WordPress is boring. It doesn’t bring out the same strong feelings that blogger does. The filter few who’ve been following this blog would have realised that I’ve abandoned it.
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Af-Pak
The situation in Pakistan is a grim one. The Taliban being eighty miles away from the capital is a figure being passed around like hot cakes. The Taliban’s “deal” with the government, the push down south into Buner, their advances in Afghanistan, where the US promises a bloody summer with twenty thousand extra troops-there’s a lot going on. The US strategy has been modified in terms of terminology from a stabilisation of Afghanistan to an Af-Pak strategy which concentrates first and foremost on Pakistan’s survival. Question no. 1-where are we getting our news from?
It is no secret that the Taliban has survived so far because of the Pakistani security establishment who wanted to use the Taliban to gain influence on Pakistan as well as provide freedom fighters for the Jihad in Kashmir. The civilian establishment has never really had much control over the security establishment, much less with a leader as weak as Zardari. The army chooses when to attack India, when to test nuclear weapons and the like and the civilian government(if there is one then) falls in line.
At a level, when news emanates from Pakistan about the army suffering heavy losses and Taliban advancing towards its cities, and the fineprint about the US increasing its doleouts by a couple of billion dollars to help the Pakistani army fight the insurgents, something doesn’t seem quite right.
So do I mean to say that the danger of the Taliban is not real at all? No. I’m just saying that the role of the Pakistani army is a very very suspicious one. That the Army, if serious action is not taken, will very soon be overrun by Taliban is a very real possibility-something of an Oedipus Rex case, yes. But somehow, the antidotes everyone’s using right now aren’t quite addressing the right problem, because the problem isn’t framed correctly. The Army and the Taliban, to me, aren’t mutually distinct identities.
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Smokes and Mirrors
Pallavi Aiyer was my eyes in China when I was in school. For years I feverishly lapped up her China column in the Express. And then one day that column was stopped. But by then, I was drunk enough on China myself to go hunting for stuff online. And I had a more stable internet connection. I rediscovered her today. She’s brought out a new book called “Smokes and Mirrors” and I’ve spent the better part of the last couple of hours revisiting our neighbour from a perspective on the inside. Anyone with even a polite interest in our neighbour should read the book. I wanted to buy it-It cost Rs.375, but I couldn’t 
. I’ve vowed to visit Crossword everyday until I finish that book. Brilliant insights.
Ayrton Senna
For all those of you who have about six minutes, go read http://www.formula1.com/teams_and_drivers/hall_of_fame/45/
Maya ki maya
I was reading an editorial a few minutes back which set me thinking. Why do the English speaking classes in our country dislike Mayawati? I’ll try and break it down. The most obvious reasons, off the top of my head-when I look at her, she doesn’t look like someone who can represent my interest. I do not want her to go to international conferences and summits where serious issues like the nuclear deal and highly jargonised economics are being discussed and make a fool of my country. I cannot imagine Maya putting our country in the position of power it should be. There’s talk of a second Bretton Woods in the offing, which could be India’s chance to step up to the podium and show its wares to everyone around. I cannot, for one moment, believe that Mayawati would be able to accomplish something of that sort. She’ll be excluded, for sure, and with her, our country.
Even on the domestic front, Maya’s more of a divisive rather than a unifying character. Look at all the PMs the country has had so far. Almost all of them have had a pacifist streak which is conspicuous by its absence here. Again, the politics she’s played in UP after coming into power have smacked of immaturity. Consider the contrast between Obama and Mayawati (since many people like to compare the two) Obama decides not to go after the previous administration even when everyone around is clamouring for the same as it will lower the esteem of the nation’s top office. On the other hand, the first thing Maya does on coming back into power is reopening old wounds and going grave-digging. Again, setting up of fifteen foot high statues of herself in her state does not exactly point towards a mature mindset and a secure ego. And we’ve seen what fragile egos can do with so many glaring examples in Africa’s dictators.
Consider another something-Maya’s party does not have a manifesto. While it might not be overly surprising and, when one thinks of how (un)important that is, it still points to this one basic fact that Maya would not be a de-facto PM who would have the approval of the entire nation but someone who emerged strongest in a no-holds-barred dogfight. In a way, to me, it shows almost utter disrespect for a nation’s institutions and a total lack of sense of duty towards one’s nation.
But if she is this bad, why is she a frontrunner for the said office? In a sense, it is not about what she does, but what she is-a symbol of hope and upliftment for millions of Indians. For the seven hundred million rural Indians, she is one of them. As an MBC woman surmised at one of her rallies-”Yeh PM banti hain toh lagega ki mere haath mein bhi kuch power hai.” (Screwed that line up slightly, but you get the gist). Wherever I try and find an argument for Maya, the text always has to include a “fifty two year old unmarried Dalit school teacher who never took advantage of quotas and had no political godfathers”.
