General ravings

General ravings, Musings

Happy Netako Ungli Dikhana Diwas!!

Mani's avatarMani 6 Comments 
"The Moving Finger votes; and having voted
Moves on; nor all thy Ideology nor Writ
Shall lure it back to concede half a Chance,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a NOTA from it.”
[with apologies to the estate of Omar Khayyam]

Just a fortnight to go, O gentle Reader, for the Sacred Day of June 4th — which will mark the grand culmination of the greatest of festivals that Democratic India has gifted to the world… Netako Ungli Dikhana Diwas!

For those among us who might be unfamiliar with India’s glorious heritage and culture, Netako Ungli Dikhana Diwas roughly translates from the ancient Indian language of Tapori Hindi to ‘Day to Show Politician the Finger’.

It is such an appropriately named festival as we traverse the Digital Age, no?

It is the Day We Show Politicians a Digit.

 Netako Ungli Dikhana Diwas is a beautiful festival, even by India’s stellar standards of sublime secular celebration. It is observed once every five years and lasts for many weeks, depending on the Lunatic Calendar.

This time the festivities last for a full 44 days, starting from 19th April and ending on 4st June 2024. 

This Holy Period is marked not by austere fasts, but instead by joyous and frenzied public revelry throughout the nation, with intermittent  region-wise climaxes—called Electoral Days by the intelligentsia and Electoral Dysfunction Days by the irreverent and irrelevant—when We the Wee People troop to our local Electoral Shrines to observe the Hallowed and Powerful Ritual of the Forefinger, our brains numbed by six weeks of incessant, insensitive and incendiary sloganeering, our spirits buoyed by the giga-litres of free ethylated spirits and other heady gifts and freebees distributed among us by the Powers-That-Be who comprise both rulers and the aspiring-rulers of Bharat that is India .

Ahhh! How eagerly I await May 25th, fingers a-twitching in unholy excitement, to take my turn in celebrating this greatest of ancient Indian festivals.

May 25th 2024 is Electoral Day for us Dilli-wallahs.

It is the day I shall sally forth with my co-sufferers in the sweltering Capital, most likely around 07:30 a.m when it is a cool and pleasant 105 degrees F in the shade, to queue up at the designated Electoral Shrine and have my forefinger anointed with Holy Ink by the solemn Presiding Priests and Priestesses and take my turn in the quiet, curtained sanctum sanctorum to choose one name from among the dozen scoundrels, scallywags, assorted crooks and scamsters who seek my vote that might help them become one of the 543 Members of Parliament who will misgovern India for the next five years.

Oh, please don’t get me wrong…I love Lok Sabha Elections.

 I love Netako Ungli Dikhana Diwas!

I also love the Exit Polls that take over every media channel and newspaper from the moment the last vote is cast—from the evening of June 1st, that is! This year, I’m going to binge-watch at least five different Indian TV news channels— and also monitor leading and misleading Indian and international online news portals of impeccable disrepute such as The Wire, BBC, New York Times, The Dawn, and The People’s Daily—to chortle non-stop at their wildly diverse ‘analyses’ and predictions as to which political party or alliance is going to emerge as the winner.

And when Netako Ungli Dikhana Diwas dawns…June 4th… Oooooohh! Awwwwkkk!

Already, I tremble in anticipation of getting a year’s worth of mirth and merriment from morning to night as I watch and listen to anxious anchors, earnest experts, jaded journalists, pontificating psephologists and affiliated pretenders yap away non-stop as the numbers and results come in from across the country;  numbers and results that will invariably differ exponentially from all their painstakingly presented pre-poll and exit poll predictions. 

And my chuckles will explode into belly-aching roars of laughter and I will double over and and shake and dance in ecstasy in front of the TV screen—and perhaps waggle my Holy Ink-anointed finger and wiggle my non-Holy Ink-anointed butt in their collective faces for good measure—as they explain how in fact they actually got all their predictions right,  and how it is that We, the Wee People, must take the blame for not voting according to their analyses and predictions.  

I look forward to chortling over brave explanatory phrases like these from the Talking Heads on TV, YouTube, WhatsApp, Twitter and other boob-tubes:

“…Thus, our forecasts were absolutely spot-on! The variance from actual results is only because our correctly predicted swing factor towards the Secular I.N.D.I.A Coalition in North Indian states has been counter-balanced by the last-minute counter-oscillation of Backwards towards the Hindutva-inclined BJP, though of course this in turn has been somewhat mitigated by the usual Koeri-Kurmi antipathy toward the Right-leaning Thakurs, the Centrist Yadavs, and Left-leaning EBCs and Muslims…”

“As you can see from this graphic, our predictions that the Congress would sweep Uttar Pradesh with 75–80 seats were 100% accurate. The fact that they’ve actually won only 3 seats is entirely due to the urban and peri-urban electorate’s incremental wooing by the BJP through excremental programs like Swacchh Bharat Abhiyaan…”

“The sweep by BJP in Delhi has nothing to do with the AAP broom. It is directly a result of the complex interplay between the policy paralysis of the AAP government with over 60% of its Cabinet Ministers in Tihar Jail,  and the mid-election Maliwal–Kejriwal– Sheesh Mahal –Ghotalay Golmal,  combined with the overall  Maha-Dalit–Bhumihar consolidation against I.N.D.I.A in NCR region and the Adi Dravid-Tamil Brahmin groups in Tamil Nadu against the DMK…”

“To put it in plain and simple language:  the results only underline the deep inroads carved into the superstructure of Indian democracy by the enduring Brahmanical Hegemony that, strengthened by communal agendas and catalysed by the institutionalization of Comprador agencies masquerading as pseudo-Right Liberal entities, have promoted exploitative neo-Capitalist policy frameworks and schemes which have historically been proven to be contrapuntal to the interests of the oppressed subaltern sections of society…”

O precious Reader, please do pardon my feeble efforts above: these are mere examples, pale imitations of the turgid, hilarious phrases that we will actually get to hear from the learned Talking Heads who will analyse the poll results for us, from June 4th till the next Lok Sabha elections.

