Potshots

General ravings, Musings, Potshots

The redness of Sindhoor – 2

Mani's avatarMani 11 Comments

Asim Munir’s Dump Truck, Trump’s Grump, Pakistan’s Bhagavad Gita Inspiration, and How Pakistan Won the Asia Cup  

Believe it or not, O Dear Gentle Reader, I started to write this a few days after the Indian Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) granted  the Pakistan’s DGMO’s pleas for an end to hostilities; and that,  after the Indian military administered a much-deserved thrashing to the  Pakistan military during Operation Sindhoor, May 7–10, 2025. 

But I’ve kept adding to this rant, and subtracting from it, and amending it, all these weeks and months because so much has been happening so fast since then: between India and Pakistan, and between  India and the USA, and Pakistan and USA, and India and China, and Israel and Iran, and Pakistan and Iran, and Pakistan and Bangladesh, and India and Afghanistan, and Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Russia and Ukraine and the EU and the USA, and the USA and Israel and Iran and China and Myanmar and Russia and Bangladesh and …well…the USA and the rest of the world. And it’s been hard staying up to date and keeping tabs on all of these developments and events and discerning patterns in them.

Because they’re all closely, weirdly related, and not at all in a nice and friendly way for India and you and I and the Resident Lizard who, as usual, even now reads over my shoulder and chuckles derisively as I type this.  

That’s why, in the interim, I only posted a kind of foreword to this long rant titled “The redness of Sindhoor-1” in August : a kind of grim remembrance of the Indian civilian establishment’s collective cowardice following the Pakistan-sponsored terrorist attack on Mumbai in November 2008.

But now, driven by impatience and exhausted by Cacoethes Scribendi,  I scribble the last few words and post this rant before Dilli’s toxic air drives the last ergs of energy from body and last vestiges of rationality from mind.

First, in the warm and generous spirit of Deepavali, may I offer a (mercifully) short poem to Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir (though I suspect Munir-bhai may not like to be reminded of things like bright lights, flames and explosions after Operation Sindhoor):

Cast away thy angst, O Munir-Bhai

Abandon thy well-trodden Path of Sigh and Cry

For, Ignoble Laureate Trump shall soon free thee of Tamas

With his calling on Pakistan’s military to disarm Hamas

And Deepavali’s Warm Light shall cure all…even thy ISI

By and by

I post this just over four months after Pakistan, led by the devout  Gen. Munir and the beatific Pak Prime Minister Shabaz Sharief, snatched  victory from India in Operation Sindhoor in May 2025; and barely a month after Pakistan snatched the Asia Cricket Cup from India in September 2025.

Let me hasten to explain, before I’m pilloried by my Adored Readers for being high on smooth whiskey and/or good ganja, or arrested by the Indian government or assassinated by Indian vigilantes for expressing ‘anti-Bharatiya sentiments’.

Asim Munir’s dump truck

Consider Operation Sindhoor.

Sure, during Operation Sindhoor, India flattened terrorist training camps in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir as well as the headquarters of Jaish e Mohammed and Lashkar e Tayyeba in Pakistan itself, killing a hundred or more terrorists of different degrees of murderousness and kookiness in the process.

Sure, the Indian Air Force (IAF) destroyed 12, possibly 13, Pakistani air force planes, including F16 and JF17 fighters and at least one AWACS and ELINT aircraft each—some of them shot out of the air, others incinerated in their hangars or on the tarmac in airbases across and deep within Pakistan by drones and rockets and long-range missiles. Sure, India attacked and destroyed assorted high-value infrastructure in at least 11 strategic (N-strike) Pak airbases including the runways, hangars with aircraft in them, air defence systems, and strategic command-and-control infrastructure, killing a hundred or more Pak military personnel in the process. Sure, evidence of all the havoc caused by the Indian military has been presented in public, not just by the Indian military but by defense/strategic analysts worldwide, and the evidence is still available to you and me and Pakistan and the world in public domain, in satellite imagery and on the Net and in print.

