"Everything is inconsequential", the master said, his senile face radiating youthful aplomb.
The young disciple responded with a smile. "Thank you", he uttered softly and walked out.
The teaching was complete.
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Every account of the origins of the state starts from the premise that "we"
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Politics: 'Poli', a Latin word meaning 'many'; and 'tics' meaning 'bloodsucking creatures'.
- Robin Williams
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The lonely poet wondered,
"Life is drifting nowhere
Or, am I?"
Nobody heard his words
No answer came forth
The evening was sombre
And the sky murky
The bird refused to fly
The lute would not play
And his heart knew no quiet
He walked out barefoot
To the waters of the sea
The sand beneath danced;
With a flutter of its wings
The bird took to the skies
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JWT announced, in December '06, 70
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As I reached the junction, I noticed a speeding Ambassador. A melodious number played on the stereo and I hummed along. Traffic was absolutely still on all sides. After an hour-long dreary drive among insanely chaotic city traffic, this moment looked like a blessing. A moment, I thought, that I should either seize without ado or miss for eternity. Without a blink of thought, I pushed the accelerator down and manoeuvred the car to follow the Ambassador.
The car in front seemed to be driven by Narain Karthikeyan, and the road was unusually empty, but I was too elated by the moment to discern the oddity. Still humming the tune as the car accelerated, I looked at the rear-view mirror and saw a few Ambassador cars following at as much speed. A second or two later, it occurred - with a stratling fit of coming-to-terms-with-reality - there was something distinctly different about the drive. The aural faculty diminished in strength, the tune now moved into the background; the visual faculty turned more alert and I looked intently for signs. The revelation pushed me to the limits of alertness - I mistook the Ambassador for an idle speeding vehicle and hastily drove into a minister's convoy.
I heard the tune no more. My imminent mission was to get out of it. Caught between cars moving at great speed, it was no mean task. One wrong move and it would get only worse.
But before I could decide the method for accomplishing the mission, two police vans came racing past the cars as if to thwart a terror attack that has been designed to raze the city. The next second, one of the vans was right beside my car. The second van was behind it. "Gosh! Best of luck!", I told myself. The chap in uniform looked at me and said, "What are you up to?" He must've meant, "What the fuck are you doing, asshole?" After all, driving into a convoy was an intolerable infringement! Servant intruding master's space! The question, or doubt, "Who is the servant and who is the master?" does not belong to politics anymore; it is now strictly limited to the domain of metaphysics.
All the same, I looked at the chap who had just looked at me and asked, "What are you up to?" Nice cop: a sample of a minority race. I raised my hand and said, "I am sorry!" The cop was smart too - he instantly realized, "Ah! this guy can't be a threat. A dud!" With an assuring, quick smile, he said, "Move out!" Lucky day and a nice cop: a rare combination. "Thank you!", so saying, I pulled out.
A few seconds later, I was out of the convoy. Liberation. My 15 seconds of tryst with power ended. I stopped the car.
It took a minute before thousands of fellow servants, ordered to stop, started moving again.
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In the days of kings, the subject was told: You used to be the subject of King A, now King A is dead and behold, you are the subject of King B. Then democracy arrived, and the subject was for the first time presented with a choice: Do you (collectively) want to be ruled by Citizen A or Citizen B?
Always the subject is presented with the accomplished fact: in the first case with the fact of his subjecthood, in the second with the fact of the choice. The form of the choice is not open to discussion. The ballot paper does not say: Do you want A or B or neither? It certainly never says: Do you want A or B or no one at all? The citizen who expresses his unhappiness with the form of choice on offer by the only means open to him
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The 60th I-Day is just a few days away, and the hype has already started. It'll be a task to endure the euphemisms, that shallow emotion of patriotism, the loud, pointless talkshows, the giggling pretty faces with tricolor painted across, and the absolutely faked speeches of those fucken goons (read politicians). It'll be everywhere - newspapers, idiot box, newsmagazines, radio, blogs (ironical that I mention!), billboards, websites. While patriots revel and media exploit, it'll be a compulsive viewing of the circus for chaps whose attitude is that of non-solidarity toward fellow compatriots.
