Rumi Nations

Put this comment on MJ Akbar's latest Sunday Guardian article. Well, mostly *facepalm* at all the "praise" MJ has heaped on Chamcha Mukherjee. After all, the Prez is merely enjoying the 'fruits' today of more than 40 years of 'faithful' service to The Family. Pranab-da would be the first to accept that. If you say 'but he is nowhere as disreputable as other ministers of MMS such as oily minister Moily or Sanjay's sidekicks like Kamal Nath (oh, what a long list of 'infamy' this man can lay claim to)' well, that would be a low bar. I thought Mr. Mukheree was the 'prime' culprit responsible for this government's mis-handling of the economy by taking two steps forward and 2.5 steps back. Although on the 'positive' side, President PM is surely an 'improvement' over his globe-trotting predecessor. And, well, also this: who, if not Pranab? As to MMS, I don't know how shameless a person has to be to continue to...

I put in a rather long comment on this article in Livemint. So, obviously I have to paste that comment on my blog and make a blog post out of it! 1) Who's that Duncan Fletcher guy pictured with Dhoni? Anyway, neither do I know nor do  I wish to know. I just wish people of India would stop making Gods out of silly young men that cricketers are. Even compared to the cricket that I grew up with, the days of Srikanth, Amarnath, Vengsarkar, Azhar, Sachin, Ganguly, Laxman, and Dravid, now the game is all too commercialized. Too much cricket, too much money, too many crores (and girls) dangling in front of talent-less young men. 2) What a fall when you consider that we started with "Yug-purush" such as Nehru to today's "half-purush" such as Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. Why did the people of India elect these jokers in 2004? And re-elect in 2009? But then again, what is the alternative before the billion poor of this country? No, Modi is certainly not who...

So, who are you? Or, what? Are you a Congi? A CRT? Perhaps a pseudo-secular Indian. Or an Internet Hindu. Or a right winger. A Hindu nationalist (dwelling outside India?). These are some of the gems that one comes across as the frenetic debate rages in this country about the direction we wish to take. Clearly, India is 'resurgent.' India is not the first nation in the history of the world where people suddenly acquire a heightened sense about who they are just on the basis of their imagined or real history. History is fact -> except when it's entirely fiction that people want to believe . Nationalistic pride has not been a positive force in world history - just think of Japan, Italy and Germany in the 20th century. A sense of superiority based on notions of nationality, race, or religion makes people blind to reason and facts. Yet in the 21st century, despite the world wars and the Rwandan  and  Balkan  genocides of the '90s, we are again seeing resurgent na...

How would I explain the latest happenings to an unexpected visitor to India? What do you know! There was a huge bang in the backyard last night accompanied by a bright flash of light which startled me and I woke up to investigate. Of course I saw a nice little cute alien just like in that movie where Drew Barrymore is a baby. So I welcomed the trans-galactic visitor and offered him water. Slowly we got around to discussing the current state of affairs in India. What a coincidence that an alien should visit me when the Pakistani President is visiting India too. I of course did not rake up the past with the alien … stuff such as some attacks in Mumbai or taking a percentage in deals. I did mention that a baby died recently in AIIMS. All of two months old. She experienced a lot of pain in a short life. I didn’t ask ET if they believed in god in their neck of the universe.

Manmohan Singh is hardly Hosni Mubarak. Although most Indian prime ministers occupy the office only in the seventh or eight decade of their life — that's about the only similarity. Be that as it may. At the end of the day, I do not like to paint all politicians with the same brush. I also do not believe in blaming politicians for all that ails India. Indian voters choose who they wish to represent them. Indians are a nation of believers. Hinduism has a range of gods across the whole spectrum of possibility. Some gods are male while others are female. Some are neither male nor female. Some gods like vegetarian dishes while others prefer non-vegetarian dishes. Some gods are benevolent while others are ferocious as well as capricious. Indians love their gods. They not only love them, they like to anoint ordinary humans with godly qualities too. So, we have a plentiful supply of demi-gods too. The office of the prime minister has been elevated to that level as well where t...

I am thinking of Ambika Soni having some fun at L. K. Advani's expense by wondering that she thought that he was retired. I am wondering who is Ambika's boss??? Who does she answer to? Who is the superboss of everyone in her party including as it happens the babbling, mumbling prime minister of India? It is a sad fact of Indian politics that someone like Deve Gowda has been a prime minister. It's also sad that at various times other politicians including Mulayam Yadav , Laloo Yadav , Mayawati , Chandrababu Naidu , and many others have been possible prime ministerial candidates. L. K. Advani's suitability to be prime minister may be open to debate. But surely, no one has less locus standi to be the prime minister than Sonia Gandhi. I wonder how these people can sleep well at night. After all, one can lie all one wants to the world at large but you can't lie to yourself.

Another instance of security overkill. What is the price of the life of an Indian? Not much, it would seem. This day brings news of another man dying because of the security bandobast surrounding the visit of the Indian PM. I had the opportunity to see this first hand in my home town once when the then PM was there for an election rally ... may be in 1996 ... I don't quite remember now. The PM was of course the chanakya of Indian politics P. V. Narasimha Rao. The reality on the ground might have been more complex than the facts reported in the papers. In New Delhi, of course, residents are used to it. Even I have on occasion had to suffer because the PM's cavalcade happened to be passing by ... It seems like an enjoyable tamasha when that happens ... you just have to cool your heels for a while ... assuming of course that the Sun is not in full blaze and you weren't going anywhere in a hurry. In India, of course, appointments are 'flexible.' Everyone would understa...