Potshots

Musings, Potshots

The chortle of the mosquito

Mani's avatarMani 5 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

Is Kejriwal right? The jury is still out.

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

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

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

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

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

What on earth is going on?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Jai hind.

General ravings, Potshots

Why I trust Pakistani media more than Indian Media

Mani's avatarMani 5 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

Front-page 13th October
Editorial, 17th October

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

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

Three months… imagine that.

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

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

Less bandwidth, more banned wit?

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

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

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

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

I had to hunt the petition down on Pakistani media.

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

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

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

[QUOTE]

To

The Govt of India and the Govt of Jammu and Kashmir

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

University Students and Alumni

[UNQUOTE]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don’t want to miss Arnab.

Jai Pakistani media. Hai Hai Indian media!

Jai Hind.

Potshots, Verse perverse

Rahul Gandhi’s Farewell Song

Mani's avatarMani 5 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are so many places I’ve found

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

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

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

[Refrain]

 

 

 

 

Musings, Potshots

Behold! The Banyan in the Lotus

Mani's avatarMani 5 Comments

A shady analogy for a shady party?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jai Hind! Jai Banyan!

General ravings, Potshots

Azadi from JNU-itis!

Mani's avatarMani 15 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—‘Dumbledore’s army’.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jai Hind!

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

 

General ravings, Potshots

Rahul vs Modi – Globetrotter Challenge

Mani's avatarMani 8 Comments

Remember all the jokes about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s frequent overseas trips?

How I laughed!

But now, while researching the overseas junkets of our beloved MPs, I’ve discovered a curious thing. And I’m laughing even harder.

Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has travelled abroad much more than Prime Minister Modi.

Consider the data.Rahul the globetrotter

In the calendar year 2015 and up to date (i.e. January 13, 2016), Prime Minister Narendra Modi spent a total of 55 days on overseas visits.

In the calendar year 2015 and up to date (i.e. January 13, 2016), Rahul Gandhi spent a total of 86 days on overseas visits! That’s more than 1½ times the number of days spent by Modi abroad.

Now, you and I and everyone’s uncle and bhatija and periappa can argue till Laloo’s cows come home about what Modi’s visits have or haven’t yielded India. But this much is certain: Modi’s 55 days on overseas visits and their purposes are all in public domain, not just on the PMO’s site but even on Wikipedia. And since on 54½ out of those 55 days Modi was on official duty (state visits, attending UN/ASEAN conferences and so forth) and I knew exactly where the man was and what he was doing there, I as a tax-payer don’t mind part-subsidizing Modi’s travel expenses – except for Modi’s  half-day private visit, on 25th December, when on the way back from Kabul he stopped by in Lahore to greet Nawaz Sharif on his birthday.

But friend Rahul Gandhi is a different matter.

All of Rahul Gandhi’s 86 days abroad were ‘private visits’, whatever that means. I never knew where Rahul was; I did not know why he had gone where he had gone; I did not know what he was doing there (if at all he did anything). And I still don’t know any of these things. That’s because Rahul’s movements have always been as hidden as the signs of his intellectual abilities, as dense as the collective wisdom of the Congress High Command. There are great tracts of time where no-one (barring, perhaps, his mother Sonia) seems to have known whether the man was in India, or abroad, or in some extra-galactic realm of self-discovery. Not even Rahul himself.

“It’s none of your business where Rahuljee is or was,” was/is the standard testy response of the First Family’s minders when asked about the whereabouts of the Great Leader.

Indeed, I grant Rahul Gandhi, as a fellow-citizen, the freedom and the right to go where he pleases to go and do what he pleases to do – as indeed I and my 1300 million fellow-Indians reserve and joyfully exercise these rights.

But Rahul is a Member of Parliament, while I am not. As an MP, Rahul is a Representative of the People of India; not just of the Congress party. Just as Narendra Modi, as MP, is Representative of the People of India and not just of the BJP.

They are answerable to us.

And therefore, I strongly object to Rahul’s disappearing from his duties to the People of India – that too for weeks or even months at a time – without notice on ‘private visits’ about which I/we know nothing.

The Congress might protest that Rahul paid for his own tickets and for whatever else he might have done during these holidays. Even granting that Rahul did so, what about the costs for his SPG cover, their tickets, their stays and so forth? As a tax-payer, I strongly object to being asked to subsidize totally unproductive ‘private visits’/holidays by my MP Rahul Gandhi.