 Ahh! It is at times like this that I miss those supremely entertaining Talking Heads of yesteryear:  those masters and mistresses of gobbledygook whose names most of us have forgotten… like Purana  Roy, Khadka Butt, Saregama the Ghost, et al…

But then, we still have the likes of Roger Deep- Sordid Sai,  Hardknob Gowshala and Nervy Cuckoomar to regale us as we track the poll outcomes up to and even beyond Netako Ungli Dikhana Diwas…to Gaali Diwas.

Gaali Diwas!

The Day of Swearing-In!

Gaali Diwas is the day the newly-appointed Prime Minister and his/her chosen Ministers take their oaths and are sworn in to their respective orifi…er…offices. 

Going by its name, Gaali Diwas should be the day when you and I should be given the opportunity to attend the swearing-in rituals personally so that we can swear and hurl oaths and abuse at the newly-appointed Prime Minister and his chosen Ministers as they take their oaths. Particularly, if they are not the leaders we voted for.

However, this requires reform in the Law.

I am confident that the Leader for whom I am going to vote will bring in the necessary reform to allow the public this wonderful and indeed fundamental right to free fundamentalist expression.

I shall pray for such an outcome on May 25th, when I visit my Electoral Shrine and vote.

“Bollocks!” exclaims the Resident Lizard, rudely interrupting my flow of thoughts.

The Resident Lizard has crept up on me silently, like a predatory Aam Aadmi Party leader in Kejriwal’s Sheesh Mahal, and is reading over my shoulder as I write. It is a most annoying habit (his reading over my shoulder, I mean, not my writing).

“If your Chosen Leader becomes Prime Minister, you wouldn’t want to swear at him,” my reptilian colleague adds with his typical cussed logic. “So what’s the point of your Chosen Prime Minister bringing in a reform that allows  you to swear at him when he’s being sworn in, when you’re anyway not going to swear at him?”

Infuriated, I throw a priceless crystal cup, a wireless mouse, a printer cartridge, my reading glasses case and three pens at the Lizard. All miss their target; but he skilfully extracts the reading glasses from the case, dons them with a sardonic chuckle and scuttles off to the living room to read the newspaper.

I regain my composure; I realize I must tolerate the Resident Lizard’s presence and his views.

After all, he too, awaits Netako Ungli Dikhana Diwas.

And so, I conclude this herewith before joining him in the living room.

Hail the spirit of Vasudaiva Kutumbakam.

Jai Hind!

[Dedicated to a dear young socio-anthropologist friend who – unlike so many politicians – loves to work among the people for the people, loves merriment and well-being and peace, loves Life (though not lizards of any kind so much)…and yes, loves the Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam 🙂]

General ravings, Potshots

ABC Primer on Artificial Intelligence for our new MPs

Mani's avatarMani 5 Comments

With the Lok Sabha elections 2024 well under way, we humbly offer selections from a small glossary of terms that, we hope, will help our newly elected Members of Parliament function effectively in a world that is increasingly being driven by Artifical Intelligence and related technologies.

Note: the glossary is still a work-in-progress; this selection of terms is inflicted on you merely by way of a ‘Beta Test’ (please see below for its definition).

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is a scientific term first used over 2000 years ago in ancient India, when the great philosopher-military strategist Kautilya composed his Arthashastra. Artificial Intelligence (or AI as it is popularly known) describe the simulation—or mimicry—of normal human capabilities such as communication, learning, and decision-making by a political leader of limited or even infantile intellectual abilities. The creation of an AI-endowed leader is a complex R&D process requiring sustained support in the form of mass subliminal advertising campaigns, saturation social/main-scream media coverage, marketing techniques, retrospective psychological and academic profiling, continuous rewritings of political and historical lineage, and other such elements. Such long-term and multi-faceted support requires colossal financial and other resources. Hence, AI-endowed leaders are usually found only in the richest and oldest Indian political parties such as the Indian National Congress.  

Generative AI is a related term, used to describe AI projects that have to be sustained over many generations in order to create and stabilize an AI-endowed political leader.

OpenAI is the short and informal term used by media professionals and marketing/advertising agencies to indicate that a political party has openings, i.e., vacancies, for training aspiring political candidates who have suitably open and vacant minds to become AI-endowed leaders.

Algorithm

An Algorithm is a fundamental sequence of rules that define the path of an AI-empowered politician’s career. However,  Algorithm can take many meanings in different parts of India, mirroring our nation’s disunity in perversity.

For instance, among the Hindi-speaking states of north India, Algorithm [pronounced ‘alag-rhythm’] is popularly used to praise an AI-empowered political leader who is seen as following a different or unique path to political power. Thus, a Congress supporter might be heard saying: “Hamara pyaara neta Rahuljee alag-rhythm ko naachta hai!” [Loose translation: ‘Rahuljee, our beloved leader, dances to a different rhythm.”]

In Tamil Nadu, algorithm [pronounced ‘Alagiri-r-dum’: ‘the power of Alagiri’] conveys a sense of wistfulness—even sadness—at the fate of DMK leader M K Alagiri, who was once seen as the heir and brilliant Rising Son of the late and great DMK supremo K Karunanidhi, but whose political career has rapidly waned and sunk beneath the horizon like the setting sun … even as brother Stalin sets the state ablaze in his dubious light. Thus, a Madurai citizen might shake her head sadly and murmur: “Paavam, Alagiri-r-dum pochu!’ [‘Poor Alagiri’s power is gone!’]

In West Bengal, Algorithm [pronounced ‘All-Agree-Team’, meaning self-explicit] is a popular and explicit term coined by Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Bannerjee, to remind her Cabinet Ministers as well as party cadres that she expects unquestioning obedience from them of her every wish and command.

