Dad does matter !!!

Of Course he does. How else could you explain Rahul Gandhi being hailed as the new PM. Talking of credentials he doesn’t have many apart from his famous surname and the fact that all of a sudden, when UP assembly elections were just a month away, he remembered of the poor UP junta and how they needed a messiah in the form a blue blooded, foreign educated, Page3 neta flaunting a firang girlfriend.

To be fair to him, he is not alone in the list of scions building upon what their dads did and using it in every conceivable way – socially, economically, politically and even emotionally (“Had Rajeev Gandhi been alive, such and such thing would not have happened !!!”). You have 10+2 kids high on booze from their dad’s pocket, racing in their dad’s cars and crushing people all around, some wannabe Sanjiv Nandas (of the BMW crush and run fame) these. You have sons high on the dad’s political clout and goonda power killing people for refusing them drinks after bar timings are over.

Get deeper and you’ll find that the roots probably lie in us Indians basically being an insecure lot. Right from the ancient age, whoever amongst us made big in whichever field wanted to secure that “big-ness” for his generations to come. The early Brahmins, since they became big in education ordained that only their kids can study, similarly the early Rajputs wielding political power ordained that only their blood can be kings. Privileged or underprivileged at birth is quite inseparable from our psyche. It’s evident equally ferociously even today. In medical profession, quite a few things are quite easy if you are a doc’s kid. It is said that even in army, if you come from an officer’s family, things are different for you.

Nowhere does this philosophy of “privileged (or underprivileged) at birth” comes to display more strongly than during admissions in Delhi schools. If you are a common man on the street working hard for your family and don’t have political or bureaucratic connections, God help your kid even if he has brains of an Einstein.

Looked objectively, dad’s economic and power position affects the kids in every society – including what school you go to, what company you keep and what attitude you develop. Just that, in our country, walls are more rigid, your dad’s name can help you much much more than it can in other countries and unlike in the US for example, there are other roads to money and power apart from smartness and hard work. Thus while you pay for your dad’s not being exceptionally brilliant, smart and ambitious, you may also have to pay for his not being an unscrupulous, dishonest cheat.

On the other hand, if one person in the family tree makes it big either through hard work, diligence and smartness or through cheating, robbing and swindling, he can rest assured that his generations to come will not have to worry, unless of course some of them turn out to be absolute morons and go about killing their sister’s suspected boyfriends or snorting too much cocaine on the eve of their dad’s Asthi Visarjan (Remember the Majahan dude ???).

Moreover, in an interesting twist, nature arranges for its own poetic justice. Several of the big daddy’s sons and daughters have landed themselves in soups too deep for even their omnipotent dads to bail them out. This is usually the case with the “short-cut rich” dads who forget to instill basic qualities in their kids. The wheel does move after all.

The point is not to underline the unfairness of it all. Life everywhere is unfair. The smaller point is that the degree of unfairness in India is much more. The larger point is that no amount of unfairness, big daddys, political and economical clout has ever been able to stop small dads’ kids with stars in their eyes and fire in their bellies. Examples are everywhere: Dhirubhai Ambani, Prez Abdul Kalam, Sunil Bharti Mittal, Gulshan Kumar et al. Guess the fire is extra intense if you dad is small.

Ah, didn’t I say, dad does matter, after all.

The Human Afzal and Sub-human You and Me..

Mohd. Afzal is a human, he did not get a fair trial and the moment his son heard of his dad's imminent execution, he got a rope to see how being hung felt like (as an aside, did his son also sit together with ISI cohorts to see how conspiring to bring the parliament down and kill people felt like ??).

The only way this situation could have been made into a more dramatic sob story would be to say there is an andhi maa (who needs an operation), boodhi behan (who needs a doctor groom), langda baap (who needs cataract treatment) and a berozgar bhai (who needs ghoos to find that govt job).

We understand. This is the land of Gandhi where none should be hanged. We forget that Gandhi refused to appeal for Bhagat Singh's pardon despite unanimity of goals simply because of latter's reliance on violence. Of course, Bhagat Singh was not executed on Oct 20th which is such an auspicious day.

Also, what are we going to achieve by hanging Afzal. Nothing, Zero, Zilch. In any case, what do we achieve by punishing thieves, robbers and rapists. Exactly that, nothing (that the punishments don't deter is borne out by rising crime statistics). So why not release all the convicts in all the prisons all over India. After all, even they may have andhi maas and boodhi behans. Moreover, isn't confining someone to the four walls of jail so very barbaric, medieval and an example of retributive justice.

And then, hanging this misguided youth will alienate Kashmiris. Of course, it will. Didn't hanging Indira Gandhi's murderers alienate all the Sikhs and Punjabis and didn't hanging Dhananjay alienate all the Bengalis ? Ahh..the sanctity of the highest level of judicial process, we'll think about it later.