“What about Modi!” the Congress spokespersons might shriek. “He didn’t tell anybody about his private visit to Lahore! Why don’t you object to Modi’s private visit to Nawaz, hey?”

It is a valid point.

So here’s a suggestion: when Parliament reconvenes, the House may order recovery of all expenses on private visits made by Narendra Modi (½ day) as well as Rahul Gandhi (86 days) from their respective salaries as MPs. The recovered sum may be directly and speedily credited toward a worthy cause – like providing better software for the Income Tax Department, to enable faster processing of IT Refunds due to the millions of suckers like me.

Jai Hind.

 

 

General ravings, Potshots

Secular meats and other idiocies

Mani's avatarMani 6 Comments

Question 1: Which of the following dietary practices are the most secular?

A. Hindu eats beef

B.Muslim eats pork

C. Hindu does not eat pork

D. Muslim does not eat beef

E. Both Hindus and Muslims turn vegetarian

Seriously, this is the kind of question that youngsters are likely to face in competitive exams in the next decade, going by the exquisitely refined crap that passes for intellectual discourse and political debate among academia and in mainstream media today.

Here is a fine example of the stellar academic thinking and intellectual activism – on public display during the past few months – that will inexorably lead to the posing of serious questions like the above. In recent months, certain sections of students in the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi have organized well-publicized ‘beef and pork eating parties’ for students; the idea is that Hindus who join in the revelry can prove their ‘secular credentials’ by eating beef, and Muslims who join in the revelry can prove their ‘secular credentials’ by eating pork.

But when you think about it, all that a Hindu or a Muslim could possibly ‘prove’ by eating beef and pork respectively in the party, is that she/he is hungry. Where in the name of Allah, Krishna, Jesus and other secular deities does ‘secularism’ come into what you shovel into your stomach?

What if a Hindu eats beef (or a Muslim eats pork) at such a party, and then proceeds to puke like mad because the meat is undercooked or overcooked or simply tasteless? Does that make the hapless puker ‘communal’?

And what about a Muslim or Hindu who is invited to such a party but refuses to go? Does his or her refusal to go and hog pigs and cows cast a shadow of doubt over his/her ‘secular credentials’, whatever in @@#$%%&^% that phrase means?

Let me hasten to add, loud and clear with my mouth filled with pork and beef: I believe there’s absolutely nothing wrong in eating beef and pork. Or armadillo balls, or monkey gonads, or idlis for that matter.

What one eats is purely a matter of personal taste. I eat anything that’s served with love and affection.

I state, without either embarrassment or pride, that I love South Indian vegetarian food. And also North Indian vegetarian food. But I’ve also thoroughly enjoyed, and continue to eat, all kinds of meat: of cows, pigs, sheep, lamb, goat, deer, yak, wild boar and so forth. I also love to eat fish from lakes, rivers and seas. Oh, and also crustaceans. In addition, I’ve eaten and still eat a variety of bird: chicken and duck and pigeon, of course, and also quail, partridge, and numerous other species whose names I know not that were felled, cooked and eaten during hikes with friends in the forests of Assam and Meghalaya. Lest I forget, I’ve also eaten, with immense relish, an extraordinary variety of little creatures that are garden-grown – well, basically creatures that live on things that are garden-grown; like little caterpillars (in their cocoons) that grow on pea plants, fried bee larva and so forth.

But you know what? My all-time favourite dishes since childhood are dahi-chawal, kootu, Assamese fish curry and Kerala-style fried prawns.

And I detest paneer in all its avatars. But I don’t consider paneer-lovers communal or secular. I don’t scream: “Ban paneer!”

The point I’m making is: there’s nothing ‘secular’ or ‘communal’ about food. I consider myself a man of faith; my faith is my own business. And what I eat has sweet@@##%%^&-all to do with my faith – or yours, for that matter.

Please go ahead and eat what you wish to eat. Please do let me eat what I like to eat.

All food we eat serves but one purpose: to give us the energy to live. To mix up ‘God’ with food is not only idiotic; it is sacrilege. Because leftovers from the food you eat go down the alimentary canal, to eventually…well…let’s drop the matter.

As Conan Doyle might have put it: “Alimentary, my dear JNU beef-and-pork partiers”.

Bon appetit. And Jai Hind.