Important Algorithm-related terms include:

  • Classification—technique by which politician divides and target voters on the basis of class, caste, religion, language, sex, and economic status including various permutations and combinations of these criteria.
  • Regression—(1) a portmanteau word [regrets + session = regression] that describes the common phenomenon of political leaders expressing profuse regrets on ongoing  basis for ‘inadvertent’ insults and abuses that they directed at rivals during earlier campaign speeches. (2) Regression is also used in the sense of ‘backward motion’ to describe the political strategy of promising more and more sections of people that they will be classified as ‘Backward Classes’ so that they can reap benefits of affirmative action policies such as reserved seats in educational institutions, quotas in government jobs, and so on.   

Beta test 

Beta Test [from beta = son, daughter or any other kind of offspring; test = pariksha, trial] describes the complex science-based process—or more accurately, scions-based process— by which an AI-endowed son or daughter of a senior politician is miraculously elevated to the position of party leader and then repeatedly fielded as Lok Sabha  candidate to test his/her/their/unka popularity. A Beta Test may extend for several decades because the Beta candidate’s popularity remains as elusive as a phantom; a result that is explained by some Left-leaning political science scholars as a manifestation of Phantom Uncertainty, first postulated by the great German political scientist Weiner Heisenhamburger.

Big data

Big Data refers to the huge sets of data that are painstakingly compiled by all Indian political parties on their political rivals, pertaining to corruption cases, violent crimes, scandals involving moral turpitude, and affiliated criminal misconduct. Big Data is gathered and analysed on ongoing basis to reveal the weak points and vulnerabilities of political rivals, so that they can then be amplified and exploited during election campaigns.

The analysis of Big Data is called Data Mining, whichderives its name from the infamous Coal Mine Allocation Scam of the early 2000s when this technique was first used effectively by (then) Opposition parties headed by BJP.  Since then, Data Mining is being used by all Indian political parties; not only to persecute their vulnerable political rivals but also to engineer defections by these  political rivals into their  own party or alliance. However, this defection process is subject to strict scrutiny under the Anti-Defecation Law, which forms an intrinsic part of the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan Mission that has been launched to flush out malpractices from India’s electoral system.

Important note:  Data Mining must not be confused with TADA Mining – which is a now-defunct legal provision under which criminal cases could be filed against political leaders for illegally awarding mining licences in their constituency to loyal crooks, thugs, goondas, scoundrels and other close family members.

Chatbot

A Chatbot [from chat = chat-show host; bot = bought] is a celebrity TV news anchor who is retained by one or more political parties to spread the party viewpoint(s) and increase the popularity of their leaders. Every Indian political party has at least two or three captive Chatbots, and every Chatbot serves at least two or three political parties.  

Chatbots are characterized by extremely high intuitive abilities (a skillset also known as cognitive computing), extremely low ethical standards, and unmatched swiftness in switching their allegiance from one political party to another as the occasion demands.

Emergent Behaviour

Emergent Behaviour [root: Emergency] describes an AI-endowed leader who has begun to show unpredictable or unintended capabilities, including authoritarian and/or totalitarian tendencies in political outlook.

Large language model

A large language model is simply the technology that allows teleprompters to display speech-text in large font and point-size, so that all but the most inept AI-endowed politicians can read the text without fumbling.

Pattern recognition

Pattern Recognition refers to the innovative system by which the Party Symbol is tattooed on to a newly elected MP/MLA’s hand by  the Lok Sabha Secretariat or concerned Assembly Secretariat. The tattoo helps the MP/MLA  remember to which Party he/she/they/it  presently belongs when the time comes to vote on a Bill  that is tabled in the House. This is of vital importance, as MPS and MLAs switch parties at the drop of a topi (or a dropped call from Enforcement Directorate).  Thus, Pattern Recognition helps MPs and MLAs avoid inadvertent cross-voting, and thereby saves them from painful disciplinary action in the form of whipping by their party Whip.

[to be continued…upon my release from Tihar Jail]

General ravings, Potshots

Arvind Kejriwal wins – gets Anticipatory Jail!

Mani's avatarMani 3 Comments

I write this at a time when our most beloved  Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister of Delhi and Aam Aadmi Party leader, has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate and remanded by court order to the ED’s custody for 7 days.  

As a long-term admirer of Kejriwalbhai, I am overjoyed at his arrest and happy for him!  

After all, Kejriwalbhai has loudly and energetically campaigned for his own arrest since 2021, but despite this the nasty evil BJP-led Union Government has consistently denied him his right to be arrested.

In keeping with his selflessness and generosity,  Kejriwalbhai has also ceaselessly and energetically campaigned for the arrest of leaders of other political parties, such as Sonia Gandhi, since 20i5. However, we’ll have to wait and see whether Kejriwalbhai  emerges victorious in those battles too.

Kejriwal’s decade-long struggles to be arrested – rewarded at last

With his arrest now, Kejriwalbhai has achieved yet another splendid victory over his political opponents, that too just before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.  

We can rest assured that Kejriwalbhai, and his AAP, will reap rich dividends in the LS polls from the sympathy voters, empathy voters, and above all, liquor-loving voters of India who had never before been able to buy booze at such cheap prices in Delhi at public expense, while AAP’s ‘New Liquor Policy’ ran for about 9 months during 2021-2022. Indeed, data in public domain show that during that time, tipplers were flying into Delhi in unprecendented numbers from all over India – and even from Malaysia, Indonesia, and reportedly Alaska and Inner Mongolia – to buy choice liquor by the mega-litres.

This liquor-inspired air travel to and from Delhi, by the way, greatly contributed to the profits of public and private airlines during 2021-2022… so don’t believe the Modi-led BJP government when it tries to take credit for India’s increased air traffic!

Meanwhile, there is much hysterical speculation in main-scream media about whether Kejriwalbhai can continue as Chief Minister of Delhi while lodged in jail, as declared by his AAP-compatriot Atishi .

I pause now to ponder this weighty question. Can he?  

A throaty chuckle interrupts my musings.

It is the Resident Lizard, whom I have grown to respect for being a political analyst par excellence – though admittedly he’s become a bit of a cynic of late; probably due to his highly acidic diet of flies and assorted bugs.

