Author: Mani

Musings, Potshots

The chortle of the mosquito

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Is Delhi  a gas chamber because of  AAP’s foggy scheme to fog out mosquitoes ?

fogged-out-by-aap
“For years they’ve been trying to fog us out…never knew they’d fog themselves in!”

Even as we gasp for breath in this Hell that passes for our beloved national Capital, a burning question troubles the remnants of the brain: who is responsible for replacing our air with this foggy, reeking cocktail of poisonous gases and microscopic dust particles that clouds the mind and sets the nose and eyes and lungs and throat ablaze?

The Hon. Arvind Kejriwal, our beloved Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader, proclaims from the confines of his air-conditioned chambers that the answer to this burning question lies with two groups of anti-social elements:

  • farmers in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana, who are burning the post-harvest crop stubble in their fields and blowing the smoke towards Delhi (using some mysterious technology that does not disturb the still air)
  • Delhi residents – most of them supporters of the Narendra Modi-led Union Government – who  lit fireworks on Diwali, 30th October.

Is Kejriwal right? The jury is still out.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that most of Kejriwal’s cabinet colleagues, too, are still out. Out of Delhi, that is; on overseas study tours, to learn from Peru and Macedonia, Nauru and Patagonia, how to better manage Delhi’s environmental and other problems.

In their absence, let’s try figure it out ourselves.

It is a fact that this year, Delhi’s air pollution levels – particularly the levels of the deadly ultra-fine dust (particulate matter) known as PM 2.5 – actually started rising sharply and steadily long before Diwali, from the third week of September onward,  till they were five times or more above safety levels by mid-October [click here to read more]. After spiking on Diwali night (predictably), the PM 2.5 levels fell sharply the next day (again, predictably).

delhi-pollution-exposing-the-lie
From cseindia.org

But the weirdest thing this year is that, since 3rd November – that’s four days after Diwali – the PM 2.5 levels have again risen sharply…and they continue to rise. Scarily. Today (6th November), the PM 2.5 levels in Anand Vihar were 813 micrograms/cu.m. The maximum safe limit is 60 micrograms/cu.m….

What on earth is going on?

The facts are fraught; the numbers numb the senses; yet they together tell a telling tale that would make an Aedes Egyptii mosquito shiver as though it had malaria.

  • The third week of September always marks the end of the monsoon. Which means, after that there’s no more rain to  dissolve or bring down the dust and other muck we spew into the air. Naturally, we can expect air pollution to rise from end-September. And it does…every year.
  • Early October is the time winter starts to set in. With winter’s onset, a layer of cold (denser) air tends to hang above the City – and there’s no breeze to dissipate this cold air layer. So we can expect pollution to climb even higher during this period And it does…every year.
  • According to Delhi Traffic Police, Delhi has 9,634,976 registered vehicles [click here for details] – most all of them are on the City roads every day, burning diesel and petrol and CNG, and belching the hot, noxious gases and particulate products of combustion into the air around us. Naturally the air gets warmer with all these hot emissions…but the warm air can’t break through the heavier layer of cold air above the City.
  • So, we Delhiwallahs are trapped in a bubble of warm air, that’s trapped inside a larger bubble of cold air.
  • Naturally, the more  foul stuff we spew into our bubble of warm air, the fouler our air-bubble is going to get. Yet we’re doing just that, day after day, with our 9,000,000-plus vehicles. And we’re adding 50,000 new vehicles every month to the City! Oh, let’s not  forget to add  the mega-tonnes of toxic dust we spew into our air-bubble every day:  from our garbage-strewn roads, the gargantuan landfills, the mountains of clinker and ash from power plants, the thousands of under-construction flyovers, buildings, Metro projects… aaarrrggghhh!
  • As for Diwali…well, like with so many traditional festivals/observances, Diwali’s date is determined by the lunar calendar. By definition,  Diwali always falls between mid-October and mid-November— precisely when winter is setting in; precisely when pollution has already become awful. Of course Diwali fireworks spew huge amounts of PM 2.5—but they only add to the already-stupendous, ever-growing load of  pollution in the City’s air-bubble.

Given these facts, it’s not very fair, or very intelligent, for Kejriwal and affiliated AAP netas to blame Delhi’s polluted air on farmers in neighbouring states who are burning crop-stubble, or on Diwali fireworks.