Oh, and I missed the mother of all logic - that it will scuttle the CBMs and peace process with Pakistan. Of course, with our noble neighbor Pakistan continuously sending peace doves in our direction, it will amount to heavens falling down. As such our UPA govt is so considerate of delicate Pakistani sentiments that even after the worst of massacres, they only manage a feeble mumbo jumbo about walking the talk and stuff. What if the sentiments across the border are hurt, what if they pulled out of the peace process - hey it seems they will stop doing all that they are doing to dismantle terror factories. Awww....now that will be so dreadful - imagine, terrorists will be able to bomb temples, trains and market places - Delhi, Varanasi, Mumbai - whenever and wherever they like.

About the kin of the security men who died fighting for the parliament or about the scores that died in Mumbai trains - well they anyways are a statistic. And even if they had lived, what greatness would have they achieved anyway. It would have been a painful, wretched life and really, a sudden death due to a blast or a hail of bullets is actually deliverance. Hail the bombers and shooters.

If nothing, think about our poor little Booker winner, Arundhati Roy. Didn't she give all too very logical reasons in Afzal's defense - that the trial seems unfair, he didn't get a chance to tell his story (that the Trial Court, High Court and Supreme Court ratified this decision and that two out of three death row accused were spared the death penalty is a minor detail which can be easily forgotten between so many social causes she has to champion). Imagine doing a sit in at Jantar Mantar in these sunny Delhi days. Arre Bhaiyya, if for nothing else, then at least have some consideration for the amount of sunscreen she would have used to ward off sunburns that day. Now are you going to pardon Afzal Guru or you need more reasons - you barbaric, medieval, vendetta driven fanatics.

And our media. Afzal loved poetry, liked to cook and used to water his plants every day. Hey he also used to fly kites and play gulli danda in his mohalla as a child. Such a bright kid who grew into such a fine and intellectual youth - being put to death for just conspiring to blow up parliament. Now, ain't that a travesty of justice. Hey, by the way, did he also wear half pants as a kid ?

Now, I guess all the blood hounds baying for this innocent Kashmiris blood will be slienced. Time for a little postscript.

So, what to do after you pardon Afzal. No point in going through the drama of keeping him in jail - getting M/s Masood Azhar active - another plane hijack - another hostage crisis - and finally, Indian govt escorting them to hills of Tora Bora. Just let him go.

After all, he is a human and has an andhi maa, boodhi behan, langda baap and berozgar bhai.

Waiting for another blast....

And I am not being sarcastic.

I am actually waiting for a bomb blast by these terrorists. Only I want the list of casualties to include sons, daughters, mothers, fathers of people like Manmohan Singh, Shivraj Patil, Arjun Singh, Mulayam Singh, Azam Khan etc.

Its sick even to talk about it. 200 people killed, our govt. initially says, "The peace process with Pakistan will go on" and then when it sees the sharp public reaction, says, "Secretary level talks postponed" and when again, uncle Sam gives it an angry spank on its backside, croaks like a lame puppy, "The peace process with Pakistan is not disrupted but hit". Say whatever you will, Mr. Singh - the men that are dead are gone and none of them is interested in your diplomatic posturings with some semantic bells and whistles here and there.

The picture is clear. Bomb blasts in India won't stop - not because our security agencies are weak - simply because our political establishment is a collection of spineless jelly-balls who, at the most, are capable of repeating the same rhetoric every time a bomb blasts, "The perpetrators of these acts will not be spared". Ouch Mr PM, not so loud, may be some terrorists will have a heart attack at the continous roarings of a paper tiger like you, because of laughter, that is.

And then there is the other group. Of Mulayam Singh and his ilk. SIMI is not involved in terrorist activities. Ahem. SIMI activists involved in terror acts and rioting are innocent and cases against them must be withdrawn. As was Raja Bhaiyya, as was Amarmani Tripathi and as is Mukhtar Ansari.

I am holding my breath. I am waiting for another bomb. Just one wish - let this bomb kill the kith and kin of our beloved PM, his remote control, our home minister, the champion of minorities honorable CM of UP. I am waiting for that day and I will be happy - just like death, the bomb also doesn't ask the victim's name and neither his father's.

Another hope is that assasination of Indira Gandhi triggered the end of Sikh terrorism, assasination of Rajiv Gandhi ensured LTTE could not gain ground in India, so probably another spill of blue blood will enable a reaction to this turbaned terror from across the border.