The Resident Lizard is stretched out beside a bottle of Holland gin with a distinctly inebriated look in his soulful eyes.

“Of course Kejriwal can be Chief Minister while in jail,” he declares firmly.  “It is a practical and low-cost administrative solution in public interest. Particularly so, because Kejriwal  will join a number of his AAP Cabinet colleagues who are already in jail.”

“But is it appropriate?” I ask. “How can we have someone behind bars as leader of the state?”

 “Of course it’s appropriate,” he snaps, after snapping at a passing mosquito and missing by millimeters. “Kejriwal and his colleagues are facing charges in a Liquor Scam; so what better place for them to run the state from than behind bars, be they liquor bars or steel bars?”

Abruptly,  he twitches his tail and scuttles off in pursuit of a high-velocity fly.

I muse over his words as I stare at the gin bottle, whose contents appear to have shrunk considerably since I last saw it in October 2023.

Has my reptilian associate been quaffing gin merrily through his winter months of hibernation?  Warming his spirits with spirit as it were, like so many citizens happy with AAP’s liquor policy?

We shall never know.  

Still, it does not take away from the strength of the Resident Lizard’s words – or of the remaining gin.

Meanwhile,  I can only reaffirm my solemn vow to remain a Staunch Votary of AAP, and to share a crude vision of what the inmates of Tihar Jail might be privileged to see in coming days.

Jai Hind! Hail Kejrubhai!

Beastly encounters, General ravings, Musings, Potshots

What’s in a Mane?

Mani's avatarMani 9 Comments

Once upon a time, not so long ago, while on a stroll in my neighbourhood, I met a girl, aged about 15, long-faced and short-haired, wearing that sulky, world-weary and prematurely cynical expression that’s so fashionable among today’s young urban elite activist-revolutionaries.

“Have you seen Bombshell?” she asked. Her tone was imperious, peremptory; her accent a pleasant blend of the USA’s North-East and India’s North-West.

I gaped at her. “Bombshell? Which…what…whose bombshell?”

She frowned. “Bombshell’s a cat,” she snapped.

“Oh..ah..yes, I see, your cat! You call it…er… Bombshell? “

“Bombshell’s a He or Him, not an It,” she replied in the withering tone youngsters reserve for dinosaurs like me who come from a time when Tweets were what birds did and Spotify was what leaking fountain pens did. “And you’re saying his name all wrong; his name’s pronounced Zhomm-Shell, not Bombshell. “

I gaped some more and her frown deepened. “Well, have you seen him?” she demanded.

“No, no,” I mumbled. “Meaning, I know a few cats around here, we get along quite well, but I don’t think I’ve met your cat…er…Zhomm-Shell. What a nice name…ah… how do you spell it?”

“Why, J-E-A-N -M-I-C-H-E-L, of course…how else could one spell it for Chrissake?” she snapped.

Wisdom dawned in my foggy brain. “Ah, so you’ve named your cat Jean-Michel?!”

“Yeah, yeah, his name is Jean-Michel,” she replied, slowly and patiently, stressing each word and syllable as a primary school teacher would while explaining something to a particularly dense child. “And Jean-Michel’s not MY cat; he’s a stray. He’s just one of the many stray cats that live here, I’ve given them all names, do you understand? So that I can keep an eye on them…”

“Ah, I see,” I muttered weakly, not seeing at all.

“I think I’ll have to change Jean-Michel’s name, ” she went on, shaking her head sadly. “People are so dumb …especially grown-ups…they can’t even pronounce Jean-Michel properly…”

“But does Jean-Michel know that you’ve named him Jean-Michel?” I asked. I was genuinely interested to know, because I like cats and do believe cats are extremely sharp and sensitive creatures. I also wanted to ask her whether Jean-Michel the cat had learned to pronounce his own name properly, but alas, I didn’t get the chance. Her face turned deep red at my query, she stamped her foot hard, glared at me, let out an explosive “Ooff!” which sounded exactly like a bombshell or rather a Jean-Michel (and even that “Ooff” had a Californian twang in it, mixed with a trace of a Scottish burr, or maybe it was a Karol Bagh rasp)… and then, with a snort of disgust she stormed off looking for the elusive feline.

I remember Jean-Michel the cat now, as I contemplate the national hysteria that’s brewing around the names given to two slightly larger cats in Bengal: a lion named Akbar and a lioness named Sita.

For the benefit of readers who might not be familiar with the facts of this case – which, judging by the saturation media coverage it’s receiving, is a case of supreme national importance that might well determine India’s Standing in the World as a Secular Democracy – here is a quick summary:

  • On 12th February, 2024, two large cats – a lion named Akbar and a lioness named Sita – were transferred from the Sepahijala Zoo in Tripura to the Siliguri Zoo in West Bengal.
  • According to the West Bengal government, the cats had been given their respective names while in Tripura. However, an official from Sepahijala Zoo refuted this allegation, saying: “We had sent a lion and a lioness named Ram and Sita respectively from Sepahijala to Siliguri. We are not aware of what happened at the destination.”
  • On 17th February the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) filed a case in the Calcutta High Court urging the Court to take immediate corrective action, including “changing the lioness’s name to a non-religious one and directing authorities to refrain from using religious names for animals in zoological parks.”
  • On 22nd February a single-judge bench of the High Court directed the West Bengal government to “reconsider” the names of the two hapless cats. During the proceedings, the judge asked the state government’s counsel: “Mr Counsel, will you yourself name your own pet after some Hindu God or Muslim Prophet … I think, if any one of us would have been the authority, none of us would have named them [the cats] as Akbar and Sita...goddess Sita is worshipped by a large majority of people in the country and Akbar was a successful and secular Mughal Emperor.”
  • Meanwhile, West Bengal Forest Minister and TMC leader Birbaha Hansda added her own twist to this cats’ tale by declaring that the whole issue was ‘dirty politics’ by VHP. “We didn’t name the animals which came to us from Tripura Zoo…It is our Chief Minister (Mamata Bannerjee) who will formally give names to the animals...”

