to be the newsmaker, it’s time the country pauses to think as to who is leading them, if at all anyone is. Is there someone to guide us or are we to just wait and let everything just take its own course until the problem resolves itself or the unresolved problem outlives its severely limited space in their memory. Although I have not tuned into Arnab Goswami’s The Newshour for well over a week now, but whatever abridged political news that The Economic Times had fed me this past month was devoid of any reference to MMS, if one were to overlook the cliched rhetoric of Left and BJP about the PM’s Independence Day speech being uninspiring and devoid of any real substance.

Manmohan Singh, this month, became the longest serving Prime Minister of the country, from among those rare ones whose name doesn’t end with a Nehru or a Gandhi. His honesty, integrity, modesty, dedication and a dozen different enviable traits have been acknowledged by one and all. So his continued absence from public eye is surprising, more so when combined with the prolonged abstinence of Sonia Gandhi from making any statement or public appearance of note. Rahul Gandhi too has not come up with any of his media friendly gimmicks, for a long time now.

At a time when country is faces flash floods and droughts in its different parts, prices continue to their unrelenting skyward march, our ever enigmatic neighbor has leapfrogged to become the second largest economy in the world, our reputation is at stake due some games to be held in Delhi, trouble in valley is worsening by the day and we are just milliseconds away from finalizing a dubious and Nuclear Liability Bill, expecting an apprisal of the situation from the people we have entrusted our country to isn’t asking too much. We can certainly use a statement from PMO, just to clear the air about where we as a country are headed from here and what do people at the helms have in store for us.

Since we no longer have a President who could inspire us or had a vision for the country and regarded his post important enough to not dedicate its duration to unveiling a statue or attending a function as the chief guest, the entire responsibility of addressing the nation, of telling us that all is not unwell falls onto the shoulders of the aforementioned core group.

Despite the massive mandate accorded to it and despite some individual bright spots like Pranab Mukherjee or Chidambaram, the government has seldom looked like a united front with a centralized command (read Digvijay Singh and Mani Shankar Aiyar). Left in UPA-1 despite all its differences with congress seems saintly now when compared to Mamta, who had left Home Ministry high, Dry and embarrassed with her olive-branching to the Maoists (described once, as the biggest threat to India, by the PM himself). Having mentioned both Obama and Inspiration earlier in the post I would reiterate the importance of inspiring speeches from Leaders without stressing any further on the Obama and inspiring address’ connection and signing off with the lyrics from the song ‘Krishna’ by Colonial Cousins.

“….Darkness coming round
And everybody fighting with their brothers
Everybody wants control
Don’t hesitate to kill one another….

…So come down and help us
Save all the little ones
They need a teacher
And you are the only one
We can rely on
To build a better world
A world that’s for children
A world that’s for everyone…”

Recently ahead of their National Executive meet in Patna some over zealot Modi Supporters put up hoardings of him waving to the crowd with CM Nitish Kumar, knowing full well how such a campaign would negatively affect the CM’s standing in the minority community. While Modi undeniably is a charmer and a large faction of BJP already sees him as their future PM candidate, such a misadventure jeopardizing an otherwise fruitful alliance ahead of the Bihar Assembly Elections was simply uncalled for. At a time when a victory seems all but guaranteed for the alliance in Bihar, due to the appreciable work done by their ally Nitish Kumar, the party again seems to be drawn to some reckless extravagance in their show of strength which might just prove to be a bit costly. Just the example that embodies there knack for (mis)adventure.

2010 is the year all of Delhi had been waiting for ever since it was announced in 2002 that Common Wealth Games would be held in the National Capital, and grand plans to transform Delhi into a world-class metropolis were drawn up and postered all over the newspaper as ‘an artist’s impression ’ of myriad infrastructural projects. While we are almost into the second half of 2010, Delhi today is anything but ready to host the mega event scheduled later this year. But just as the Football World Cup, the other hot sporting event of 2010 had started to hog the limelight, Civil Nuclear Liability Bill and its remotely possible overhauling managed to creep into paper spaces. While we as a nation failed miserably to bring justice to our brethren wronged by a foreign company which threw all safety norms to wind for a little larger piece of capitalist profit pie, the least we could have done was to learn from the mistake and make amends and have law in place to deal with Industrial Disasters arising out of negligence and callousness (read Uphaar Tragedy). Far from it the UPA government would have tabled Nuclear Liability Bill in the parliament had there not been protests from corners right and left of it. PM Manmohan Singh had risked his govt. while pushing for the Nuclear Deal with US, termed by many as a project not only close to his heart but also as a tool of redemption to silence his critics for once and all who call him a weak Prime Minister. While the leftist dissent arised mainly out of their traditional aversion to all things American. NDA had demanded parity with a similar American law as to the compensation payable by the defaulting company to the victims which in Case of America’s Nuclear Indemnity Act $10.5 Billion but only $458 Million in the proposed Nuclear Liability Bill of India. That makes an Indian’s life 23 times cheaper than that of an American. And when the companies operating here are going to be the same ones that operate in America, such a disparity is a grave injustice to the taxpayers of India if the exchequer is forced to compensate for the misdeeds of companies. Things look grim even when we haven’t weighed in the fact that a nuclear disaster is going to be multiple times worse than anything fathomable from the Bhopal tragedy.  While India badly needs to become self reliant in energy if it wants to be taken seriously as a superpower, use of imported enriched uranium technology instead of the locally abundant thorium will only make it dependent on NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group) from its current dependence on OPEC. Thus, continued support to thorium based nuclear tech while plugging energy gap holes with the nuclear co-operation with US is what should be the long term goal of the government, while keeping up the pursuit of sustainable non nuclear energy in the meantime. But none of that should compromise with the lives and livelihoods of people of India, or 2010 could lead us on the path of another 1984.

