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Yes Sir, Yes Sir, Three Bags Full

Commentator after commentator in the Indian media, political inclinations and insinuations notwithstanding, shed copious amounts of reptilian tears over the appearance of naked cash in the floor of the Parliament during the trust vote yesterday. A hallowed shrine, the sanctum sanctotum of Indian politics, was eviscerated, they wailed.

Hogwash.

Indian politics, right from the dark days of the 1970s have had carried the cancer of money infiltrating its ranks. The first generation of politicians had the dream of building a nation but that dream turned into a sordid nightmare for the citizens once the second and third generations swooped down. Governments - at both state and center - became less about governance and more about making the quick buck. The matter is remarkably akin to how countries with rich natural resources are the world's largest anarchies today. Owners (which sometimes is the state) realizes that velocity of resource stripping is directly proportional to the quickness at which riches will flow. Actually, it is not different from the way Gordon Gekko planned to strip the assets out of Blue Star Airlines in Wall Street. Current day politicians are very awake to the fact that five years is all they have to strip whatever comes their way. And they do it with awe-inspiring efficiency.

The money, hidden away like Indian sex in the dark corners of the bedroom, finally entered Parliament in broad daylight. Good that it did. It had already entered our living rooms through scenes captured in sting operations. It had already entered our minds fifteen years back when a stock broker confessed paying money to a Prime Minister - his lawyer even brought along the suitcase used to ferry the cash (politicians then were a touch naive - they returned a $20 suitcase after taking the $250,000 content). Members of the House brandishing stacks of currency notes represents the smelly armpit of Indian politics. Unfortunately that is the current unwashed state of the country's political existence. Those in airconditioned studios wearing Davidoff perfumes may not like it, but - alas - the brutal truth cannot be quite wished away.

The image of Mahatma Gandhi clutching his chest as he falls to the assassin's bullet is an everlasting image in the Indian psyche. That was the day the guiding light of the country went out. Let the image of waving cash in the Lok Sabha be burned into our minds as well. The soul of Indian politics died a long time back. Yesterday we merely concluded its last rites.

They Come Together. And How.

1. Rabindranath Tagore - the Poet Laureate of India
2. Matt Harding - an idiosyncratic individual bit by the wanderlust bug. Jives with strangers around the world in a dance that is somewhere in-between Chicken and Raindance.
3. Garry Schyman - a musician based in Los Angeles
4. Palbasha Sidique - a 17 year old Bangladeshi girl who lives in Minneapolis, USA
5. Praan - poetically means "life" in Bengali. A small poem from Gitanjali

The end result is as sublime as it is electric. I'll stop here.

Technorati Tags: Palbasha Sidique, Matt Harding, Praan, Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali

It would be funny if it wasn't sad

They came driven in their own cars to do the needful. The needful were different for the two protagonists of the Nuclear Deal Drama India has witnessed in the past couple of weeks. Prakash Karat, the Communist boss, came to announce the withdrawal of support in a Wagon R (the small car from Maruti Suzuki). Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh, the two leaders of the Samajwadi Party, came in a Toyota Camry (a luxury sedan in India) to start on the deal to extend support to the beleagured government. Cars - perhaps - don't make the men but in this case it starkly revealed the polar differences between the two parties and also a pointer to what the Congress party was getting into. Ajay Shah writes in his blog about Congress' inexperience with coalitions and Saubhik Chakrabarti, who Shah cites, is correct. The SP with its skullduggery and under-the-table arm twisting will ensure that some key policy decisions are seen through while extracting their pound of flesh from other quarters. And that is the way India is destined to be run in the next few crucial years of the country's existence.

Being a democracy is bad enough to push radical reforms through - every decision has to be debated ad-infinitum and often by people who just don't get it. And imagine a colatition - an euphemism to describe a bundle of opportunistic once-goons-now-politicians trading horses of every size and shape - working within a democracy. If Apple hadn't staked a claim on the phrase and put it as their address, we could have justly termed the situation as "Infinite Loop".

A corporation that drags its feet to make decisions and flounders in forcing ahead purposefully is soon consigned to the back-alley of history. Why should governments (and nations that are ill-fated to have them) be any different?

Post Script: The UPA government faces a trust vote on the 22nd of July. Several Members of Parliament (I couldn't bring myself to prefix the "Hon'ble") will be brought out from jail so they could vote ("all hands on deck - rapists and murderers first").

Post Post Script: The cast of this drama is dominated by two individuals. Your political inclinations will decide which of Manmohan Singh or Prakash Karat you will call the hero. However, neither will vote on the no-confidence motion. They were never elected to the House. TVR Shenoy writes more...