By doing so, the AAP is being as fair, and as intelligent, as the US and  other developed countries who blame India and China and other developing countries for causing climate change. (For 200 years  the US et al.  burned humongous amounts of wood and coke and coal and oil  to power their ‘Industrial Revolutions’, filling the earth’s atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases till we reached the tipping point of irreversible climate change. And now, when China and India et al. are embarking on their own Industrial Revolution, the US and the others rant and rave about how we are  polluting the atmosphere and threatening the future of the earth!)

The harsh truth is, we Delhiwallahs have created the horror we’re breathing. And it’s just going to get worse and worse…until we reduce the number of vehicles on our roads, replace dirty vehicles by cleaner ones, halt the endless construction,  mend our garbage-spewing ways.

Yet, all is not grey and dismal. An unnameable and possibly non-existent IAS officer, recently shunted out by AAP from the Delhi Health Ministry, points out a silver lining in the hideous grey-brown cloud that envelops the Capital. “Cases of dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases have come down drastically in the past month,” he proclaims, in a voice slightly muffled by an N99 mask and No.120 zarda paan.

Great God Google reveals that the officer speaks the truth. Dengue cases have indeed fallen dramatically since the last week of September  [click here to read more].

But wait a minute…the last week of September is precisely  when Delhi’s air quality started to worsen.

It makes us wonder: could this mega-pollution of Delhi’s air actually be  a brilliant scheme by Kejriwal et al. to end the epidemic of dengue and chikungunya that has given the AAP such an AAPalling reputation? Has the AAP government  deliberately ignored the air pollution problem? So that it can get rid  of mosquito-borne diseases by getting rid of the mosquitoes themselves? By fogging the mosquitoes (and in the process, us) to death?

We ran our theory past the IAS officer. His response, delivered from the left corner of his N99 mask, was fluid and swift: a scarlet arc of paan juice that missed us by millimeters. It was followed by a torrent of crimson abuse against the AAP, and ended with an Urdu couplet, slightly modified from Allama Iqbal’s original: a couplet so beautiful and AAPt…er…apt, that we humbly present it here with rough translation:

Raat Machar Ne Keh Diya Mujh Se
Majra Apni Na-Tamami Ka

“Mujh Ko Dete Hain Aik Boond Lahoo
Sila Shab Bhar Ki Tashna Kaami Ka

Aur Ye Be-Wakoof Be-Zehmat
Pe Gya Sub Lahoo Aam Aadmi Ka”

 Last night the mosquito related to me
The tale, in full, of her misery:

“They give me only one drop of blood
In return for my full night’s labour

While, without any toil, these asses
Suck the entire blood of the masses!”

 

Jai hind.

General ravings, Potshots

Why I trust Pakistani media more than Indian Media

Mani's avatarMani 5 Comments

I am beginning to trust the Pakistani media more than our own.

I hear distant howls of protest. The howls are presently followed by yips and snarls, suggesting that I am, in praising Pakistani media, placing my nationalistic credentials in doubt because (according to the yippers and snarlers) the Pakistani media finds nothing good whatsoever to say about Indians and India and is in fact biased against India and obsessed with reportage on Indian evils and stupidities.

I bark back cordially, citing in my defense incontrovertible evidence in public domain (in the shape of every Indian 24/7 TV news channel and every Indian newspaper) that our own Indian media too finds nothing good whatsoever to say about Indians and India and is in fact biased against India and obsessed with reportage on Indian evils and stupidities – even more so than Pakistani media.

Pakistan’s media is better than our own, because at least it tables the hard evidence to support its views on the  idiocies and crimes of Indians.  We are then able to examine that evidence ourselves, and accept or dismiss its worth. In sharp and unpleasant contrast, our very own ‘free’ Indian media rarely provides us with the hard evidence on which we can form our own opinions. Instead, it views and judges the evidence on our behalf (sans our invitation!)…and then, based on its own judgment, proceeds to pontificate, preach or otherwise editorialize on its own views on the matter without showing us the evidence till we rip the newspaper to shreds in rage (thereby depriving ourselves of 0.04 rupees we might have got from the kabadiwallah); or (horror of horrors) we are driven insane and meet a ghastly end staring, zombie-like, at the TV screen whence the shrieks of Arnab Goswami’s News Hour emanate and echo off the walls…

By way of example, consider the curious Indian Express front-page report on Ashoka University on 13th October, 2016 [click here] followed by an editorial on the subject on 17th October 2016 [click here].

