Indian politics

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.

			

	
	



			
				


	
	

								
				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!

			

	
	



			
				


	
	

								
				General ravings, Potshots			
					
		
My predictions for Lok Sabha 2024!

				

			Mani's avatarMani						5 Comments
					

			


		

		

Greetings, O loyal and cherished Reader; I bring glad tidings.





At last the glorious day has dawned—a day that you fervently hoped and prayed would never dawn.





Today is the day when I present to thee, and to the rest of long-suffering humanity, my prediction on the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections of 2024.  





The broad theoretical elements of my research are presented in the form of two graphics, whose various components have been filched, misappropriated and/or lifted and morphed with all the usual care from an array of unaccredited online sources—to whom I am deeply grateful.  





My Prediction





 The BJP-led NDA will be totally erased from the Lok Sabha in 2024!





Rationale





Defections from Congress and other Opposition parties to the BJP–led NDA will soon reach a Critical Mass; whereupon, the defectors and defecators will take over the NDA’s DNA through cellular-level dynamic transformations that are as effective, inexorable and deadly as the processes by which a virus takes command of a healthy cell.





Transformation and takeover of BJP in progress





  1. How a migrating/invasive  virus or bacteria takes over a healthy host cell










2. How migrating/invasive Congress-led members take over host BJP-led NDA cell










Afterword





My detailed research report is currently under review by a joint peer group of scientists from two of India’s most infamous, calumniated and globally disavowed academic institutes:   the Indian Institute of Fundamentalist Sciences (IIFS), Delhi, and the Institute of Lactile Sociodynamics (ILS), Kanpur.  It might be worth recalling (or perhaps it might not) that IIFS  discovered two fundamentalist particles— Secularon and Minoritron—that are as important to sociologists as the electron and the Higgs boson are to primatologists;  while ILS discovered the Regresson – the Backward-spinning cerebral particle, which has helped in formulation of the famous Creamy Layer Postulate regarding OBC Reservation that forms the bedrock of India’s affirmative action policy. 










Disclaimer: This report is based on my independent de jure research and largely theoretical interactions with senior members of the political  parties mentioned as well as other unmentionables, and backed by my professional knowledge acquired as Adjunct Liber Scholar with Master’s Degree in Prevarication & Associated Obfuscation from the globally disreputable  Rannoy Poy–Khadka Butt Institute of Unhinged Psephology, New Delhi. Any inaccuracies, baseless allegations, errors, misrepresentations or incomplete data that might have crept in through deliberate inclusion are entirely my irresponsibility.

			

	
	



			
				


			
				


	
	

								
				General ravings, Potshots, Remembering			
					
		
Why India need not fear Islamic State or Al Qaeda

				

			Mani's avatarMani						11 Comments
					

			


		

		

URGENT





An open letter to:





  • Shri Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India
  • Shri Rahul Gandhi, ex-President, Indian Notional National Congress [for easy comprehension, audio recording of this letter being sent directly to him]
  • All Members of Parliament
  • Cabinet Secretary, Government of India
  • Director, Research & Analysis Wing (RAW)
  • Director, Intelligence Bureau (I.B.)
  • Editors of all leading and misleading Indian media houses (online, off-line and over-the-line)





Dear Sa’ar/Ma’am,





1. On 23rd July 2020, the highly influential and largely ineffectual United Nations Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team (UN-ASS-MT) released its 26th Report suggesting that there are many Islamic State (ISIL, Daesh) and Al Qaeda cadres living in Kerala and Karnataka and plotting major terrorist attacks in India. This UN-ASS-MT Report is being widely quoted in Indian main-scream media, creating unnecessary panic among the citizenry. 