Sure, there is also clear evidence that in the course of its attack on Pakistan’s Nur Khan and Sargodha strategic air bases, the IAF severely damaged an undeclared (i.e., secret) underground N-reactor complex in  the nearby Kirana Hills along with an unknown number of dis-assembled N- warheads. Judging by reports, these N-warheads were plutonium-239  (Pu-239) devices. [This conclusion is based on a simple fact:  unlike uranium-235 warheads which are very stable once shaped and pre-assembled, plutonium-239 warheads constantly decay to non-fissile isotopes like Pu-240, Pu-241 etc. which ‘contaminate’ the Pu-239 over time, till the warheads become like soggy Deepavali crackers that go ‘Phuuussss’ instead of creating a hole the size of Delhi.  And so, Pu-239 warheads require a dedicated N-reactor to refine the plutonium in them back to fissile-grade, in a  complex never-ending cycle. ]

Most interestingly, there is also damning evidence that some or all the N-warheads in the underground N-facility in Kirana Hills—and indeed the entire Nur Khan air base— was under the direct command and control, if not full OWNERSHIP, of the US Air Force (USAF) and had been so for at least 15 years, perhaps ever since the so-called ‘War Against Terror’ launched by the USA under George Bush Jr.  And that the USA set up and controlled Nur Khan to keep a baleful N-watch on China, just as the USA had set up the Bagram base in Afghanistan to keep a strategic eye on China.

In effect, then, India not only delivered several painful kicks to Pakistan’s collective military butt during Operation Sindhoor; India also knowingly or unknowingly (I suspect the former) attacked and destroyed or severely damaged a secret and fully operational USA-run  N- strike air base located in Nur Khan, along with USA-built F-16 fighters and a secret, USA-owned ,underground N-complex including  N-warheads and  N-reactor in Kirana Hills.

But Pakistan declared – and continues to declare – that it defeated India in the battles of May 2025.

Pakistan’s Field Marshal described the inevitability of Pakistan’s victory over India as follows while addressing a Pakistani community event in Florida, USA in August 2025:

“India is like a shining Mercedes coming on a highway like Ferrari, but we (Pakistan) are a dump truck…If the truck hits the car, who is going to be the loser?”

Trump’s Grump

In destroying the USA-owned N-assets in Nur Khan and Kirana Hills in Pakistan, India has put not only Pakistan but Trump and the USA in a hell of a hot spot—militarily, diplomatically and politically.

There’s the money angle, of course…so important to Trump and his cronies. The USA set up the Nur Khan air base alone for over 550 million dollars—and that was only the capital cost.  The annual recurring costs would have been many times that figure. The Kirana Hills N-infrastructure would have cost billions of dollars.

That’s a lot of money, even for a do-numberi  builder-don like Donald Trump.

 Losing all that money to Indian strikes must be terribly painful to Trump and his Deep State cronies, especially when all those beautiful American assets have been reduced to piles of radioactive rubble underground.   

In fact, Trump et al. must be feeling the same pain as Iran did, when Trump’s USAF reduced Iran’s N-complexes in Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz to piles of radioactive rubble underground…

But it’s much more serious than that for Trump and the Americans.

On the one hand, the USA simply cannot ever admit that it owned and ran these N-weapon facilities in Kirana Hills or owned and managed Nur Khan N-strike airbase in Pakistan. Because, to do so would be to admit that the USA had installed N-weapons and N-delivery assets targeted at China  in a secret US base located right next to China—in Pakistan, ostensibly, a  ‘friendly’ neighbouring country of China!

And THAT would put the USA exactly where the Soviet Union had put itself when it started to establish Soviet N-missile bases very close to the USA, in Cuba, in 1962…bringing all humankind close to thermonuclear incineration before better sense prevailed thanks to John F Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev…but that’s another story.

On the other hand, the USA cannot hide the evidence of its perfidious ownership and management of the Nur Khan air base or the Kirana Hills N-weapon facilities for long—because not only is all the evidence out there for the world to see, but N-radiation has an inexorable and horrible way of revealing itself in time…however deeply it might be buried

Most important, Pakistan is not going to let the USA escape responsibility and leave Pakistan to bear  the fallout—nuclear and figuratively—of the devastated underground N-facility and the remnants of N-warheads lying inside there, and its ruined air bases and related military losses. 