Of Senile "Buddhas", OBCs, India and Bharat

Now, before you accuse me of being an armchair critic, let me take up that tag myself, in the sense that I am not out on the road shouting slogans against Arjun Singh and planning to contest the next election against him. However, asking any and everybody who speaks up against idiotic government diktats to take to politics is too simplistic to be of any practical value.

I mean the likes of Arjun Singh have got no stake in the future, educational or otherwise of the country. They have lived their lives, have ensured treatment in New York for themselves whenever they fall ill and have amassed enough property to last the lifetimes of their next seven generations. Themselves, they are at such a juncture in their lives that they realise that had they been able to secure a position in history by some real meaningful initiatives, it'd have already happened. Now, in this twilight hour and if the need to be in history is very strong, the only recourse is do something, any damn thing to get immortalised - even if it is completely shortsighted, suicidal for the booming economy and a professional harakiri in the life of the country. What it does indicate is that Arjun Singh is not as senile as he might sound while it also doesn't indicate that he is as sensible as he tries to pose.

Isn't this ironic that the decisions having potentially far reaching impact on the lives of so many young Indians have to be taken by a "Qabar mein paon latkaye", senescent old man whose only perceptible and even achievable mission in life remains to be stuck with Fevicol to ministerial perks for whatever years gods plan to have him unleashed on our land.

That brings us to another very pertinent question. Somewhere or the other, our high handed snobbery, "Ooooh, voting is for illiterate people in villages of Bihar" attitude is responsible for this. How many educated, intellectuals go to vote - its as if, we, the millenium generation live in India identified with global brands and multiplexes and voting is a thing thing too retrograde - only to be relegated to those wretches still living in Bharat. I read an improvised cliche once, something to the effect that those who condemn politics to be the last refuge of the scoundrel are bound to be ruled by those scoundrels. There is more truth in that than it appears to be, prima facie.

Why is it so that while the international community keeps going ga ga over the Indian middle class while the same middle class has absolutely no political identity in its own country. Why do the politicians think in terms of forwards, backwards, SCs, STs, OBCs, Muslims and not middle class. Saying that we number too little is being evasive and simplistic. I don't have the statistics but I am sure that in at least a few constituencies, we should be in numbers enough to make a difference - provided we make that count. Said simply, provided that we vote.

I know that currently, the numbers may not be high enough to make it a vote bank but then shouldn't we start somewhere.

What this quota chaos has done is that it has removed the artificial protective layer that said, "Oooh, politics only affects people in Bharat, not in India". No my dear friend, it affects each and every person on this land. While we are here, we cannot be detached from the systems, processes and policies here. And its not something insignificant.

In the end, as Amitabh Bachhan said in Deewar, "Agar aapne ise mazaak samjha to baad mein bahut royenge..."

Da Vinci Code and Maai Baap Sarkar

So we have the whole - "Hurt sensibilities, protests and government ban" drama being played once again. This time, Christian sensibilities are hurt and the government first decided to ban the movie, then the IB minister saw it and declared magnanimously that the Censor board will take the final call.

It seems that though, the license raj has long been touted to be over, the government is yet to get over the hang over. Apparently, it will take some more time for the government to realize that keeping a control on how much rice people eat, what TV channels they see, what radio station they listen to, what car they ride on are things it will have to get out of. That patients are dying because of Doctors' stir, that terrorists gun down people in day light and blast away temples on festivals, that power situation is getting grimmer by the day even in the national capital, that road network still sucks in the age of information superhighways and that people who try to stand against deep rooted muck in government systems get shot down seems to be something a shade too insignificant for the government to expend its bandwidth on. Let the governance go to the dogs, I need to watch that movie.

Another interesting corollary is this growing tendency of intolerance amongst us. You are free to say anything as long as I agree with you. Forget about resolving differences sitting across the table, if you utter something that I don't believe in, I will rush to the government to gag you shut. Chances are, the government too will oblige depending upon the weed, the concerned minister smoked that morning.

A sensible person has only three choices - a) develop a rhino's hide, b) go into deep depression, or, c) take to guns. Option (c) doesn't go well with civilized sensibilities, option (b) is too harsh on the protagonist and hence no wonder people prefer option (a). I am thick skinned and unless a harpoon hits my backside, I give a damn about what happens to yours.

Why does Arjun Singh love Reservation ???

This was way back in 1990. In UP, owing to the BJP, Sangh-Parivar sponsored Ram JanmaBhoomi agitation, a word like minority appeasement first entered the consciousness of a 13 year old that I was. I never understood why would a party go to extremes to appease a community forming 20% of population - to tell them that they were super special through blatantly flagrant means - even amending constitution to accomodate prima donnas (words like "Shahbano case", article 365, uniform civil code etc were hot those days) while continuously showing the middle finger to the 80% community. How could you afford to snub 80% to win favour of 20% was something I never understood.

