Trump

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!

Musings, Potshots

To Comrade Xi Jingping of China, with Love

Mani's avatarMani 3 Comments

Dear Comrade Xi,

How are you? I am well.

How is the weather in Beijing? It is quite sultry here in Delhi, with a lot of mosquitoes.

I hope you are not troubled by mosquitoes in Beijing? But then, considering the Great Scientific Leaps Forward achieved in China under your glorious and lifelong Supreme Leadership, I am sure Chinese virologists from Wuhan will have developed variants of the bats of Yunnan that will eat any mosquitoes that dare disturb your equanimity.

Comrade Xi, I am so happy that you have called on your Chinese officials to “create a “trustworthy, lovable and respectable image for China…and to improve the way China tells stories to the global audience”.  Indeed, China is getting a lot of abuse and bad media coverage across the world about this terrible coronavirus Covid-19; the abuse continues even after that foul-mouthed Donald Trump of USA was kicked out of US presidential office. 

Oh! Comrade Xi, I used to feel so very sad for you and for China whenever I heard ex-US President Trump abuse you last year. I used to tell my friends: “Ah! If only Trump had been Chinese! He could have immediately been sponsored by the Chinese government for a Re-Education Program under Short-Term Plan in some convenient Province—say, Uighur— and without doubt Trump would have emerged a better, quieter, more gentle and tolerant man, for such is the wisdom and benign humaneness that marks all educational and re-educational institutions of learning and unlearning under the leadership of Comrade Xi.”

But apologies for digressing, dear Comrade Xi. My main purpose in writing is to tell you that I fully endorse and whole-heartedly support your call on your officials to present a better image of China and to tell better stories of China to the world.

In this regard I am proud to declare that I am a regular reader of The Global Times, which is aptly described as being a Mighty and Virile Organ of the People’s Republic of China.  Not only do I read Global Times, respected Comrade: I also contribute an occasional Letter to the GT Editor, and it is with delight that I present my latest letter below. You will note that it was published barely a day before your ringing call for improving China’s image. I trust my letter will encourage and inspire Chinese officialdom to take one small step forward in their Long March that lies ahead.

In conclusion, dear Comrade Xi, may I narrate, very briefly, this magnificent old Chinese folk tale that has so much relevance and import for China’s image in the world, and indeed for the future of China and the world:

There once was a fine young nobleman from the kingdom of Chu, who set forth on a journey across the country. Upon a day the nobleman reached the bank of a wide river, whereupon he engaged a boatman to row him across to the far shore.

As they were crossing the river, the nobleman accidentally dropped his sword into the water. Displaying great intelligence and swiftness of thought, the nobleman at once drew his dagger and made a notch-mark on the side of the boat where he’d seen the sword go overboard. As soon as the boat reached the far shore, the nobleman plunged into the shallows and scrabbled around in the muddy waters beneath the notch-mark, looking for his sword…

May I respectfully and sincerely suggest, dear Comrade Xi, that China’s diplomats, other government officials, and in particular the senior officials and cadres of the People’s Liberation Army, draw inspiration and lessons from this folk tale as they obey your call and embark on their quest to locate and restore China’s lost respect and honour?

Strength to the People’s Republic of China! Jai Hind!

General ravings, Musings, Potshots

People’s Daily goes Viral

Mani's avatarMani

I’m very fickle in my loyalty to media – as  I explained ad nauseum (puke puke) in one or more earlier posts. The simple reason is that I don’t trust any media house—Indian or international—to present me with the simple unbiased truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I believe that all media sources have hidden agendas…and hidden jhandas that together bear all hues of the political spectrum.

The more fiercely any media channel or website proclaims its own integrity, the more clearly I recall the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons”

Yet I must know what’s REALLY going on in the country, in the world. As I’m sure you do, too.

I still trust my own common sense and ability enough to separate Truth from the Great Ocean of Media Ghoda Gobar  in which we all wallow. And so, rather than find and revel in stagnant, parochial tide pools filled with the kind of Ghoda Gobar that I would LIKE to believe is the Truth, I just commend my soul to the One and dive into the great and noisome Ocean itself, with two parallel strategies that have kept me afloat for…well…at least 15 days at a time:

  • I feed randomly on about 5–6 sources of ‘news’ each day, trying to cover the entire Left–Right political spectrum, Indian and international.
  • I switch loyalties as often and as unpredictably as I can.

Example: From February to April, my primary news feeds were Indian Express, The Wire, Republic TV, Rajya Sabha TV, CNN, Wion, and NewsLaundry.

Since May 5th or so, I’ve abandoned all but Indian Express and Rajya Sabha TV. Now I also chew awhile on DD Northeast Channel, Times Now, The Quint, Fox News, and People’s Daily (from People’s Republic of China).

It’s fun. Often, it’s hilarious. You have to try it to discover how highly renowned, greatly  adulated journalists, reporters and affiliated experts and academia the world over are manufacturing incredibly different, equally compelling narratives out of the same ‘Truths’ and ‘Facts’ and ‘Realities’ that each of them claims ’exclusively’ to have unearthed, and presents most convincingly for our education and enlightenment.

I’m getting particularly attached to the People’s Daily. True, the mountains of praise it showers on the glorious leadership and vision of President  Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party would make even the most well-seasoned Family-toadies of Indian National Congress gnash their rodentine teeth in envy. Yet, there’s something refreshing in its simple language, its directness, its unabashed upholding of Chinese interests…and particularly,  its corrosive articles on the USA and its leader President Trump in these Covid19-ravaged times..