Some things never change! One hears the same lines every year. Same issues, same tasks, same problems, same stupid questions, same trite answers, same plans. They sell me the same idea every goddamn year - "today is grand, tomorrow will be grander". Nothing beats it for an exercise to make one a stoic.
Among the many opinion polls, democracy has again been voted the "greatest national pride". Just because we have an elected government, they keep telling me it's a democracy! To hell with having an elected government! The more important attributes for a democracy are accountability and responsiveness of the government. How accountable and responsive a government do we have?
Yes, RTI sounds fine and one can get some things done by voicing a concern (which goes by the grand phrase, "freedom of speech"), but this works only if the opposition is on your side. Let the concern be something that corners the opposition as well, and you will be eliminated. The din against quota works, the "non-violent protests" (glamorous exercises these days, thanks to Mr Gandhi) demanding justice for a certain Ms Lal work, the demand for better roads works, but expose the criminal deeds of the bastards among the ruling party and opposition as well, and nothing happens - even if you have video footage to boot. Just because some of us can write inconsequential pieces - against the system - in magazines and blogs and survive, it doesn't imply we enjoy "freedom of speech". For every lucky few who survive, there are thousands who don't. The powerless are fucked day in and day out. This has been the story for decades. Nothing has changed.
And, by the way, how fair an "elected" goverment it is? They bribe for votes, they rig, they use power, they manipulate, and they win. Barely 60% people turn out to vote, out of which votes are distributed among a dozen candidates. Chap X gets the maximum number of votes and he becomes the representative. If 70% (of the 60% that turn out) votes go for 11 candidates and 30% go for chap X, he wins by virtue of numbers. If you actually map it to the population, only 18 (considering it is a "fair" election) out of every 100 approve of him. Being unable to force the 40% who opt out of exercising franchise to do otherwise, the government equates "majority" with "maximum number" of votes. Democracy has more flaws - not as regards a concept, but as regards implementation - than just this. The concept sounds great on paper, no doubt. But then, even those of monarchy and dictatorship sound just as great. Democracy is, by many means, certainly the better one, but it needs a lot of basics to be in place. India is far from that.
To my mind, heritage is India's greatest pride. Its philosophy should come as close, too. One has to, however, ask brilliant chaps like Siddhartha in Pratidwandi to get correct answers. He would not mention democracy even among his top ten.
Majority opt the easy way, for it's practicable. They keep referring to the "positive thinking" mantra - be blind to the foibles, focus on the achievements. The glitz of the effects of economic growth are thus passed on as justifications to feel proud and entertain "hope" for a "better" tomorrow - a day that never comes. Illusion always makes for a better companion than reality. Ideal is always a preferred beloved to status quo. Idiotic references also come in handy - "Come on dude, with all its flaws, we are better off than most countries. Look at the brighter side! Chill!"
Comparisons are good in academia, and they better be left there. One can write bestsellers with their focus on comparison, but it's ridiculous to derive fake emotions from it to beat the harsh facts of reality. How sensible is it to console oneself that a chap in, say, country XYZ is exploited worse than he is? How does it matter if citizens in other countries are worse or better off? We live in this country, we elect some chaps and we expect it to go well. If there is a problem, the solution is within, not without. That we live in a "connected" world matters at economic level, not as regards the relation between the rulers and the ruled.
The powerless have no voice, corruption is rampant, exploitation is rife, and the system is rotten. Unless these things change, it's a sham that we take pride in democracy. As the 60th I-Day beckons and the world looks up to us as an emerging superpower, we are still ruled by goons! And we don't seem to be doing anything to correct this!
A tad cynical perhaps, but I will rather down a glass of wine hoping we get rid of goonocracy than join the dance of the patriots to celebrate democracy. Cheers!