Yep folks, Pakistan has really got Trump and the USA by their short and curly N-hairs this time. For a while, at least.

And that’s why Trump toadies up to and ingratiates himself with Munir-bhai and Shabbaz-bhai of Pakistan  by the passing day, even as his rage against India intensifies by the passing second and by the midnight tweet.

The USA will never admit any of this:  they dare not, for their own reasons.

Pakistan will never admit any of this; they dare not either, for their own reasons.

Pakistan’s Bhagavad Gita Inspiration

A related question arises: why did Pak PM Shehbaz Sharif promote Pak military chief Asim Munir to Field Marshal and felicitate him for ‘defeating India ’ in  Operation Sindhoor?

Well…let’s empathize with Shabbaz Sharief on this one. Sharief had no choice but to promote Munir to Field Marshal; because to demote or court-martial Munir— as any other country in the world with a microgram of self-respect would have done after Munir led his military to such a humiliating defeat— would be to admit that Pakistan’s military had suffered defeat at the hands of India’s military.

And that admission simply cannot be made by any Pakistani PM.

As Pakistan’s brief but bloody history shows, such an admission, however truthful it might be, would lead to a speedy and unpleasant end for that Pak PM.

Whatever little poor Shabbaz Sharief understands about anything else in life, he certainly remembers what happened to erstwhile Pak PMs Zulfikar Bhutto and to Benazir Bhutto, even nearly to his own brother Nawaz Sharief….

Pakistan believes its supremacy over India, making ‘peace’ with India an absurd proposition. This belief is non-negotiable; it is, in Pakistan’s collective psyche, so deeply ingrained that it is the God-given Truth.

It is taught in Pakistani schools upwards. It is taught in religious seminaries. It is naturally, understandably, echoed in the Pakistani media, in the civilian and military streets of Pakistan.

That is why Pakistan declares that it won the conflict against India in May 2025; as it has won every earlier conflict with India since 1947.  

For Pakistan, eternal victory against India is the Holy Hallowed Truth.  However Holey and Hollow that ‘truth’ is.

This is Pakistan’s strength.  In a weird and wonderful way (though Munir might not like the analogy), Pakistan is in fact practising a fundamental tenet of Hindu philosophy: a tenet taught by Krishna to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita:

You cannot ever be defeated if you believe strongly enough that you haven’t ever been defeated and can’t ever be defeated.

“All that’s very well,” the Patient and Revered Reader might justifiably ask: “But why should this false, hole-ridden Pakistani version of the truth be published as the Truth in the Supreme Court of the World, also popularly known as Western English Media which includes BBC, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and affiliated rags?”

The answer to this is best illustrated by the old joke about God and Devil.

Once upon a time there was a long and fruitless argument between God and Devil over which one of them was the greatest.

Finally, an Impartial Mediator (who some say was Brahma’s son Narada on a White Horse, and others say was a direct ancestor of Donald Trump in a White House) proposed that God and Devil should settle the matter once and for all through a game of football.

Naturally, there was great excitement throughout the Universe among the respective fans and followers of Devil and God (the former, of course, far outnumbered the latter). Tickets for the Greatest Ever Football Game were bought and resold at stellar premiums in galactic black markets, astrologers made astronomical fortunes predicting who would win, and lawyers, investment bankers, Congressmen from the USA and India, and other scoundrels staked entire galaxies (which usually they didn’t own) on outcomes like who would score the maximum goals and how many, who would be red-carded first, and so on.

As for God and Devil, they remained busy with their Holy Heavenly duties and Unholy Hellish duties respectively till, on the eve of the Great Game, they met for a friendly cup of Single Malt Soma.

“Listen, old friend,” murmured God, who was actually quite fond of Devil (though he didn’t care too much for Devil’s horned head, red eyes and sulphurous breath), “you’re going to lose the game tomorrow, you know.  Just look at my Divine Team! I’ve got guys like Diego Maradona, Johann Cruyff, Didi, Silvio Piola, Lev Yashin, Bobby Moore, and Zoltan Czibor playing for me…and as captain I’ve got Edson Arantes do Nascimento, whom the Universe knows as Pele!” God paused for a breath (creating a hundred million new galaxies in the process), smiled and murmured: “You don’t stand a chance in Hell of winning, O Devil!”