Technorati Tags: Nuclear Deal, IAEA, UPA Government, Samajwadi Party, CPM, Congress party, Prakash Karat, Manmohan Singh, Amar Singh, criminalization of Indian politics, India

GL 007: Licensed to Separate

I have been following the Gurkha movement for an independent state with tepid interest. I must confess that I have never been to Darjeeling or have crossed the Teesta river and my only exposure to the northern part of West Bengal has been through Satyajit Ray's "Kanchenjungha" and the songs of Anjan Dutta. I have no reason to believe otherwise that the topography of the region is breath-taking with the majestic Himalayas in the north and smoky blue foothills all around. I also do not have reason to beleive otherwise that the socio-economic state of the region is as pathetic as the natural beauty is scenic.

History is laced with examples of people seeking an identity because that would make them prosperous - or so they think. This almost never works in the United States because your identity hardly counts as a parameter for success. Unfortunately it does elsewhere, and it does even more where ethinicity is inbult into a social structure. An even cursory look at large regions where races of multiple ethnic origin were bound together by a fragile fabric of nationhood reveals that they fragmented away over time. Yugoslavia is a prime example. So is the esrtwhile Soviet Russia. And fires of ethnic battles have not yet doused in several parts of Africa (the only saving grace is that no external constituency seem to be interested in redrawing boundaries in that continent).

I fear for my country. I fear that someone has managed to sneak a foot in the door. The ethinic army is waiting to swoop down through the crack that the door has opened. I am afraid that there will be a boundary line going through my courtyard.

Technorati Tags: Gorkhaland, Separatist Movements in India, Separate State, West Bengal, Darjeeling

What does the sign in your store say?

I took off from work early yesterday and on my way to home decided to stop by Reliance Digital to check out some LCD TVs that I have been earning to own for a while. Given that it was non-peak hour, there weren't many people in the store. There was however this big sign that said

"We wanted to let you know that we really don't care if you bought from our store - our goals are not aligned with your custom towards us. You are free to stroll around, see and touch anything so long as you do not ask questions of the sales staff. Please don't expect a sales person to approach you, smile at you or display any initiative to help you purchase. You are here for reasons you know best but we definitely know that we are here not to help you bring those reasons to fruition"

No - obviously there was no such physical sign. But the sign was everywhere. I tried to engage some of the salespersons in a conversation but they somehow were gravitating towards the microwave section (possibly because that is the ladies-heavy zone). I left the store in fifteen minutes.

All businesses have signs that say something about them. It is not necessary that they are painted on a board. What does your business say?

Somehow I like Wordpress more

For those of you who may be interested in my professional existence, I write a separate blog on it. Perhaps to try out a different service, I chose Wordpress to host that blog. I was impressed by the service.

1. The dashboard has exactly what a blogger would want to know about his site
2. The metadata service is better
3. There are many more themes than blogger to choose a layout

I haven't figured out how to insert Youtube videos though (not that I do that often). Just out of curiosity I tried to import this blog into Wordpress. "Khag" is the bengalee name for a weed that was used to make pens that people would dip in ink to write. As children, we were made to write the name of Godess Saraswati (deity for knowledge) on banana leaves using a "khag" pen and milk for ink. Hence the name for the blog.

Starting a Mexican Wave

I went to watch the Bangalore Royal Challengers play the Delhi Dare Devils in an IPL 20-20 cricket match yesterday. It was fun because I had never witnessed, in person, the off-field entertainment aspect of the sport. Shaan (a super-hit singer from the Hindi filmdom) performed live on the far end of the ground. He looked like a puppet from the distance but the gigantic video screen more than made up for it. There was this psychedelic display of laser lights and loud music played each time something worth celebrating happened during play. Lastly, but most definitely not the leastly, the presence of the Washington Redskinnettes (the cheer girls) added a whole lot of spice to the balmy evening. The spectators were hugely engaged with what was happening all around.

At the Chinnaswamy Stadium, the video screen usually sends out prompts to the audience to start a Mexican Wave. I guess the rapidity of events in a 20-20 match possibly precluded such attempts this time around. So an entrepreneurial spectator (he was wearing a South African rugby shirt) decided to try start one all by himself.

· He did the "1-2-3-Ho" act of counting and standing up after the count with raised hands. Obviously people around him didn't respond because they didn't know they had to

• He did the act again but this time shouting "c'mon fellas, let's do it" before he did. Suddenly the whole aisle was rising up with him. People in the adjacent aisle took notice but didn't respond quickly enough
• Now everyone in the first aisle was kicked up and people from many aisles out were noticing this attempt. A lot of them were just waiting for the juggernaut to reach their stands.
• The next attempt was miraculous. Not only did the second aisle respond but the wave just spread across the aisles all around the stadium. Not once but the wave did three rounds around the stadium before people again got engrossed in the cricket.

It takes time to build momentum around an initiative that involves several people to succeed. And there will always be one person with the idea to start things off.

PS: Delhi Dare Devils won the match comfortably.