On 24th February, the Tripura government suspended Shri Prabin Lal Agarwal, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Ecotourism, for his alleged role in the lion-naming controversy. While a copy of the suspension order against the unfortunate Mr Agarwal is not readily available, highly misplaced and usually uncreditable sources say that he is being accused of “not following the Prescribed Guidebook on Secular Methodologies and Practices for Naming Plants, Insects, Terrestrial and Aquatic Animals, Birds, and other non-Human Species, thereby hurting the religious feelings of the lion and lioness concerned as well as upsetting the secular feelings and communal harmony of India’s citizens as a Hole.”

Seriously, O Sinless Reader, this whole business is so very distressful and confusing.

How sad, that all it takes to set a cat among the pigeons in India is to name a cat – a cat!!! – after some historical and/or revered figure.

Surely Akbar the lion would still grunt and belch in his leonine manner and laze around scratching his ample belly if he had instead been named Subramanian, or Sukhwinder, or Prafullah, or Jalaluddin, or Joseph? Surely Sita the lioness would still wolf down her daily rations with feminine growls of contentment had she been named Yvonne or Shahnaz or Jaswanti or Girija or Harbans Kaur?

Now I fondly recall a monitor lizard that used to hang about our terrace here in Delhi, in the 1990s. We named him Ruknuddin. Why Ruknuddin? We don’t know…but it seemed the perfect name for him. Ruknuddin never knew he was called Ruknuddin, of course; nor did he care…he was too busy being a monitor lizard, which role included regular shikar of sparrows, mynahs, pigeons, squirrels, and other citizens that visited the birdbath on the terrace. [To know more about Ruknuddin, please do click here].

What’s in a name, after all? Or in a mane, for that matter?

Especially, we Hindus ought to understand this….considering the joyous elan with which we attach the names of our Gods and Goddesses and Saints to virtually every sphere of existence, from our own names to our business undertakings. Whether we live in Agartala or Alapuzha, Delhi or Dibrugarh, Madurai or Morena, all we need do is step outside to see a plethora of establishments with names like Shiva Wines, Vishnu Hair Dressers, Sai Stationers, Krishna Dental Clinic, Parvati Shoe Store, Ganesh Liquors, Uma Opticals, Murugan Pathology Lab…

To me it’s not ‘wrong’ to do this; it’s not ‘blasphemous’; it’s simply wonderful! Because it reflects a healthy carelessness and irreverence for blind obeisance, unthinking religious orthodoxy.

It underlines the idiocy of reading ‘sacrilege’ into the naming of a lioness as Sita.

So, get off your moralistic and hobbled hobby-horse, O ye VHP comrades..your outlook and behaviour are almost absurd enough to make a Mamata Bannerjee laugh.

To help my VHP colleagues – and indeed the learned judge who presided over the single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court – appreciate the irrelevance of names as understood in ancient Hindu culture, and thereby shed their needless anthropomorphism and soothe their over-heated cerebro-neural systems, I urge them to listen to ‘Madalasa’s lullaby’ from the Markandeya Purana…here’s a nice rendition with English sub-titling.

Oh…and just to help my friends experience the healing effects of a chuckle, I also offer an ancient, much-disavowed and universally applicable joke on the fleeting importance of names when it comes to the deeper aspects of Life (apologies to those who might find it a trifle risque):

A man boards a flight from Delhi to Mumbai and takes his seat. As he settles in, he glances up and sees a gorgeous woman boarding the plane.He soon realizes she’s heading straight towards his seat. Lo and behold, she takes the seat right next to his.

.Eager to strike up a conversation, he asks: “Business trip or vacation?”

She turns, smiles & says, “Business. I’m going to the Annual World Sexologists’ Convention in Navi Mumbai.”

He swallows hard. Here is the most gorgeous woman he has ever seen, sitting next to him, and she’s a sexologist!

With superhuman effort he maintains his composure, and calmly asks, “What’s your role at this convention?”

“Oh, I’m delivering the keynote address,” she replies brightly. “I’ll draw on my research as well as personal experience to debunk some of the popular myths about sexuality.”

“Really?’ he says, swallowing hard. “Er…what myths are those?”

“Well,” she replies, “for example, there’s this popular myth that men from the African continent are the best endowed, when in fact, it’s the Indian Punjabi Sikh who is most likely to possess that trait. Another popular myth is that Spanish men make the most gentle lovers, whereas in fact the Bengali man is far gentler in lovemaking. However, in general women have found that the best all-round lover, scoring the maximum in all erotic criteria, is the Tamilian man…”

At this point the woman suddenly pauses and blushes deeply. “I’m sorry, I might be sounding a little forward,” she murmurs. “Perhaps I shouldn’t be discussing all this with you…why, I don’t even know your name!”

“Venkataswami!” the man yells. “Venkataswami Chidambaram Mukherjee! But all my friends call me Gurvinder Singh…”

General ravings, Musings

Hamas Tamas

Mani's avatarMani 3 Comments

I’m writing this because I’m afraid.

It’s okay to be afraid in the face of violence; I know that. It’s understandable.

No one understood and explained this fear better than Nikita Khrushchev, who succeeded Joseph Stalin as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1953.

Joseph Stalin is counted among the greatest of mass murderers in human history. Stalin had initiated and actively guided innumerable, unspeakable crimes against humanity during his 30-year-rule from 1924 to 1953: large-scale arrests and torture of innocents, deportation of hundreds of thousands to slave labour camps, assassinations, mass executions, genocidal pogroms against Jews, ‘ethnic cleansing’ of groups like Poles, Greeks, Latvians…an endless list of horrors. Countless millions were murdered by the paranoid dictator, including members of the Communist Party themselves; in the year 1937–38 alone, over 680,000 Party workers were executed for ‘anti-Soviet activities’…

Khrushchev was a survivor of the dreaded Stalinist purges. Under Khrushchev’s leadership, the Communist Party held its 20th Session from 14th to 25th February, 1956 (it was called the ‘Secret Session’ because details of its proceedings became known to the world only 33 years later—in 1989).  In his long, impassioned address, Khrushchev stunned the gathered members by denouncing Stalin for the atrocities committed during his rule. At one point, when Khrushchev paused in his speech, someone in the gathering shouted out a challenge to him: “Why did you not speak up at that time, Comrade Khrushchev? Where were you? Why were you silent?“

There was pin-drop silence.