2. As a responsible citizen I write this letter to assure you, as well as my co-citizens, that India has nothing to fear from Islamic State, Al Qaeda, or their affiliated kooks…because it is they who fear India!  I state this with complete confidence, because Al Qaeda founder (late) Shri Osama bin Laden has himself admitted that AI Qaeda is terrified of India.  Shri Laden made this admission in August 2005 during an exclusive interview granted to the recondite and highly redacted investigative-speculative reporter (late) Ghatotkacha Hidimbi Bhimasena, who was my dear friend and in some sense a kindred soul.  





3. Alas, Ghatotkacha’s original online post of  his interview with Osama bin Laden has mysteriously disappeared from the Internet—I suspect the Watchers of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate may have cast it into their already Laden Recycle Bin.  Sadly too, Ghatotkacha himself has vanished without trace under mysterious circumstances. 





Ghatotkacha’s original post at http://creative.sulekha.com/india-too-dangerous-for-al-qaeda_102378_blog – now mysteriously vanished like him





4. Fortunately, however, I have been able to procure an offline copy of this historical 2005 interview in my capacity as Sole Legatee of Shri Ghatotkacha’s worldly and other-worldly assets.  I present below the complete transcript of the interview, and request you to give it wide publicity so that Indian citizens may rest assured that we have nothing to fear from IS, Al Qaeda or any affiliated kooks.





Jai Hind!





India too dangerous for Al Qaeda





[Ghatotkacha Hidimbi Bhimasena, 2005]





Osama bin Laden has announced that Al Qaeda will not attack India. The reason: it’s too dangerous for his terrorists.





In a 12-minute videotaped interview, aired by the little-known Dubai-based Al Nakhli channel last Friday, the tired-looking terror-lord is seen standing on a parched, rubble-strewn plain along with a masked man holding an AK-56 assault rifle. In the backdrop looms what appears to be a bombed-out house. Speaking in a monotone, and with frequent pauses to wave a fist or gaze at the sky, Laden says that he and his followers will continue to target ‘evil’ Western nations and their interests across the world. “But we will shun India,” he declares. “India is a land already destroyed by its own leaders, its people terrorized beyond our reach.”





In Langley, US anti-terror specialists have tentatively identified Laden’s masked companion as Al Kali Feroz Sulfait, an expert in chemical detonators. In Delhi, security agencies say the taped interview appears to be genuine. “Judging from the bombed-out appearance of the rocky slope in the background, the interview could have taken place somewhere in the lawless northwestern districts of Pakistan,” remarked a spokesperson for RAW. However, other officials expressed doubts, albeit off the record. “That interview could have taken place in the equally lawless mining districts ruled by Pappu Yadav in Bihar,” remarked a senior Intelligence Bureau official on conditions of anonymity. “Or perhaps, in a granite quarry in Bhai Thakur’s Bhayandar, in suburban Mumbai. My personal feeling, though, is that the tape was made somewhere amidst the bleak and rocky Delhi-Gurgaon badlands. That derelict building in the backdrop has all the unmistakable marks of a freshly-constructed DDA apartment block.”





Cynical? Undoubtedly so. Indeed, it is precisely this couldn’t-care-a-damn attitude about India’s security that distresses bin Laden. A few excerpts from the interview:





Q: Why have you spared India from attacks by Al Qaeda?





Laden: (with great bitterness). “One cannot set fire to ash. The Indians are deadened to terror. India is a land where the most dreadful atrocities are being carried out on the people daily, not by terrorists but by the government itself. Al Qaeda has tried to strike India, yes…but we failed.





Q: Could you clarify?





Laden: For instance, some years ago we set off a small improvised explosive device and sent a train off a bridge in Kadalundi, in Kerala. Our cadres claimed credit, but what was the Indian response? The railway authorities blamed the disaster on a sudden cyclonic storm that swept in from the sea and blew the train off the bridge — even though the event took place on a calm, cloudless night! As for the media and general public, from the very start they held the railways responsible for the event. They said the bridge was 125 years old and had given way under the weight of the train; they said corrupt railway officials had swallowed all the money meant for the maintenance of the tracks; some even alleged that the locomotive wheels had fallen off because they were fakes, the original wheels having been stolen and sold to scrap dealers. The more Al Qaeda tried claiming credit for the operation, the less credence was given to our claims. People went to the extent of saying the Indian government itself was putting out ‘false’ claims by Al Qaeda to deflect attention from its own failures…(shakes head in disgust)





Q: Was that the only operation you undertook?