Devil chuckled, and replied: “Ah, dear God, you’ve forgotten that the Referee and the Linesmen are playing for me!”

The Asia Cricket Cup

And lastly (phew, at last), consider the Asia Cricket Cup, September 2025.

Sure, India and Pakistan played each other thrice during the tournament. Sure, India defeated Pakistan all three times, including in the Final.

But guess where the Asia Cup is?

The Asia Cup is NOT with the Indian cricket team. The Cup is not even in India.

The Asia Cricket Cup  is in fact in Pakistan, in the grubby hands of one Mohsin Naqvi who is the Chief of the Pakistani Cricket Board, and also works as Pakistan’s Interior Minister when he is not otherwise preoccupied stealing cups, awards and affiliated symbols of victory that belong to other nations.

How come Pakistan and this Mohsin Naqvi fellow snatched the Asia Cup from India after losing the Asia Cup tournament to India?

Well…now we know…

Because Pakistan can never be defeated by India. Pakistan always must win… one way or the other.

Jai Hind!

General ravings, Potshots

Great Indian Grope Trick, Slipped Discus Throw, Spittle Chase…India prepares to top next Olympics!

Mani's avatarMani 5 Comments

[Statutory warning: politically incorrect; scatological. May be offensive to nationalists, communists, communalists and other ideologists. Any resemblance to any real characters or events is entirely intentional]

I’m so happy for our young Indian athletes who did so well at the just-concluded Paralympics in Paris; in all they won 29 medals! And at the Olympic Games last month, too, our Indian athletes did well—winning 6 medals.

Yet, with China topping the Paralympics with 220 medals, and the USA topping the Olympics with 126 medals, we can’t help think that the Indian government, the Indian corporates, the Indian media money bags…in short the Indian establishment can and should do much more to support sports in India so that more Indian youngsters are given the opportunities and encouragement to become high-performing athletes who can qualify to participate in international sporting events and win more medals.  

To get more gyaan on this matter we obtained an interview with the internationally discredited sports expert Professor Glucose Kuriakose Gillidandan, Head of the Centre for Research & Advanced  Programs in Sports (CRAPS) of the Ministry of Sports, and winner of many national awards including the coveted Bakasura Prize for Sports Dietetics & Nutrition, 2011.

We met Prof. Gillidandan at his comfortable office-cum-laboratory complex in Shahdara, New Delhi, overlooking the rippling brown waters of the Shahdara Drain. A beautiful miniature marble sculpture of the fearsome Bakasura, Rakshasa of Insatiable Appetite, stood on Prof. Gillidandan’s colossal desk next to a laptop, a pen-stand, and assorted files. Through the open window, a gentle breeze occasionally brought in the heady organic aromas of the Shahdara drain, blended deliciously with the sharp inorganic aromas of nitric acid, sulphur dioxide and chlorine from the hundreds of informal and illegal e-waste recycling units spread across the vast urban village of Seelampur on the other bank of the Drain.

“Rest assured India will soon be a leading Olympian power,” Prof. Gillidandan declared in response to our opening query.  “My team at CRAPS is implementing a low-cost, innovative strategy which will guarantee that our budding young athletes will win at least 50 gold medals in the L.A. Olympics, 2028, and top the medals chart in the 2032 Games!”

We were thrilled at his words. “Yeh Bharat Mahaan!” we yelled in our enthusiasm, and he leaned back and smiled while the three peons in the room, along with several chaprasis, clerks, and affiliated touts in the reception hall outside raucously echoed the patriotic chant.

“But…er… how will you achieve this ambitious goal?” we asked when the tumult subsided.