Front-page 13th October
Editorial, 17th October

Curious, because it raises a huge hue and cry over the ‘sudden resignation’ of two faculty members (unnamed) of Ashoka University. The Indian Express suggests the resignation is not a resignation but a sacking, allegedly over an online petition on (you guessed it) Kashmir violence that the two faculty members allegedly signed with 80-odd Ashoka University students.

Curious, because while the Indian Express headline suggested that this is something that had just happened, a patient reading of the story through to the inner pages revealed that the petition had in fact been written and posted online in July 2016—that is, nearly three months earlier.

Three months… imagine that.

Curious, that the Indian Express and the rest of Indian media (well, at least the few newspapers like The Hindu that picked up the story) suddenly woke up to the existence of this curious online petition three months after it was posted.

I know people complain about how slow Internet speeds are in India…but surely the ISPs that cater to Indian Express et al. can’t be that slow? Could this be another dastardly plot by the Modi-led NDA government to stifle the freedom of the press?

Less bandwidth, more banned wit?

I was curious to find out more. Curious about why I had never heard of this three-month-old petition. Curious also to read it; surely it had to be really incendiary for someone to be sacked for it – if only three months later? The Indian Express editorial of 17th October called it ‘rather strongly worded’; that only whetted my curiosity.

But even curiouser, in fact absolutely the most ek dum zyaada curious of all (curiousestest, perhaps?), I couldn’t find the petition on the website of any Indian newspaper.

Indeed, not a single Indian media house – neither print nor unprintable – had or has published the contents of the curious petition. Even the online forum where it had originally been posted – kafila.org – was ‘temporarily unavailable’, and has been so for 10 days now.

Which means, We the Wee People of India cannot read the petition via our own media and judge for ourselves as to whether it is worth bothering about.

I had to hunt the petition down on Pakistani media.

And that’s why I think the Pakistani media – indeed its reporters and journalists – are far more honest and transparent, perhaps even more courageous, than our own.

Here is the petition, copied and pasted from Daily Pakistan’s website: [posted there on 28th July 2016!]

https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/world/ashoka-university-students-demand-for-plebiscite-in-kashmir/).

[QUOTE]

To

The Govt of India and the Govt of Jammu and Kashmir

We, the undersigned—current students, alumni of the Young India Fellowship of Ashoka University—write to voice our deepest anguish and grave concern at the violent turn of events in Kashmir in the past few days.

The violence perpetrated by the Indian State after the extra-judicial execution  of 22-year old Hizbul Mujahideen Commander Burhan Wani  is highly condemnable. The Indian Army, Kashmir Police and other task forces have reacted violently with bullets, pellets and lathis in the clashes that erupted after Burhan’s funeral. This was immediately followed by many more protests and demonstrations as part of Kashmiri resistance to the military occupation of Kashmir by the Indian State.

In the violent repression of the protests which had a huge ground support (evident from the large attendance to Burhan’s funeral) , 55 civilians  have been killed and around 3100 people  were severely injured by the pellets , lathis and bullets, some of whom have lost their eyesight.

We, unequivocally, condemn this brutal use of force by the Indian State in dealing with the protests after the killing of Burhan Wani.

Several patients with injuries preferred not to get admitted in the hospital as the Police and CRPF have arrested some patients from the SMHS Hospital Casualty ward.

The armed forces were seen attacking hospitals and ambulances and stopping people going to funeral processions.

Consequently, alarming images of police, army and task force brutalities against women, children and youth have surfaced on social media.

We condemn the inhuman treatment meted out to the patients and the injured at the hands of the armed forces and the police.

At the same time, partial and prejudiced reportage by the jingoist national media is becoming the basis for racism, regionalism and religious intolerance among many Indians who are not afraid to bully Kashmiris and other minorities.

We condemn the grossly irresponsible way in which news channels reported about the on-going spate of violence playing to the majoritarian nationalist sentiments’ in a rush to increase their TRP’s and we appeal to them to report the ground realities, pain and agony of the Kashmiris.

The region is under a complete blackout with all modes of communication and transport blocked. The Valley has been under curfew for the past 14 days and it is still being enforced at the time of the writing of this letter.

Internet and mobile services have been completely cut-off for over nine days now. There are also reports of electricity and water supply cuts in some parts of the state. Newspaper offices of Kashmir Times and Rising Kashmir were attacked by police and its employees arrested and its copies seized.