Laden: The only direct one, yes. But our associates have undertaken similar successful strikes, only to meet with similar miserable failure in obtaining credit for the strikes. For example, a suicide team of Lashkar-e-Toiba held up a mall in Delhi. But their deaths went in vain…nobody believed the police SWAT team, which finally martyred the Lashkaris. Till today, the Indian public believes the dead Lashkaris were in fact undertrials from Tihar jail, petty pickpockets and the like, whom the Delhi Police planted and got rid off in a stage-managed ‘fake encounter’ at the mall so that they could pick up some rewards and medals.





Q: But this is terrible. Surely there must be another way to strike at India…





Laden: (Shakes fist at sky) I have torn away great tufts from my beard in trying to find another way. No, no, Indians distrust, fear and despise their own rulers far more than they fear us. Despite the most glaring evidence that we have struck, despite our most frantic and sustained efforts to claim responsibility for strikes, they stoutly refuse to believe us. They only blame their own rulers. What can one do? Is it fair on us? Is it just? (Subsides into muttering)





Q: Perhaps Al Qaeda should liberate the suffering people of India from the clutches of their oppressive rulers?





Laden: (wearily) Alas, the rot has spread too deep in India. Terror breathes deep of publicity, for that is its oxygen. How can we derive publicity in a country like India? If we bomb a bazaar, they will blame it on exploding gas cylinders supplied by corrupt government agencies. If we bring down a building or bridge, they will blame it on adulterated cement and steel used by scheming builders and contractors…





Q: Perhaps you could outsource your strikes, send funds and arms and explosives to local Indian squads…





Laden: (trembling with rage) Don’t you understand? Our methods will not work there! Would it not be utterly idiotic to smuggle funds into India from abroad, when Indians can sit in that country and raise Rs. 20,000 crores quite openly and legally like Abdur Rehman Telgi did! (Waves arms about) What is the point in our smuggling arms and explosives into India, when Indian businessmen are legally importing live artillery shells and radioactive wastes as metal scrap? No, no! I have decided that our cadres must not be tainted by India’s cynicism and corruption. Nor must my people’s lives be endangered by live ammunition discarded in public places. Al Qaeda will stay away from India! We cannot attack law and order where none exists…”

			

	
	



			
				


	
	

								
				General ravings, Musings			
					
		
Time to get stoned!

				

			Mani's avatarMani						6 Comments
					

			


		

		
NO STONE UNTURNEDAnd so, Delhi burns.


High time it did too, no?


After all, over two months have passed since the CAA was enacted and the anti-CAA sit-down protest began in Shaheen Bagh, December 15th 2019.


Two months…with not even one decent-sized communal riot to reward the sincere and strenuous efforts that have been made by political parties Left and Right, along with their captive journalists and intellectuals, to spark off riots.


Oh sure, a few score Delhi Police personnel—men and women—have been beaten up or pelted into coma with stones or stabbed or shot from time to time.  But then they don’t count…who cares about cops, right?


[Aside: is attacking police personnel considered ‘Secular’ or ‘Communal’ violence?]


But now at last, on 25th February 2020, hope blazes in our hearts, like the fires blazing in North-East Delhi.


Hope, that for the first time since Gujarat 2002, we can all get to watch real-time large-scale Communal Riots on Prime Time.


Yayyyy.


For the looming Riots, we must thank our beloved political leaders who always have the strengthening of Human Riots  uppermost in their minds –  like Kapil Mishra of BJP and  Waris Pathan of AIMIM.