Prof. Gillidandan smiled. “We have adopted a two-pronged strategy.  One: instead of wasting precious time and money in creating costly new sports training infrastructure like stadiums, running tracks, and so on, we will use the sports training infrastructure that is readily available all around us already —in the streets and other public places all across our country—to help build all the qualities that young aspiring athletes need: like courage, self-belief, strength, speed, reflexes, flexibility, determination, endurance, and so. In this way, at virtually no extra cost, we can train and create thousands of world-class Indian athletes! “

We were puzzled, but did not interrupt as he was clearly warming to his theme.

“Two,” he went on, “we are also developing a few innovative, uniquely Indian sports events that we will pilot in the next National Games, and thereafter recommend for adoption in the Olympics and other international sports events. These new sports events are broadly modelled on existing Olympic events— but most importantly, they are also perfectly attuned to the same local conditions in our cities where our youngsters will train. Naturally, our newly-trained  Indian athletes will be able to win many medals in these new events… so it’s a win-win strategy! “

We were deeply impressed. “Er…could you please explain with an example or three …?”

Prof. Gillidandan thought for a moment.

“All right, a good example is our latest invention, the Dribble Jump©.  CRAPS has modelled the Dribble Jump on the traditional Olympic sport known as ‘Triple Jump’.  The essence of the Dribble Jump is the same as the Triple Jump:  the contestant sprints down a straight track and then executes a hop, a bound, and finally a long jump into a sand pit. However, the Dribble Jump is far more challenging than the Triple Jump, because the contestant will have to overcome certain unique and formidable hurdles that are encountered in daily life by Indians everywhere, particularly in big cities. These hurdles are created by Acts of Nature—or more precisely, by Indian men responding to Calls of Nature…”

We couldn’t believe our ears. “Eh?  What? Calls of Nature!  How…what do you mean, sir…”

He went on as though we hadn’t spoken. “In the Dribble Jump, the contestant is required to sprint along a straight, shallow sewage drain, and then execute a hop, a bound, and finally a long jump  over a patch of hard ground littered with puddles and piles of …er….freshly deposited human metabolic by-products.”

Dribble Jump – field trial in progress [image created with MetaAI, Paint, and Insanity]

He paused to feed himself a large zarda paan. We attempted to speak but could only utter faint gulping noises. A peon helpfully proffered a glass of water, which we emptied in three additional gulps.

“You see,” Prof. Gillidandan continued indistinctly around his zarda paan, “ studies by my CRAPS team have revealed certain extraordinary facts about our country: that wherever in India there is a vacant plot of land, or a wall or pavement or fence or even a row of bushes stretching more than ten metres, the local community will proceed to use these areas as garbage dumps. Furthermore, passing Indian men will use the same areas as a public toilet on a continuous basis.  The same practices are manifest along the borders of railway lines, streets, canals, ponds, lakes, and so on.  In a flash we realized that these age-old practices—which are so much a part of our glorious heritage, culture and agriculture— provide us with readily available sports training infrastructure across the country at virtually zero cost!”

We continued to gulp in both English and Hindi. As before, Prof. Gillidandan ignored us completely.

“Let me give you an idea of what I mean,” went on Prof. Gillidandan dreamily. “On a stretch of pavement near my own apartment in Rajender Nagar, New Delhi, I’ve seen children and adults routinely execute Triple Jumps of over 24 metres to avoid landing in or on the fresh pools and piles laid out every morning and evening by large-hearted men of the locality! Compare this with the World Records in Triple Jump, which are a mere 18.29 metres for men and 15.74 metres for women…”

“Gulp…glug…”

“These and other insights helped us to envision and design the Dribble Jump, and commence trials too,” he continued.  He waved a hand towards the window. “We’ve field-tested and validated the Dribble Jump in and around the Shahdara Drain, and will continue trials at the Ghazipur Landfill – the ideal venue! And we’ve identified over 1640 other venues across India in which to demonstrate the Dribble Jump as part of our nationwide awareness-cum-training programme during 2024–25.  We hope to showcase this event in the L.A. Games, 2028, and are confident that the International Olympic Association will adopt the Dribble Jump in place of its traditional Triple Jump—especially because the Dribble Jump’s refreshingly natural and organic hurdles harmonize so well with the global movement towards natural and organic lifestyles…”

Ghazipur Landfill, New Delhi – perfect for trials of Dribble Jump and other innovative CRAPS games

We found our voice at last. “This is incredible…unbelievable!” we croaked. “How on earth could…”

“Yes, thank you very much, sir,” replied Prof. Gillidandan with a modest smile, completely misconstruing our words.  “I’m flattered…but  then  I cannot take all the credit, I must acknowledge the contributions of my team here at CRAPS…”

We resumed our gulping and gurgling; by now we were getting quite adept at it.