The attack on freedom of the press is a part of the tactics of the repressive mechanism of the Indian state to contain popular mass unrest in the valley.

This is not a one off incident as similar methods of intimidating and gagging the press have been employed by the government and its security agencies in the last two and a half decades.

This is a complete breakdown of law and order machinery as the institutions which are supposed to maintain peace, law and order are responsible for the lack of same.

We demand the immediate restoration of communication and transport facilities in the valley and appeal to the Govt. to end the curfew too.

The Indian state is inflicting all these atrocities on the Kashmiris in the name of Indians. We believe that the time has come when we protest the human right abuses and violations being carried out in our name by the Indian State. The following are our two pronged demands to the Indian Government:

Demilitarise Kashmir: Kashmir is the world’s most densely militarized colony with over 700000 military, paramilitary and militarized police.

We demand that Army is withdrawn from civilian areas in the Valley and not to use the Army for maintaining regular law and order. We also appeal to the Indian State to confine the job of the army to just the ‘borders’.

We also demand that colonial laws like AFSPA and Public Safety Acts should be repealed keeping in view their draconian nature and the history of human right abuses they have been responsible for.

Conduct A Plebiscite: A plebiscite was promised to Kashmiris as early as 1948 by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India in a white paper released by the Govt. of India.

We demand that this promise of Indian State to the Kashmiris is honoured and a plebiscite should be conducted in the next two years in both the ‘Kashmirs’, the Indian Occupied Kashmir and the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

We believe that the Self Determination right of the Kashmiris is an inalienable right. We demand the Indian state to retreat from Kashmir, and let the Kashmiris decide their future and sovereignty.

University Students and Alumni

[UNQUOTE]

Having read the petition, I think the ’80-odd’ students and faculty who signed this are just that: 80 odd people. Perhaps they are distinctly odd people. A few might even be jackasses. But I’m convinced they are harmless.

But that’s only my opinion. You have every right to form your own opinion. We all do.

Why couldn’t the Indian Express – and the rest of our media – just have published this petition?  And then left it to us to decide whether it is something worth fighting for in the name of upholding ‘liberalism’ (as Indian Express argued ad nauseum in its editorial) or whether (as I believe) it is merely a small, slightly fetid but harmless piece of organic fertilizer rendered in 12-point serif font?

No-one will tell me…there’s no-one to ask.

But now a thought strikes me: don’t our TV channels blip out even the most natural, light-hearted references to acts of sex (Aiyo Rama) or ablutions (Chee Chee Gandha), don’t they blur out even the slightest flashes of skin (male, female or otherwise) above the knee or below the neck, from old TV reruns like Seinfeld? That ‘70s show? Mr Bean, for God’s sake!?

The Indian government hasn’t asked the TV channels to censor these shows; or else surely we would have heard about it!

It’s pretty obvious our media is censoring what we get to see and read…of its own volition.

Today I asked my newspaper vendor whether he could get me Dawn or Daily Pakistan on a regular basis. He said he’ll ask around…but from the way he casually asked me whether I know much about miniature electronics and whether I can drive a truck, I doubt he will.

I’m joking, of course. Sorry to tax your patience…I could go on and on, but it’s nearly 9 p.m. Got to go.

Don’t want to miss Arnab.

Jai Pakistani media. Hai Hai Indian media!

Jai Hind.

General ravings, Musings

Writhing on Writer’s Block

Mani's avatarMani 8 Comments

Writer’s Block is a tough thing to handle.

The symptoms of the dreaded ailment vary in their form and severity.  Currently, I’m in the midst of an attack; from the intensity of the symptoms, I would rate it at about 7.5 on the logarithmic Writher Scale of Writer’s Block. The cranium feels as though it’s filled with a mixture of brick dust, goat’s droppings and fragments of bad memories in stoichiometric proportions, bonded together into a kind of gloopy mass by pressurized chlorine that occasionally emerges from the ears with a muted but high-pitched whistle.

Strangely, no-one else seems to hear the whistle.

From decades of experience, I know that the whistle is in fact nothing more than my Early Warning System, telling me that I must desist from any attempt to write anything at all, or even think in sentences that have more than six words each.