Somewhere, though, in all the reasons I’ve given, there is hint of a certain something I’m subconsciouly trying to cover up with argument after argument-Should Maya have been as pretty as, say, Yulia Tymoshenko(Ukraine’s PM), would my opposition have been as vocal? Were she not a Dalit woman but, say, a UP Brahmin with all the same failings, would it make a difference? As an exercise, one must compare one’s own reactions to the ideas of Maya becoming PM and Mulayam becoming PM. Somewhere, very subtly, you see a hint of the bias. There is something pissing-off about Maya, which probably has nothing to do with her failings as an administrator. Were she a Sarah Palin, would the disgust of the English speaking classes been as intense? (My conscience is clear, mine would have been 
)
I’ve tracked Maya’s rise closely over the last five years. While she maybe awesome at winning elections, that’s about all she’s awesome at, as a politician. Our country is plagued by people who see winning elections as an end and not as a means(excluding the means to make money bit 
) As for our dislike, there is something suspicious about it, but the arguments we give are killer ones as far as her becoming PM goes. Sadly, its not in cyberspace but on the ground that elections are won, which is something Maya is good at.
NIB and its different versions
There’s a version of NIB by Louise Weekley, there’s another one by Primus and there’s the original one by Black Sabbath themselves. For some reason, the three of them are like three totally different songs. Or atleast two different ones. The original version is a clean bass-heavy version which brings to mind the original come-to-Ozzy feel. Then there is the LW version, slightly grunge in its leanings…slight deliberate distortion in its style which is quite endearing sometimes…and of course, no Ozzy for the vocals, giving a less cool feel. The Primus version is the true polar opposite of the Black Sabbath original. Filthy screeching soundtrack coupled with Ozzy again. True grunge Listening to them from the most recent backwards and at one in the night after a long but relaxed day, it is a heady feeling .
Sporting a crew cut, with a fresh white shirt and dark green shorts he walked into school. It wasn’t his first day here, nor was it his last. There’d be a long long time to grow disillusioned with the entire process. He had his water bottle hanging off his neck, the school bag accentuating his slight sideways lilt which defined his gait. He barely reached most students’ belts on the road he was walking down, and hence was an obstacle to most people, quite a few of the chin-ups actually knocking him off, only for other chin-ups to knock him back on.
He went towards his coloured classroom. Somewhere outside, someone had been playing Maiden. He realised that there existed things which lay beyond polite interest, and stood there swaying naturally, until his teacher came in and forced him to read the other hallowed be thy name five times over.
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Ideology
If a place’s public is politically active, that’s a different(and somewhat not-so-common occurence). But for most large societies, the fact remains that the public looks for work done. If they see work getting done, they more-or-less accept the ideology of the ruling party/coalition. If not, the coalition is panned(and as a derivative, so is its ideology). So, does this mean that ideology is irrelevant? You need a glue to keep your own flock together….and you probably need a core issue which would address your core constituency. I’m actually looking forward to the sort of results Maya’s BSP gets. They have no ideology as such. But they have a core constituency in the form of Dalits. And probably even a few Brahmin classes now.
What’s the exact role ideology has in our politics?
The glorified idea of democracy
I had this thought the other day-why is the Indian model of democracy better than, say, the Chinese model of governance?
I’ll supply the arguments in favour of the Chinese model-they are more focused on development, they work more efficiently(atleast relative to us), there is a modicum of accountability in terms of you giving your record to your senior who is generally not as corrupt or lazy as one of ours, a look at the numbers alone tells you a large part of the story. Away from the numbers, people point at China’s oppressive regime and its dismal human rights’ record.
Are we better than the Chinese in our governance model? We are surely not focused on development. We do not work efficiently. There is greater accountability though. Or is there? There can be greater accountability for sure, but as of now, even with all our RTIs and greater media freedom, dissent doesn’t really get counted unless it is affecting your votes. Or probably this is because the issues I’m looking at are generally the ones all politicians like to favour or oppose en masse.
Democracy in India works on the incentive of votes alone. You can be a Hindu politician who participated in riots and had loads of people killed and not be persecuted. Or you can be a Muslim commoner with no connection to anyone or anything and find yourself in jail.
All those good things they say can happen in a democracy, are they really happening? Look at your immediate neighbourhood. The road in front of my house got damaged during some activity recently and did not get repaired inspite of our repeated missives to our representative. My father pulled a few strings here and there and things got working-but that isn’t how things are supposed to work. Someone wrote about a dacoity incident where bombs were planted in their backyard-two fatsos ambled in long after all the action had happened….and that after the callers were asked to call another police station and so on. Media channels and their own blah….
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Breakfast Buffet
I’m a total rustic character when it comes to doing stuff aristocratically and all. Five star hotels, hep eating joints, I just magically lose whatever little table manners I’ve been forced to learn, resulting in certain embarrassing situations, and in me having to copy everyone else’s style.
So we people headed to Rodas for a breakfast buffet-first, it wasn’t all that great. On second thoughts, I think I didn’t like it because I had no idea what the right way to go about it was! I was having watermelon with sandwiches, sweet lime juice with bacon and similar random stuff . Plus, I had little idea of how to handle the fork and knife thingy, inspite of Batli putting in all of the world’s fight to teach me the right way once upon a time many ages back.
So anyway, with lack of knowledge of what would taste good, I hog on whatever comes my way till I can hog no more, and it feels as though I’ve had chapatis with water or something.
Moral of the story: Always have a knowledgable friend with you who wouldn’t embarrass you but would know all the ways of the elitists . Best-have Ali and Batli both.
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