Still, every now and then, he manages to come up with two parted fingers flashing the sign of victory and a bearded smile nothing less than a slap on the face for his detractors. The reason for this, as I discern, is the simple philosophy he seems to have espoused perfectly – “Try pleasing all and you’ll please none”. He might not be the darling of the mainstream media, but he knows that there’s nothing that a Rajdeep Sardesai or Barkha Dutt, sitting in their airconditioned offices do to harm him on his turf. He sees no point in trying to woo the multiple power centres in grim looking Party. Or in even going about shouting from rooftops about his accomplishments as the Chief Minister with full page glossy ads in News Papers.

But one thing he knows is how to marshal his meager PR resources in a nation of liberals that loathe him. And he does that with perfection. A point in case would be the recent rollout of the first Nano from its Sanand plant in Gujarat, which ironically coincided with Mamata’s sweep of Bengal Municipal Election, one women who played bigger role in bringing Nano to Gujarat then Modi could ever had. Nano is just a car, and car manufacturers set up their facilities all the time. But for a nation running on two wheels, it was probably something bigger. Modi saw the opportunity of publicity that a possible shifting of its base could bring. And he knew he had to seize it. He may say that it only cost him a one rupee sms to invite Ratan Tata, but it is a no brainer that his team would have worked overtime to ensure all administrative clearance and allotment of land, man and machinery in record time.

The liberals cried foul, like they always do. Manufacturing a car that has aspirations of millions attached with it from a state with dubious human rights record would stain it with blood of innocents that fell to state inaction some 8 years ago. Media found a story and flashed it on our screens and papers. They appealed Ratan Tata to rethink, who despite all the philanthropy is only a businessman (and unarguably one of the best we’ve seen). He brushed them all aside and went on with his plan, establishing Gujarat once again as the best investment option in india. And Modi laughed his way to the headlines. And a few days back when the car finally rolled out, the man behind the wheels with Tata was Modi, and the shutterbugs caught a smiling Modi, yet again. All this while Ratan Tata, one man we trust, the most to showcase Brand India to the world, inadvertently played a mascot to Modi.

The other man whose name has recently been taken time and again with Modi might have let it happen a bit more purposedly than Tata.

Bachchans are to the Bollywood what Nehrus are to India’s Politics, inseparable and incomplete without each other. Bachchans and Nehru’s shared shared close family ties since the times of Harivansh Rai and his friend Jawahar Lal. The relations though soured the Bofors Scandal, both sides alleging betrayal by the other. After that Amitabh aligned himself with Amar Singh who had apparently helped him out during ABCL crisis. But after Amar Singh’s fallout with Samajwadis and Jaya Bachchan refusal of SP’s RS seat it was clear to all that Bachchan’s political affinity no longer lies with Samajwadis.

Amitabh then decided that he wanted to become the Brand Ambassador of Gujarat. And thus started his eulogization of Modi and his workt. A good press never hurt anyone and Modi welcomed Amitabh with open arms, ignoring the fact that Amitabh had earlier been a Brand Ambassador for “Uttam Pradesh” at the behest of Modi’s Political and Ideological adversaries. Amitabh too on his part doesn’t seem to be at any sort of discomfort first promoting a party with leftist leanings which touts itself to be a messiah of Muslims to now promoting a right winger that epitomizes capitalism. In all this Modi has nothing to lose neither does Amitabh unless government decides to unleash CBI (Congress Beauro of Investigation on Amitabh’s land holdings.

Till then it’s a thumbs up to Modi and his ways…