To ignore this warning is to risk a slow, lingering descent into that ghastly hell specially created for writers by the One.  I have tried ignoring the warning, oh yes! I have. And I have suffered agonies, gentle reader, against which would pale into insignificance even the exquisite horrors of watching and hearing  Barkha Dutt, Arnab Goswami and Rajdeep Sardesai  in seriatim non-stop for 72 hours.

To try and overcome Writer’s Block by brute force is to risk entering a nightmarish, torturous eternity sans creativity.

I call it the Aiyo Aeon.

In Aiyo Aeon
The Ecstasy of the Aiyo Aeon

Usually, what I do at such times is what Vyasa, Milton, Shakespeare, Wodehouse, O Henry and the rest of them doubtless did: I engage in innocuous activities.

Like, I weed flower-pots. At an earlier, more innocent age, I would have smoked weed – or pot – while weeding flower-pots.

Or, I sort out the piles of paper,  books and affiliated trash that usually cover most all the furniture in the house.

Or I walk. I stroll around the house, the colony, the park. On occasion, I attempt crawling up assorted walls.

I go buy vegetables and fruit. I come home and wash them, dry them, store them away in fridge.  I clean out the fridge; the loos; the window shutters.  The terrace. The wallet.

I stare sightlessly at walls, ceilings, clouds, treetops, TV screen (on or off). Or I go to the library and stare sightlessly at books on shelves, or pages of magazines and journals, or at the other members sitting and staring sightlessly at me or at the walls or their books and things.

Or I listen to music. Play the guitar, drum on the dining table (the acoustics are specially good on its  wood) or on chairs, occasional tables, glazed clay pots, kitchen counter, steel utensils, passing neighbour’s dog (meaning the dog is passing, not the neighbor; the acoustics of the dog’s ribs are pretty good too).

Sometimes I sing while playing music. I make faces at the mynahs, bulbuls and squirrels that gather at the windows and heckle me when I sing. The crows, credit to them, never heckle me; they only listen in rapt attention; perhaps my voice reminds them of some long-lost relative.

And if all this fails, if and only if I’ve tried every other possible option to no avail…only then do I dare try the most dangerous method to overcome the dreaded barrier of Writer’s Block.

I take pen and paper, or I sit at the desktop.  I draw a deep breath or seven, put down a question, and then attempt to answer the question in not less than 10 words, within an hour.

It is a strenuous task indeed. To quote the great 11th century Roman poet Ibn Muralidhara Digestus, it is as strenuous as overcoming a two-month-long constipation. Even when successful, it usually yields about as interesting end-results, to misquote Steinbeck entirely out of context.

For instance, the following profoundly philosophical question kept me tossing restlessly all night.

Q: At what levels of molecular complexity do social constructs and practices like casteism, racism and fanaticism manifest in Reality?

Today morning, I tried to calm the feverish remnants of my mind and discern the answer by cooking baby potatoes.

It was no use.  The net outcome of my frenzied cerebral processes was amorphous, dry and indigestible; as indeed were the baby potatoes.

However, even as I washed way the cindered remains of the little tubers down the tube, the answer dawned on me—like the welcome glow of light one sees at the end of a long dark tunnel, which upon closer inspection reveals itself to be the headlamp of a diesel  locomotive bearing down upon one at 160 kilometers per hour. The impact was equally powerful; I tottered and clutched the draining board next to the kitchen sink for support, ignoring the three plates, seven spoons, cast-iron kadai and steel davara that I dislodged; ignoring even the sharp pain as the kadai glanced off my right knee, bounced and finally came to a quivering stop on top of my left pinky toe.

Social constructs and practices like casteism, racism and fanaticism do not manifest at atomic, molecular or even macro-molecular level.  They are Unreal.

There are no Brahmin neutrons or Dalit protons, no Hindu gamma rays or Muslim alpha particles, no Aryan DNA or Australo-Dravidian RNA, no White or Black or Brown or Yellow blood groups.

Social constructs and practices like racism, casteism, religious fanaticism, and the rest are insubstantial. They are as meaningless as last week’s dream.  The very terms used to define them are mere bromides to dull the senses; gobbledygook to explain away the senseless, often cruel, thoughts and impulses and deeds of humans who, in greed and ignorance and stupidity, seek to enslave others.

We need to get back to basics! To Science, the True Faith!