And then Khruschev called out: “Who said that?”

There was silence in the great hall.

“Who said that?” Khruschev called out again, his voice louder now.

Silence.

“WHO SAID THAT?” Khruschev thundered, pounding the table.

After a long, ominous silence, Khruschev murmured: “THAT is why I was silent, Comrade…THAT is why I did not speak up…”

Applause began, slowly at first, gathering to a crescendo.

As I write this, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) is wreaking destruction throughout southern Gaza after a brief ‘temporary suspension’ of its military operations during which Hamas was supposed to return, in phased manner, an estimated 250 hostages taken from Israel on October 7th in return for Palestinians jailed in Israel.  After returning barely two score hostages Hamas reneged on the plan and instead fired a few hundred rockets into Israel; and so once again Israel is spreading death across Gaza.

Israel strikes deeply, relentlessly, wiping out Hamas terrorists by the score and by the hundreds — and with them, thousands of innocents caught in the crossfire, almost all of them Arab Muslims whom we in the rest of the world call ‘Palestinian’, the majority of them below the age of 20; young men and women and children whom the Hamas have ruled for over ten years with all the ruthlessness and cruelty of a Joseph Stalin or an Adolf Hitler or a Pol Pot. Hamas’ leaders and religious teachers have terrorized and brutalized these young Palestinians from childhood; they have deliberately twisted and warped the young ones’ minds using the time-tested media of fear and pain and hunger and deprivation and  ceaseless, relentless, calibrated propaganda…thereby seeding in their fresh young minds a deep, unwavering, murderous, lifelong hatred of all non-Muslims and particularly those of the Jewish faith. Thus has Hamas created a human bank of brutalized, mind-numbed youngsters, which Hamas draws upon to make up its own murderous cadres.

A truly sustainable business model, no?

But then Hamas has only adapted, honed and practised the same sustainable business model  used by leaders and their frightful legions across the world, throughout humankind’s bloody history, to subjugate and exploit and rule the silent, trembling masses.

First, create an Other among the masses you exploit.

Then, even as you exploit the masses, heap all the blame for their deprivations and sufferings on the Other and direct their hatred towards the Other.

And then, guide the masses in massacring the hated Other…even as you prepare the foundations for creating the next Other.

We in India know this business model only too well. We have applied this business model so often and so effectively post-Independence! We could give the world post-graduate courses in how to create an Other in the name of religion, ethnicity, language, caste, class, ideology…and the results of our efforts are clear and tangible, from the slaughters of Partition to this day,

It is a business model adopted and fine-tuned and applied by humans across the planet: by Daesh and Al Qaeda and Taliban and Khmer Rouge and the Nazi ShutzStaffel; by Catholics against Protestants and Protestants against Catholics and Christians against Muslims and Muslims against Hindus and Hindus against Muslims and everybody against the Jews, by the armies of the Crusades and the Inquisition, of Alexander and Attila and Allaudin and Aurangzeb… 

Now, in Gaza, the remnants of  Hamas cower in the vast warren of tunnels and safe houses they have excavated  deep under hospitals, schools, mosques to escape the Israeli onslaught…for, such is their bravery and depravity, these once-men who have besmirched the name of Islam and insulted its Prophet by their monstrous deeds of October 7th 2023, when their cadres swept across the Gaza border into Israel without warning to indulge in an orgy of mass murder, of sadistic pleasure in raping and maiming and burning alive, of slaughtering  over 1500 men, women, children, babies simply because they were Jews.

Now, the Israeli onslaught on Gaza grows more intense and horrific with every discovery by the Israel Defence Forces of the bodies of Jewish hostages amidst the ruins, many bearing signs of inhuman torture.

Now, nations across the planet, the United Nations, the world media, all of us wring our hands in helpless horror at the ongoing carnage in Gaza and the death of innocents. We condemn the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, we call for ceasefire, as indeed we all should, as is natural.

And yet…and yet…the strange and terrible thing is, almost all nations, almost all mainstream and social media, so many of us, carefully, deliberately, avoid any mention of the slaughter of Jews by Hamas on October 7th. That horror is now buried beneath mountains of gobbledygook and whataboutery (“What about Palestinian human rights? What about the illegal Israeli occupation of West Bank?” “What about the Israelis torturing Palestinians? ) if not utterly erased from memory—or completely denied as ‘fake news’ or Israeli propaganda, even though much of the hideous video footage from October 7th is still freely available on social media and the Net, footage that was taken by the proud, gloating Hamas cadres on their own phones, complete with selfies…

 Very few anywhere in the world, leave alone the Islamic nations, dare call the Hamas out for what they are.  So many great leaders, intellectuals, journalists, writers across the world are silent about Hamas’ atrocities on October 7th, silent even in calling out others who echo Hamas’ hatred for Jews. A few days ago, during a US Congressional Hearing on anti-Semitism, even the heads of great universities like Harvard, Pennsylvania, MIT quailed and muttered gobbledygook when asked if they condemn strident calls for the genocide of Jews made by fanatical groups on their own ‘liberal’ campuses [click here and here to view]

Their fear is understandable. I feel the same fear.

After all, today, it is safer for me to be pro-Palestine (if not pro-Hamas), than it is to be pro-Israel.  

If I’m pro-Palestine, there’s less chance that I’ll have my head lopped off or my throat slit (or worse) by an Israeli soldier or Israeli civilian. If I’m pro-Palestine there’s less chance that someone who doesn’t know me, or even a friend, might condemn me as being ‘anti-Islam’…for such has become our world.