He grabbed a thin sheaf of papers from his desk and thrust them at us. “Here, take a look at this,” he said, “They summarize a few other innovative sports events that we’ve designed at CRAPS. Some are being field-testing now—like Slipped Discus Throw, Spittle Chase, Great Indian Grope Trick. A few are at the concept stage…my personal favourite is the Poll Vault, specifically designed for contestants from Indian political parties…”

At this point Prof. Gillidandan’s cellphone rang. After a minute’s conversation he disconnected and jumped to his feet.  “My apologies, I must go,” he muttered. “That was the Sports Minister: I have to meet him immediately…”

And so, mercifully, the interview ended.

But our horror endures.

We’ve gone through the small sheaf of papers that Prof. Gillidandan so kindly gave us study, and present  below the gist of some of the sporting events that he and his team at CRAPS have developed for introduction in the next National Games—and perhaps in future Olympic Games.

We’ve also commenced a three-month course of mild tranquilizers on our doctor’s advice, to overcome the bouts of sudden hysteria that overwhelm us without warning ever since our interview with Prof. Gillidandan. The doctor is confident that we’ll recover completely … but has strictly warned us against any stressful activities including watching sporting events on TV or the Net.

Other innovative sports events developed/under development by CRAPS

[list not exhaustive]

Spittle Chase©

Contestants:  athletes of all sexes, all ages

Like the traditional Olympic Steeple Chase, the Spittle Chase© is a gruelling 3000 meter race; but with a few vital differences.

  • In the Steeple Chase, each contestant is required to run about 3000 metres during which he/she jumps over 28 three-foot hurdles and executes seven ‘water jumps’ , each over a 10-foot wide pit of water).
  • In the Spittle Chase©, each contestant  will  run 3000 metres along  the streets of a typical Indian city road choked with traffic and garbage—for example,  Vikas Marg in New Delhi or Andheri–Kurla road In Mumbai. In Kolkata, Guwahati, and Kanpur, any streets will do.
  • In the Spittle Chase©, each of the 28 barriers will consist of a three-foot high mound of construction & demolition (C&D) waste material in the middle of the road, which are usually available or can be arranged for by municipal agencies, Public Works Department (PWD), etc.
  • instead of jumps over pits of water, the Spittle Chase© runner must execute jumps over seven 10-foot-wide pits filled with trash and/or sewage (such pits, too, are usually readily available at no cost due to the roads caving in after being undermined by leaking sewage pipes)
  • To add to the excitement, 28 city buses will hurtle up and down the road at 50–60 kmph during the Spittle Chase©. Each bus will be filled with expert zarda paan chewers who will take pot-shots— rather, spittle-shots— at the running  contestants  who must weave and twist while running in order to escape being hit by the scarlet and fluid barrage. The contestants must also avoid being run over by the city buses—otherwise they will be penalized.

Slipped Discus Throw© 

Participants:  athletes of all sexes, all ages [N.B: orthopaedic surgeons and ambulances will be on standby]

The Slipped Discus Throw© will be a night event – the first ever in the history of India’s National Games, as well as of the Olympics as and when it is introduced!