Alas, we can’t expect today’s bunch of political leaders or religious teachers to show the Way. Not even today’s scientists. Because, in the century-and-two-decades that have elapsed since J J Thomson discovered the electron, the world’s scientists have not only burrowed deeper and deeper into the Tree of Knowledge, losing sight of the Forest in the process; they’ve gone and drunk up all the Tree Sap, and in their inebriated state started gnawing at the Pith…thereby forgetting even the last concept of the Tree, which now totters on its frail roots.

Yet, the Tree stands. And its seeds are hardy.

We are the seeds. We can find the Way ourselves; we can shrug off the grey despair that we feel with every morning’s newspaper headlines, every TV news bulletin.  We can shrug off the veils of gloom in a trice and see that all humankind, indeed, all Life, the Universe, is One.  And that nothing can ever threaten the One.

Not even Writer’s Block.

Consider the following facts, gentle reader:

  • All Reality is – seemingly – made of Energy and Matter.
  • Matter is no more than a kind of dynamic, crystalline form of Energy; so ultimately, all Reality is pure Energy.
  • We, that call ourselves humans and spend this illusion called Time pondering the nature of Reality while not cindering baby potatoes, are ourselves made from Matter; we therefore are mere manifestations of Energy. As is all Reality.
  • When we sit and observe Reality, then, it’s nothing more (or less) than Energy observing Energy.
  • Therefore, Matter doesn’t matter at all.
  • Nor does Energy, for that matter.

Do I understand any of this crap? Does it make the slightest sense? That’s immaterial; it hardly matters.

All that matters is, my Writer’s Block, on which I have writhed for six weeks, has gone.

May the One illumine our minds, O unsuspecting readers…if there remain any.

Readers, I mean.

 

Potshots, Verse perverse

Rahul Gandhi’s Farewell Song

Mani's avatarMani 5 Comments

[Sing to the tune of ‘Leaving on a jet plane’ – with apologies to the estates of John Denver and Peter, Paul and Mary; click here to hear the original song]

Rahul's tweet
With a tweet little tweet on 20th June 2016, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi announced his departure on a ‘short visit’

All my bags are packed
I’m ready to go
Congress toadies weep outside my door
It’s time to say, Ciao India – Good luck!  Goodbye!

For the Lok Sabha session
Will soon be on
Modi’s gang is waitin’
To take me on
But they won’t find me! Let them try
Let them cry…

Rahul pines on vacation
Ask not for whom Rahul pines/ He pines for you and me

They’ll miss me by miles, you’ll see
No one knows where I’m gonna be
I’ll be having a blast, that’s for sure!

‘Cause I’m leavin’ on a jet plane
Doin’ my disappearing act again
Oh Ciao my Congress! It’s such a joy to go

There are so many places I’ve found

To bask in, revel in, laze around
But I tell you now, although they bring a zing
Ev’ry place I go, I’ll think of you
Ev’ry song I sing, I’ll sing for you
When I come back, I’ll bring you a little bling

So miss me, Storm the Well for me
Tell me that you’ll Walk Out for me
Extol me like you’ll never let me go

‘Cause I’m leavin’ on a jet plane
Doin’ my disappearing act again
Oh Ciao India! it’s such a joy to go…

[Refrain]

 

 

 

 

Musings, Potshots

Behold! The Banyan in the Lotus

Mani's avatarMani 5 Comments

A shady analogy for a shady party?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said a curious thing on 20th March 2016, while addressing the BJP National Executive . [click here to read the full report on what Modi said that day].

Modi called on his party members and workers to view the BJP party like a ‘big banyan tree that provides shade to all kinds of people’

It’s a curious analogy: the BJP as a banyan tree?

Banyan Lotus TreeNow, before going further, it’s important for me to state right away that as a true Nationalistic and Patriotic Indian I have nothing but love for all banyan trees, irrespective of their class, caste, religion or race. I am aware that the banyan is the National Tree of India. It is a place of honour well deserved, and derived primarily from the banyan’s profusion across the country, its robustness and ability to thrive in rugged soils and survive hard climes, and its sheer awe-inspiring size and capacity to provide shade to huge numbers of people at a time.

This disclaimer re. the National Tree is important in this day and age, when everyone, from professional politicians to professors professing politics, is obsessing at shriek-level on main-scream media over the profound question of what one can, cannot, or need not say to prove that one is Nationalistic and Patriotic.

But still, I think it’s curious to liken the banyan to the BJP, a political party.