I, too, feel fear at calling out Hamas for what they are: inhuman, depraved, hate-filled, genocidal anti-Semitic kooks. But there: I’ve called them out.

I’ll say it again: Hamas is a bunch of inhuman, depraved, hate-filled, anti-Semitic kooks.

Calling Hamas out for its inhumanity does not mean I support the slaughter of innocent Palestinians in Gaza by Israel. It only means I refuse to deny the reality of the horrors Hamas committed on Israelis on October 7th or remain silent about it; I refuse to remain silent at Hamas’ undiminished and unrepentant calls to all Muslims in the world to unite and wipe out Israel and all Jews from the face of the earth.

I speak up only for myself…and only to assert, for my own sanity’s sake, that I reject and condemn violence. I shall not be drawn to compare acts of Hamas violence with acts of Israeli violence or condone one or the other. I shall not compose and balance kookery equations.

 And I draw inspiration from some who know what’s happened and is happening in Israel and Gaza far better than I do, and who HAVE shown the courage to speak up, to call out Hamas for the monstrous creatures they are.

Like reporter Douglas Murray, interviewed on the Gaza border a fortnight ago:  

Of course I’m still a little afraid, writing this. I always am when I speak up against kooks of any kind – including kooks like Hamas.

Yet speak up I must, even if I manage only a whisper, a feeble word spoken here or written there.

At worst I’ll die some day at the hands of some kook or the other; but then I will die only once.

The coward who does not speak up will die a thousand deaths…before dying.

General ravings, Potshots

Lok Sabha elections 2024: why I’ll vote for I.N.D.I.A

Mani's avatarMani 8 Comments

Can we transition from “Indira is India” to “I.N.D.I.A is India”?

O Gentle and Most Valued Reader, I begin this rant with an Affidavit in the standard UNESCO-disavowed format.  .

Affidavit
I, R P Subramanian, do solemnly swear, affirm and declare in this public forum as follows:
1. That I am a registered Indian voter.
2. That in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections 2024, I shall cast my vote in favour of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (hereinafter called ‘I.N.D.I.A’ which expression shall include all its splinter groups, breakaway factions, turncoats, defectors, defecators, and assigns).
3. That I undertake to cast my vote favouring I.N.D.I.A as declared above, barring unexpected and/or unforeseen events that might prevent me from doing so including and not restricted to death; grievous injuries caused by assault(s) by supporters of any and all political parties; Acts of God (which term includes Acts by any and all Religious, Secular, Communal, Communist, Woke, and Somnolent deities and prophets of all sexes and genders present and future); and any and all other force majeure events and phenomena.
4. That I execute this undertaking in full and complete infirmity and unsoundness of mind and senses, and under no compulsion or threats whatsoever from any entities, real or virtual.  

The provocation for my Affidavit is the recently concluded Lok Sabha debate on the No-Confidence Motion moved by the I.N.D.I.A coalition of Opposition parties against the BJP-led NDA coalition; a three-day debate that ended with the entire I.N.D.I.A coalition walking out of the House even before the No-Confidence Motion that they had themselves brought in could be put to vote.

Please don’t get me wrong: I don’t blame the Congress-led I.N.D.I.A coalition for walking out of the Lok Sabha. They did so only to escape further serious injuries to their already-bruised egos.

By the second day of the debate, the signs were clear to me—as clear as Rahul Gandhi’s development agenda for India— that the MPs from I.N.D.I.A were vying with one another in making supreme idiots of themselves as they spoke in the House. Indeed, only sheer will-power and extra-strong coffee gave me strength to hear and watch Rahul Gandhi himself prate about nothing in particular with his characteristic hoarse vehemence, oratorial incoherence, analytical incompetence and overarching adolescence—even as his colleagues cheered him on and thumped their desks—before exiting with an aerial smooch seemingly directed towards a cluster of women MPs in the Treasury benches (although a usually unreliable Congress source tells me Rahul’s smooch was actually aimed at PM Narendra Modi, for whom Rahul possesses deep affection and love).

But most painful of all was to hear and watch MPs of the BJP and other NDA parties, from Jyotiraditya Scindia to Modi himself, systematically tear apart and gobble down the MPs and constituent parties of  I.N.D.I.A with all the gentleness and grace of a pack of hungry wild dogs dining on a felled buffalo.

After watching this farce of a debate, O Dear Reader, I confess that I was wrong in my earlier prediction that the BJP will be wiped out in the 2024 elections. I now realize that it is the Congress-led I.N.D.I.A coalition that is in danger of being wiped out in 2024.

Because, judging by its disgraceful performance in the Lok Sabha these past three days, I.N.D.I.A has placed itself on the electoral equivalent of life support within weeks of its launch.

No amount of hagiographic reportage by Congress’ captive, Rahul-captivated media can conceal the harsh truth: that I.N.D.I.A was taken to the dhobi-ghats, beaten, wrung, and hung up to dry by the BJP-led NDA in the Lok Sabha.

Adding to my alarm at this latest evidence of I.N.D.I.A’s feebleness and the BJP-led NDA’s ever-increasing strength and popularity, is news from abroad that a leading American singer, Mary Millben, has now expressed her support for Modi.

Source: India Today.

I am slightly consoled by my Congress source’s assurance that Mary Millben’s support for Modi  doesn’t mean anything.  “Arre Subramanian-saar,” he says, “this Mary Millben is not even an American; she is actually an Indian Modi-bhakt living in the USA under false pretences, with some hidden agenda to create Akhand Bharat! She is a Gujarati girl; her real name is Meera Millie-ben…”

Yet I still worry.

India needs a credible Opposition.

India needs a credible alternative to Modi in 2024!

I.N.D.I.A needs my support to get off  its life support!  

And so, I shall vote for I.N.D.I.A in 2024…provided I.N.D.I.A still exists when the elections happen.

May I conclude with an inspirational slogan, which I hope Rahul Gandhi will adopt during his campaigns:

Voters of India, unite ‘neath the banner of I.N.D.I.A

You’ve nothing to lose but your brains, which we’ll replace with Pyaar!