  • The venue for Slipped Discus Throw© can be any typical newly-developed upmarket area in any of India’s major metropolitan cities— with broad well-lit roads lined with glittering shops and malls, sidewalks littered with C&D waste and garbage, deep uncovered trenches containing exposed electricity and data cables, gas lines, etc., fetid open manholes, and so on.
  • Contestants are required to walk briskly along a designated 400-meter stretch of the road and/or sidewalk without falling or slipping or stumbling and dislocating their hips and/or backs, or tripping over blocks of masonry and tangles of steel wire and breaking their necks.
  • At the end of the 400-meter stretch, the contestant will pick up a standard-size cement block weighing 40 kilograms and throw it across a distance of 10 metres without collapsing on his/her/their/its face or rear. [Note: all cement blocks shall  be tested before the event to ensure that the cement has not been adulterated by unscrupulous contractors]

Great Indian Grope Trick©

Participants:  women athletes of all ages

This unique, all-new women’s event can potentially become the most exciting of all sporting events for spectators at the National Games and Olympics!  Highlights:

  • The Great Indian Grope Trick can be held in any large, crowded public place like a shopping arcade, plaza, bazaar, and so on—for instance, Connaught Place in New Delhi, Johari Bazaar in Jaipur, Crawford Market in Mumbai, and so on.
  • The women contestants, wearing bullet-proof suits and carrying pepper-sprays and/or tasers for self-defence, will have to sprint approximately 800 metres along a demarcated route in the venue while evading the groping fingers (and other assorted intrusive digits, appendages, protuberances and tools) of 400 ‘Gropers’ who will be chosen by a rigorous selection process from among the thousands of lechers, oglers, dirty old men, dirty young men, and affiliated riffraff who frequent all the public spaces in all the cities of India.
  • For scoring purposes, the Gropers will be provided with buckets of indelible dye in which to dip their fingers (and any other tools they may wish to deploy). The winning contestant will be the one who completes the course with the minimum number of dye-marks on her apparel and/or the maximum number of pepper-spray/taser strikes on her would-be Gropers.

[Note from Prof.G K Gillidandan: Regrettably, we may have to reconsider promoting this event due to the slightly disturbing comment by Mr Seniram Ungaliwallah Singh, Deputy Director at the Indian Wrestling Federation (Women’s Division), while praising the CRAPS team for developing the Great Indian Grope Trick:

“Truly, the Great Indian Grope Trick promises to be a Track & Feel event with a difference! I am confident it will leave an indelible impression on all the spectators, if not the contestants; and touch them to the hearts of their bottoms.”]

Great Indian Grope Trick – preliminary trial [image created with MetaAI, Paint, and Insanity]

Poll Vault©

Participants:  Indian political leaders

The Poll Vault is an event that offers high entertainment value for spectators. It is primarily aimed at the National Games for the obvious reason that it is open only to Indian MPs, MLAs, and other senior political party leaders who have defected at least three times from one party to another.

  • As with the traditional Pole Vault, the Poll Vault contestant will use uses a long and flexible pole as an aid to jump over a bar and land on a sand pit on the far side.
  • However, in the Poll Vault, a minimum of three rival contestants will be allowed to grab the pole and tug it away from beneath the contestant while she/he/it/them is attempting to vault over the bar.
  • If the contestant loses balance and lands on the same (starting) side,  penalty points will be awarded there and then by the rival contestants in the form of mild beatings with the pole (which may be made of light bamboo to ensure adherence to International Human Rights Law).
  • Contestants who succeed in vaulting over the bar and landing without severe injury will continue to the next round, with the height of bar being raised each time, until the three final winners are found.  





[Notes from Prof. Gillidandan:





(1) The bar may be made from mild steel for all contestants except those from Aam Aadmi Party, who may be allowed to vault over a standard-sized liquor bar





(2) Any contestant who manages to leap to the other side of the bar, and then leap back to the starting side, can be awarded a special medal. I suggest the name ‘N D Tiwari Puraskaar’, in honour of the late lamented Congress leader N D Tiwari who broke away from the Congress to form the Congress (Tiwari), and then defected back from the Congress (Tiwari) to Congress, leaving his Congress (Tiwari) colleagues Tiwari-less.






Poll Vault – concept [image created with MetaAI, Paint, and Insanity]






Jai Hind! Hail our athletes, who do so well despite our apathy and cynicism.