For one, it’s common knowledge that the banyan allows nothing else to grow in its shade; not even a blade of grass. The only thing that grows beneath a banyan is the banyan itself; for, as it grows, the banyan puts innumerable aerial roots down, and in time these roots themselves grow thick as trunks…and so a single banyan extends itself laterally, often covering many thousands of square metres in area.   And nothing else grows in that area.

Besides, the banyan bears no fruit – at least, none that we humans can eat. It also has a well-known propensity to attach itself to a host tree and grow around it till it eventually strangles the host – for which reason the banyan is also called the ‘strangler fig’.

And it is precisely because of these characteristics of the banyan that ancient Indian tradition – over which, curiously enough, the BJP claims sole copyright – while venerating the banyan tree or Vata Vriksha,  also associates the banyan tree with unfriendly spirits and ghosts…and with  Yama, the God of Death.

Actually, on reflection, Modi’s analogy might fit the BJP well.

In fact, the analogy might fit not only the BJP but all our political parties – Left, Right and Congress – to a tee.

Or rather, to a banian, if not a banyan.

Jai Hind! Jai Banyan!

General ravings, Potshots

Azadi from JNU-itis!

Mani's avatarMani 15 Comments

At last, the terrible media-borne epidemic of JNUitis may be ending

After spending 20 days in jail on charges of ‘criminal conspiracy’ and ‘sedition’, JNU Student’s Union president Kanhaiya Kumar has been freed on six months’ bail by the Delhi High Court, with some vitriolic judicial advice that he (Kumar) should try and behave like a mature and reasonably intelligent adult in the interim.

I am as elated at the news of Kumar’s release as the members of JNU Student’s Union—but for slightly different reasons.

I am elated, and express my fervent thanks to the High Court, for taking a giant step forward to liberate 1600 million Indians (including yours truly) from the inhuman cruelty of being subjected to incessant coverage, by TV news channels and newspapers, on what transpired, or did not transpire, or allegedly transpired, in the campus of JNU on 9th February 2016. Media houses and sundry sun-dried intellectuals have presented us with about 213,511 versions (as of 1100 hours, 2nd March) of what ‘REALLY’ happened in JNU on that fateful, faithful day. And each version has been cycled and recycled 24/7, day after hideous day, backed by countless ‘original’ and ‘authentic’ CDs, reinforced with in-depth analyses, transcripts, interviews, editorials, essays and affiliated ravings.

My already feeble mind has been completely overwhelmed by all this media noise, this information overload on JNU ad nauseum. I have been afflicted with the dreadful media-borne plague of JNUitis. I do not know truth from lie or half-truth; I do not know whether what happened (if anything happened at all) in JNU was or wasn’t worth my notice, leave alone India’s notice; whether it was fateful or faithless, anti-national or antiquated, communal or communist, secular or jocular.  Thanks to this saturation bombardment on the JNU affair by media and intelligentsia, I’ve been reduced to the status of a depressed and slightly deranged amoeba in emotional strength and intellectual abilities (if not in shape as well, having missed so many yoga sessions).

Even the protesting JNU students seem to have been affected by this awful JNUitis, considering the amoebic levels of mature intellectualism evidenced in some of their slogans and poster campaigns. For instance, one brave poster offered hope to the jailed JNU students by drawing inspiration from Harry Potter. It read:

“Dark times lie ahead and we have to choose between what is easy and what is right. Even Dumbledore had to go through a lot of problems because of the ministry. We are there with you”.

—‘Dumbledore’s army’.

JNU12
JNUSU as Dumbledore’s Army? JNU as Hogwart’s Castle?

I strongly suspect there are hundreds of millions of other Indian suckers like me, sharing my worry that if this dreadful media-borne epidemic of JNUitis endures and spreads, India as we know it will be no more.  Might our nation be reduced to no more than a Giant Amoebic Commune? A shapeless agglomeration of 1.6 billion amoeba, of differing religions, castes, classes, cultures and languages, prone to fights over rights, riots over diets, rants over pants?

Maybe… but what the hell, even then there is Hope. The hope that all of us Indian amoeba will remain united in our diverse perversity, bravely sharing in the glorious Dream of our protoplasmic unicellular Forefathers and Foremothers, the Dream to become a multi-cellular organism!