Jai Hind.

 

General ravings

My careering career

Mani's avatarMani 11 Comments

For some time now, O most cherished Reader, I’ve been contemplating a change in career.

Not that I’m in a hurry, of course.  

Having voyaged round the sun barely 67 times, and remaining singularly single in status and peculiarly plural in pursuits,  I know I have plenty of time to think about and decide on things like what next to study and forget, what to do when I’m grown up, where to explore work opportunities that bring satori and satisfaction, and so forth.  

Still, I think it’s important to start thinking along these lines while I’m still reasonably fit and independent and flexible in terms of time and commitments…don’t you agree? 

To begin with, I’m really not sure what exactly I want to do.

This, of course, is a huge advantage in planning my future career.

You see, not knowing what exactly I want to do is evidence of my unqualified willingness to absorb new ideas and learn new skills—as unqualified as my general lack of any meaningful academic qualifications. It also underlines my unmatched ability to abandon or forget earlier ideas and skills with equal rapidity. These are, I do believe, attributes that constitute the very foundations of a scientific temper.  All in all, I state without false modesty that I have a mind as uncluttered, unfathomable and uniformly vacant as that of any successful member of the Indian National Congress party: and the Congress, as I have scientifically predicted in an earlier post, is destined to thrash the BJP-led NDA and win the Lok Sabha elections in 2024!

This advantage— of not knowing what I want to do— is further strengthened by the fact that I’m not quite sure what I’m doing now, or indeed what I’ve been doing for the past 30 years.

Before that, I dimly recall, I was a banker, with State Bank of Travancore:  for over 12 years, from end-1979 to late-1992. I quit the bank in 1992,  the year during which the late and much-maligned stockbroker Harshad Mehta raised several thousands of crores of public money from complicit Indian banks and the gullible Indian public with far more ease and success, and far less fuss and public complaint, than any of our Finance Ministers since Independence.  

Let me candidly and freely admit that what I did during my years as banker, too, is no longer clear to me. Indeed, I must add that what I did during those years was never very clear to my erstwhile bank management either.

All I remember is that when I quit being a banker, I was enthused from black topi to pinkie toe with one blazing resolve: to write. And thus it was that in late 1992—armed with a portable typewriter, vivid memories and fanatical purpose— I adopted the guise of a freelance writer; a shabby, worn-out, ink-stained shawl that I still wear with pride, fully 30 years later.

Oh, now I recall a brief summary of my banking career that I wrote in 1994; it was carried as a middle by Times of India—you can read it here.

I also have a LinkedIn profile outlining my writing career! It’s something I created about 17 years ago at the suggestion of a young HR-manager friend. “Everyone needs a LinkedIn profile,” she declared firmly.  (It took nine years for me to discover, with chagrin, that she herself didn’t have one…never trust these HR people.)  I’ve been told my LinkedIn profile is quite therapeutic—it relieves the deepest of manic depressions.

But to return to the point from which I was rudely distracted by myself: namely, my contemplating a career shift.  Without further do, I present a brief resume for your information, entertainment and valuable comments and suggestions. I trust it conveys that I possess vast experience and diverse skills in a range of intensely obscure and significantly pointless vocations and fields.

 [Disclaimer: I shall not be held responsible for any injuries including and not restricted to dislocated jaws, involuntary expulsions of false teeth, sprains or breakages to fingers, bones, etc. caused by slapping or punching hard surfaces in paroxysm of mirth, or any other kinds of physical discomfort or distress that the Reader might undergo in the course of reading this document]

Profile

Basic

Name:  R P Subramanian

Age: Completed 47 years less than 20 years ago.  

Sex: Yes! (Registered readers above 18 years of age may click here for full details)

Marital status.  Singularly plural.

Gender pronoun:  He/Hey Ra/Abbe oye/Saar

Academic

  • Graduate in Science from North Eastern Hill University with Major in Vacuum Speculations and Distinction in Absolutely-Zero Physical Phenomena
  • Advanced research and intensive experimentation on the metabolism of a spectrum of psychoactive cyclic biochemicals including a broad spectrum of naturally occurring cannabinoids and extracts from the flowering Papaver somniferum. Also investigated the neuro-biological effects of the dextro and levo-isomers of certain chiral compounds (notably, 1-phenylpropan-2-amine)
  • Blue Card (‘Good’ ranking) in Class 3, St Edmund’s School, Shillong (1964)

Publications

  • Over 150 highly disclaimed op-ed articles and 400 eminently forgettable letters in Indian Express, Times of India and other mainstream print media; over 300 articles online gathering e-dust
  • Five books and a number of anthologized short stories for children (some of whom have hopefully survived and grown up, older and wiser)
  • About 18 universally unread books on energy efficiency and clean energy technologies in Indian industry

Skill sets  

  • Can walk eight kilometres briskly without forthwith giving up my last meal or my ghost, or alternatively run two kilometres at 24–26 kmph when chased by angry mosquitoes and/or Congress mobs (have demonstrated I can run significantly faster and further when mobs comprise members of  CPI(M) and/or Shiv Sena )
  • Over 40 years’ proven experience running a reasonably clean, dust-free household in which the PM 10 levels are at least 250% lower than the ambient air quality in Delhi.
  • Cooking for over 45 years (mainly veg, some non-veg) with a track record of not having poisoned anybody (yet). 
  • Comprehensive household management including essential O&M tasks such as hand-washing dishes;  jhadoo-pocha; dusting;  hand-washing clothes; Ironing; and primary-level stitching. 
  • Fluent in English and Hindi; proficient in Tamil, Malayalam and Assamese; working knowledge of Marathi and Bengali. Can banter and give gaali in three more Indian languages.

 I eagerly await your comments, most honoured Reader. In the meanwhile, I shall work on my next post, in which I shall outline some career paths that I would like to pursue before the Dreaded Donkeys of Dudgeon decide to pursue me.  

Caught you!!

I knew you’d come here looking for titillation, you naughty devil, you…!!

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