			

	
	



			
				


	
	

								
				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…” 






			

	
	



			
				


	
	

								
				Potshots, Remembering			
					
		
Maha-Rat-Bandhan

				

			Mani's avatarMani						2 Comments
					

			


		

		

Namaskaarams, O most Valued Readers!  With the grey cells encased in a kind of cerebral permafrost from this grey winter that has enveloped Dilli in a dismal, reeking, sunless chill in which the only daily cheer is brought by the Times of India headline  proclaiming that the ‘Air Quality Has Improved From Severe to Very Poor’, I finally found the energy yesterday to stir the frozen appendages and digits, a cell at a time, to compose a small research paper on ‘Rats and Other Politicians I Have Encountered and Studied.’





When, lo, the news emerged that Shri Nitish Kumar, erstwhile Chief Minister of Bihar and senior member of the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ supported by Congress, CPM, CPI, RJD, Trinamool Congress and other affiliated scoundrels of the I.N.D.I.A alliance, had resigned his Chief Ministership and been resworn in as  Chief Minister of Bihar supported by BJP, Lok Jan Shakti Party and other affiliated scoundrels of the N.D.A alliance. 





With this, Nitish Kumar has created a record of sorts among Indian politicians in defecting from one political party/alliance to another and being sworn in as Chief Minister of Bihar no less than nine times despite assembly elections being held in Bihar only five times. 





Suddenly, the chill softens its bite. In a trice, the Rats I Have Encountered and Studied are forgotten. Only the Politicians I Have Encountered and Studied fill the lattices of the decrepit mind, twitching their bristly whiskers and baring their yellowing rodentine teeth in unholy glee; the glee of those political ascetics who, akin to spiritual ascetics in their own unique ways, have abandoned all earthly desires to do public good and egoistic compulsions to be principled and humble, and instead dedicated their lives to the energetic pursuit of power while energetically evading the pursuit of conscience, creditors, and law enforcement agencies.





And now, amid the dim recesses of memory I espy a short article on the same theme composed for and carried by the Indian Express almost exactly twenty years ago: in 2004, just before the Lok Sabha elections that evicted the BJP-led NDA and brought in the Congress-led UPA. 





Here’s the article in full . With the Lok Sabha elections due in a few months from now, I wonder whether my proposed solution still has any merit?





Stable horse traders





[Indian Express: May 3rd, 2004]





Our politicians would make chameleons turn green with envy. The BJP has ditched the DMK and allied with Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK — the party that brought down its government in 1999. The Congress has tied up with the DMK, which it abused in 1997 on the floor of Parliament for its alleged links with the LTTE (thereby bringing down the UF government). Sharad Pawar of NCP is backing the Congress — from which he broke away in 1999 with these immortal words to Sonia Gandhi: “The Congress manifesto should suggest an amendment to the Constitution of India, to the effect that the offices of the president, vice president and prime minister can only be held by natural born Indian citizens. We would also request that you, as Congress president, propose this amendment…”





Now that exit polls predict a hung Parliament, the likes of Pawar, Mulayam, Laloo and Mayawati are licking their lips in anticipation of singular largesse from the ‘single largest party’. Ministerial berths will obscure issues of foreign birth; suitcases will assure reprieve from civil suits and CBI cases; doublespeak and whitewash will transform ‘communal’ into ‘secular’ and vice versa.





How can such deceitful practices be ended? 





Perhaps the president of India could adopt the Vatican’s system of electing a new pope. Just as the College of Cardinals is locked up in the Sistine Chapel until it chooses a new pope (by two-thirds majority plus one within 13 days, or a simple majority thereafter), the president could incarcerate the newly elected MPs in the Lok Sabha till they similarly choose a consensus prime minister. As with the cardinals, our MPs should be totally sealed off from the outside world during their conclave.





Elected this way, the PM would already have proven her/his majority support in the House, and may then choose a Cabinet from among the MPs and get on with the business of governance.





No doubt this MPs’ conclave will be acrimonious and lengthy. But at least it will ensure a stable government. All arrangements could be made to ensure the MPs a comfortable sojourn — including medical teams to treat any injuries suffered by them during their debates. 





One detail: How do they indicate to the outside world that they have chosen a PM? The Vatican cardinals send white smoke signals by burning their final (successful) ballot papers. Our MPs could send similar smoke signals by setting alight their party manifestos!