And now that Hope has been kindled into flame! Thanks to the High Court decision giving azadi to Kumar, I and hundreds of millions of my co-Indian amoeba know that what happened in JNU was just plain silliness, compounded by more silliness. To paraphrase the High Court verdict so that other amoeba can understand it:

  • Some asses in JNU yelled something silly.
  • Other asses in the government took the silliness too seriously and jailed the former asses.
  • Now the latter asses have been told to release one of the former asses.
  • The released ass has been told to shed his assiness and behave like a sensible amoeba.

Now that Kumar has been set free to pursue his intellectual pursuits, I hope and pray to all secular and politically correct deities that Kumar’s colleagues Umar Khalid and Anirbhan Bhattacharya too will be set free soon to pursue their respective intellectual pursuits.

This will, I hope, also free our police personnel from having to pursue silly but harmless students, and instead pursue the genuine criminals who are pursuing hapless citizens like me out here on the streets of Delhi.

Above all, it will free our media from spreading JNUitis across the nation.

Upon which, God Willing, Inshallah, with Krishna’s Blessings and Mao’s Benign Wishes, we Indian amoeba may all revert to becoming human! Our intrepid and fervid media folk can then get back to giving us what we all love to watch and hear and read and participate in as peace-loving, patriotic, nationalistic citizens: namely, reportage and serials and soaps and movies filled with stories of religious and caste conflicts, murders, rapes, and affiliated violent crimes.

Jai Hind!

[Disclaimer:  I, R P Subramanian, aka Mani, do hereby declare that I have written the above in customary unsoundness of mind, body and ethylated spirits, of my own free will, and without coercion, subversion or conversion.]

 

General ravings, Musings

Jai Backwards! Jai Hind!

Mani's avatarMani 8 Comments
Jats in action
Jats fearlessly exposing themselves to injury during agitation

At last, the Jats of Haryana have triumphed in their heroic week-long struggle to be recognized as ‘Backward’. With the Government of India and the Government of Haryana declaring the Jats to be a Backward Community, the Jats have called off their agitation.

We, the people of India, are overjoyed. We congratulate the Jats for joining the swelling ranks of the Backward!

But the Jats have also suffered terribly during their heroic, Nationalistic struggle.

Thousands of young Jat men suffered cuts, bruises and sprains while lifting and dragging heavy stones, concrete blocks and tree-trunks to block all the highways and railway lines in Haryana, Punjab and Delhi, and while assaulting non-Jat passers-by with rocks, sticks and affiliated blunt weapons.

Many Jat men experienced severe dehydration and exhaustion as they wielded sledge-hammers, crowbars and other heavy tools to destroy the pumps, sluice gates, and affiliated equipment and concrete works used to supply water to New Delhi’s 15 million people via the Munak Canal.

Countless Jat men—and even a few Jat women (whose names have been noted by the Jat Khap Panchayats for future reference and action) — suffered lacerations, muscle pulls and back pains  as they broke shop windows and raided malls and supermarkets to loot mobile phones, refrigerators, cars, branded footwear and apparel, perfumes, lingerie, and other essential commodities.

Of particular concern is the fact that at least fifty Jat men are still under treatment for severe ailments such as neck and lower back injuries (from wielding heavy axes and swords), ‘shooter’s finger syndrome’ (from pulling stiff triggers of pistols and country guns) and burns (from setting fire to railway stations, buses, automobiles, shops, houses, truck tyres, and a few non-Jat passers-by).

Alas, the sufferings and sacrifices of the Jats in their heroic, Nationalistic struggle have gone unnoticed by our callous mainstream media, which has only been obsessed with the Anti-National protests of JNU students.

However, We, the Wee People of India, deeply sympathize with the poor Jats for the terrible hardships they faced and the sacrifices they made during their  struggle. We demand that they be compensated for their injuries and losses.

In ringing tones, We, the Wee People of India, assure the Jats that India shall forever recognize and celebrate their  Nationalistic struggle for what is, after all, the fundamental right of every true-blood, caste-ironed Indian – to be recognized by the world as Socially, Economically and Culturally Backward.

What a fine ideal the Jats have set of True Selfless Nationalism; an ideal  for the young Anti-National JNU-wallahs to emulate!

Inspired by the Jats, let  all Indians now unite, Forwards and Backwards, in our relentless hind-ward journey towards Backward Development.

Let our government demand a Reserved Seat for India in the UN Security Council under the Backward Quota.

Jai Backwards!

Jai Hind!