Now I know, I was really innocent. I might have been an avid reader of newspapers and magazines, a staunch follower of political happenings even at that young age, but was too unripe to understand the intricacies.

The fact is that the Hindus are not a community - infact I am afraid, we never were a community. We are a collection of Brahmins, Thakurs, Baniyas, Yadavs, Kurmis, Kayasthas, Dalits etc. Thus, the 80% block I earleir thought existed is, in reality a collection of several 10%, 14%, 12%, 8%, 7% blocks. The logic of appeasement politics is simple - capture enblock 20% and tag along a couple of smaller blocks from Hindus. Thus we have a Muslim-Yadav combination for Laloo, Muslim-OBC combo for Mulayam, Mulsim-SC combo for Mayawati and so on. And though, it is fashionable to attribute all the gandgi to cow-belt politics, their counterparts in far away Bengal, AP, Kerala and TN are no better.

And herein comes the relevance of reservation as a political tool. Bring in reservation, divide the Hindus, create acrimony so that these 5-7-8-10-12% blocks remain water tight, create imaginary clashes of interest and then pose as the messiah of certain groups. Keep them divided for it is best if they remain divided.

Post Mandal-I, a lot of acrimony which had been created between the forward and backward Hindus was on the ebb by now. And then we have the Mandal bomb once again.

I sincerely want to believe that Arjun Singh is really moved by the plight of OBCs who have not been allowed to enter IITs and IIMs owing to the Manuwadi system which only focusses on performance in the Entrance Tests, hell, I even see tears in his eyes at the anguish and agony of the OBCs. My heart goes out for him.

However, there is a cynic in me who just stands in a corner giving a dry, twisted smirk.

Arjun Singh and OBC Reservation in IIMs and IITs

Ours is a great country. One of the greatest thing about our country is the collection of ironies that define our collective existence. Yes, the co-existence of Mercedes and BMW and cows on our roads is just a very superficial manifestation of the kind of dichotomies we live in - day and night.

So we have a government hell bent on making us a USA by 2020, the PM being the champion of progressive globalization that freed us from the flawed ideology of Nehruvian Socialism, we have a Fin minister who is highly regarded for his progressive policies, we have a president who is the epitome of talent, hard work and impressive achievements and amidst all this, we have an HRD minister who is a relic of those good old days of the 80's when empty rhetoric of Socialism, completely short sighted policies and blatant vote bank gimmicks were the rule of the day.

Welcome to 27% for OBCs.

India as a talent hub be damned. India as an economic superpower be damned. IIM alumni winning obscene salaries with global corporate giants be damned. Strategic importance of India's economic machinery and services sector potential be damned. Mr Arjun Singh has elections to win, Ms Sonia has "sacrifices" to make and PM Manmohan has "Rajgaddis" to bow infront.

And then, we have Hon. Arjun Singh innocently pointing out to the Election Commission that he has made no announcements, all this was ratified by Parliament long back and its not with an eye on the five assembly elections. Do you think, Mr HRD Minister, that the people in India are brainless donkeys or are their heads filled with horse dung?

A couple of years back, we had a Physics professor of an HRD minister who thought by reducing the fee of IIMs, he will make IIMs accessible for all and win all the junta's hearts and, more importantly, their votes. The rhetoric was that IIMs are not accessible to Aam Junta. The logic was that Indians are emotional, hare brained morons, who will not know that even with 1.5 lakhs annual fees, IIMs are very much accessible to the Aam Junta, those who can fight it out in the competition. That both the rhetoric and the logic were nothing but horse shit became apparent in the next election when he himself bit dust. He bit dust in his own constituency.

It seems we Indians don't deserve centers of excellence. We deserve to be forever relegated to the status of a pre-civilization, third world country continuously marred with disease, poverty and illiteracy. We deserve being the land of snake charmers and elephants. We dont deserve all the hulla-baloo about an economic superpower in the making. When we can't respect our centers of excellence, we don't deserve them. Every rat-brained moron who takes up the chair of HRD minister thinks it his birthright to play around with what has been made with so much hard work and sweat in whichever way he pleases. What the f*** are Mr Arjun Singh's credentials which empower him to tamper with IITs and IIMs - what does he know about technology and management, what does he know about institutes of excellence, what does he know about the dedication and hardwork the students put in, what does he know about the brilliance of the residents of those campuses - except that there are about 50% OBCs in the assembly constituencies and while he can divide the Hindus by his Mandal politics, his party can simultaneously play the Minority card to cater to Muslims thus growing his base and ensuring the "thaath-baath" of an MP and minister for the rest of his wretched life.

Had it been a movie, the solutionw ould be simple. But in reality, things don't get solved by a passionate, "Maar Dalo Use.."