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It walked in with quiet
It strolled without a word
And it left in silence
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Deliverance comes knocking
In the disguise of death
The uninvited guest walks in
And looks at me askance
Impatience glows in His eyes
As He, with air of indifference
Awaits to finish the errand
Lying low, beaten and helpless
On ground drenched in blood
I plead Him a few moments more
But He cares not, and I go
Watching with tear-dimmed eyes
The embers of fond memories
And the unsaid final words
Ye all the loves of life
The final sojourn beckons
Forgive me as I go thus
A silent, hurried, remorseful exit
To a world unseen and unknown
Leaving behind not a trace
Of either the here or the hereafter
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It seems that entertaining the masses has become the foremost objective of media. The Times of India is the pioneer in this regard of making entertainment more important than information. Sensationalism has taken the driver's seat, objective reporting be damned! Among the host of 24x7 newschannels, not a single one dares to not give in to the fixation for TRPs and upping the advertising revenue. Thanks to these eternally insomniac producers of kitsch, the word "exclusive" will soon join - if it has not already - those that drive a chap to the limit of anger.
In retrospect, the days of Doordarshan appear much better. Bland and limited footage, but non-intrusive and crisp. Just the way reporting ought be. Tight schedule and small teams meant they had no time to blabber about reality shows, bollywood weddings, and openings of superstar movies. No stupid talkshows, no cosmetic copy, and news was just news. I liked the Prannoy Roy of The World This Week and election analyses, not the one who does boring talkshow stuff now.
These days, there's no news - they are rather short films and docu dramas, complete with transition effects and background score. A few weeks ago when a bomb blast happened in Hyderabad, a popular newschannel aired exclusive footage of the blast! What surprised me most was the perfect placing of camera, its focus and angle to catch the sudden flight of birds at the moment of the blast. What are the odds for it being a coincidence that the cameraman was at the right place at the right time of an absolutely unpredictable event? Many people had raised this question but it proved futile, for nobody pursued it further. The unhealthy drive for sensationalising events and airing exclusive footage has gone to dangerous extent.
Even though the proliferation of channels generated employment for many, nothing has been done about assessing the quality of reporters. But then when money is all that matters, you can't expect them to do any better than roping in pretty young things, trained better in phony accent than fundamentals of reporting, and passing them as bright reporters who know their job. I don't have anything against pretty sights on the idiot box - it would certainly be exciting to watch them strip as they talk about fashion shows, stay-young tips and tricks, celebrity gossip and other such bullshit. But when it's about analysis of economic growth, refugees, Satyajit Ray retrospective, Beethoven's symphonies, I'd prefer a reporter with girl-next-door looks, brilliant at analysis, prudent and straight at reporting to a gorgeous babe passing off ridiculous conclusions.
They find scholars and academics boring. Let you be a celebrity and they will consult you for opinions on issues ranging from world peace to consumerism to communal riots to political ethics. If you attracted controversy, the more popular you will be in interview and talkshow circuit. That is why Rakhi Sawant gained more airtime - in main features, let alone filmi and gossip ones - by showing skin than Amartya Sen could manage by winning the Nobel. The scene is so appalling that I enjoy Cyrus Broacha's The Week That Wasn't better than I do any newscast.
Print medium still has a few better chaps, and that is definitely a consolation. In entirety, though, Indian media would need decades to achieve even a tolerable level of maturity. Till then, I'll do better using the idiot box to watch only sports and ads.
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Books 2015:
1. The Man Within My Head
2. Discontent and Its Civilizations
3. Manhunt
4. The Strange Library
5. Design As Art
6. Free Radicals
7. The Blank Slate
8. The Festival of Insignificance
9. Aarushi
10. Man (Dis)Connected
11. A Good Story
12. Camus, A Romance
13. Bank of Dave
14. The Myth of Excellence
15. The Music of Man
16. Jack Reacher
Films 2016:
1. Abbayitho Ammayi / Tel
2. Bajirao Mastani / Hin
3. Chhota Bheem and the Himalayan Adventure / Hin
4. Wazir / Hin
5. Naannaku Prematho / Tel
6. Chalk N Duster / Hin
7. Airlift / Hin
8. Kalavathi / Tel
9. Asterix / Eng
10. Ghayal Once Again / Hin
Idea of the Month:
Why is it the way it is?