And unlike in the primitive days of Gujarat 2002, when people didn’t even have mobile phones (imagine that! How Jurassic!)   we can not only follow the Riots as they unfold but safely participate in the Mobs, too! Thanks to Social Media.


We can create and spread poisonous rumours, we can ignite murderous rage, at the speed of electrons, without messing up our hands with blood and gore …yucccckkk. And without any danger of getting caught by the police, either…assuming there are any police left to catch us, of course…Ha Ha Ha.


Hail the glory of WhatsApp!  Oh, the joyous anonymity of end-to-end encryption!


And hail the wondrous power of Instagram too!  Don’t you just love those multi-media Instagram ‘Stories’ that self-destruct within 20 seconds so there’s no evidence left?  Stories that you and I can create and forward to spread the most unspeakably violent videos and messages, the most cruel propaganda, secure in the knowledge that in less than half a minute the Stories will vanish with nothing to show the stories ever passed through or even existed in our phones? Or in anyone else’s phones?


Forgive the flippancy, gentle reader…but the situation today merits graveyard humour.


Because the danger is real…especially to the ‘young’ who more or less live in the virtual worlds of their mobile phones and Social Media.


Because Social Media does give each one of us the wild, untrammeled irresponsibility of the Mob member.


And Mobs are frightful.


The very nature of a Mob can transform us, however rational we might think we are, whatever be our social and economic status, into creatures capable of terrible violence.


A Mob offers anonymity and provides a feeling of security by its sheer numbers. It removes our sense of individual responsibility, and thereby dismantles the elaborate codes of ethics and morality that govern ‘normal’ conduct.


Nobel Laureate Elias Canetti viewed the Mob as a ‘biological entity’, something qualitatively different from the simple sum of its parts. His description of how a quiet street-corner gathering develops into a violent Mob is chillingly familiar. [quote from a 2002 edit-page article I wrote on Gujarat riots ]


“Nothing has been announced, nothing is expected, but suddenly the street is transformed. Windows are thrown open, people come out of doors and alleys — streaming in from all sides as though streets had only one direction. At first the only noticeable property of this composite creature is its urge to grow. It wants to seize everyone within reach. Anything shaped like a human can join it. It knows no limits and admits of no restrictions. It does not recognize houses, doors or locks, and those who try to shut themselves in or deny its hunger are immediately suspect…


‘‘As long as the crowd is growing, it feels secure. But as soon as growth becomes restricted, as soon as it runs out of its natural food, it gets irritable and develops a sense of persecution. It becomes hostile and then it starts to break things. Windows of shops and houses, windscreens of cars are the first to go because they provide such a satisfying sound. Doors, gates and fences, anything that represents a boundary, become the next target and are torn down and trampled underfoot. 


And finally comes fire. Of all methods of destruction, this is the most impressive. It can be seen from far off and attracts even more people. It destroys irrevocably; nothing is the same after a fire. A crowd setting fire to something feels irresistible. It is. The quiet evening street is now a district in riot, an environment inhabited by an organism that is out of control…”


The rioting Mobs of Delhi 1984, of Bombay 1992-93, of Gujarat 2002, left thousands dead, tens of thousands maimed, and a nation in despair. But who were the Mob members? Who were those tens of thousands who pelted stones and firebombs, who fell upon their fellow Indians and beat them, molested them, raped them, killed them?


Within hours, within a day or two, they were all back to their ‘normal’ selves — lawyers and laundry-owners, teachers and traders, students and shopkeepers, professors and paan vendors, bankers and businessmen, writers and rickshaw pullers. Nice ‘respectable’ people, young and old.


People just like us. Their faces are our faces.


And what of the evil men and women who sowed the seeds of the Mobs, who broke the reservoirs of violence with whispered rumours and words of poison?


They vanished without trace, as they always do.


As have vanished the evil men and women who planted the seeds of communal violence in Shaheen Bagh.


And so Delhi burns…