Here are a few recent extracts from this wonderful e-paper:

Fourth question to American politicians: Why not fix your sick and twisted mind first?

[May 11]

…While rational voices in the international community have acknowledged China’s efforts and contributions to the fight against the epidemic, the U.S. has continued to defame and slander China, revealing its sick and twisted mind…

Despite having no professional background or practical experience, some U.S. officials have brazenly made irresponsible and ridiculous remarks amid the outbreak, such as recommending the injection of disinfectants into the human body to fight the coronavirus…

China leads vaccine R&D, no need to steal

[May 12: ‘Global Times’]

China’s Foreign Ministry and experts have slammed rumors hyped by the US side that Chinese hackers and spies are trying to steal their research materials for COVID-19 vaccine and drug development…

US could only harm existing cooperation mechanisms by making such ridiculous accusations against China, Lü Xiang, a research fellow on US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told the Global Times on Monday. China is fully able to research and develop COVID-19 vaccines independently. If the US claims China is stealing its data, then the US needs to prove that it has achieved more progress than China, said Lü, otherwise, why would China be interested in it?

Lü said the epidemic situation in China has been generally brought under control, and daily life and economic activities are returning to normal. Meanwhile, the US has more than 1.3 million infections and the number continues to increase.

“We are not the ones who desperately need the vaccine, they are,” Lü said.

 Fallacious U.S. targeting of China over COVID-19 groundless: experts

[May 18]

…From a legal perspective, the pandemic is a global public health issue, and there is no such a thing as “state responsibility” of the first country to report cases, experts said, adding that AIDS was first reported in the United States in the 1980s and has spread across the world since then, but the global community has never asked the United States to be held accountable…

 

Peoples Daily Mirth

 

The People’s Daily provides mirth, and much-needed balance to both CNN and Fox News, even as Covid19 does its Tandava across the world.

I’m a die-hard fan…at least for now. As with Covid19, a fortnight’s usually the maximum time before fatigue and other warning symptoms of infection appear…

General ravings, Musings, Potshots

One last “Eff Off!” at the Web Spiders

Mani's avatarMani 16 Comments

Are you one of those who despise, detest or otherwise dislike the kind of crap that’s being dished out in the name of ‘news’ by media?  Are you increasingly nervous about discussing politics—especially issues related to Modi and Trump and Brexit and Kashmir and Iran and Triple Talaq and Article 370—because people, even people you know well, fly into a rage at the drop of a secular hat or communal topi?

If so, I’m like you.

I’m scared of the growing intolerance among people. I deeply distrust and often loathe the news that I get via media – meaning all media, including social media.

I see a sinister connection.

That’s why I’m writing this Fèihuà (Chinese: bullshit – click here to know how to say it]

But first, I have a confession to make. Despite my aversion to and distrust of media, I follow media news, daily and avidly, sometimes even with immense amusement.

Each day, I spend between 30 minutes and an hour surfing through a variety of TV news channels, English and Hindi, in no particular order (feel free to gasp in horror): channels like Wion, Times Now, Republic TV, Aaj Tak, Rajya Sabha TV, DD News, BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera come to mind.

Experience has taught me that spending anything more than an hour on these news channels is as pleasant as  swallowing 10 ml of strong ammonia solution; which incidentally I actually did when in school (for details on symptoms, please click here).  It probably explains why I still find a lot of things difficult to swallow; especially in the media.

Oh, and I also glance through the following online papers/magazines at least once each a week: Newslaundry, The Wire, Quint, and Dawn (Pakistan). I also get two daily newspapers—Indian Express and Times of India—on which I spend a maximum of 30 minutes before turning to the Sudoku in the former which takes me anything between 5 minutes and forever. I read select WhatsApp forwards from select friends; I do not exist on Facebook or Twitter or any of the other social media platforms.

Blanch in horror you well might, precious reader; but I inflict this media bombardment on myself for two reasons:

  1. I recognize that I need the media to know what’s going in the world—because the world is too big and there’s too much happening too fast everywhere for me to experience and understand personally. But I simply refuse to take the easy, lazy way out and depend on just one media source for news, or on friends to tell me the news.  I believe no media source is telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth; yet every media house is perforce putting out bits of  truth at the behest of its corporate/political paymasters because it knows that even a semi-literate bakra like me will not swallow pure lies. In this situation, with so many scattered locations of what are at best ‘bits of truth’,  the closest I can get to know the whole truth is to make the effort to sift and scan through every shade of media—from the deceitful extreme Left to the deceitful extreme Right, from pro-CPM through pro-Congress to pro-BJP, from capitalist to communist, pro-Islamic kook to pro-Hindutva kook via pro-Christian kook, from ultra-conservative to neo-liberal—to identify these truth-bits and put them together like pieces of a jigsaw. Without prejudice, without pre-conceived notions, with as much balance as I can summon up in what’s left of my deranged mind. In doing this I have complete faith in my own discerning power to tell truth from lie, right from wrong; yet I remain aware that I can make mistakes, and I try and stay alert for traps.
  2. I enjoy taking potshots at the media for brazenly partisan or false reportage, so it’s important for me to know the various varieties of ng’ombe (Swahili: bullshit) that the media is manufacturing and selling me in the name of news. Only with this knowledge can I develop my own superior varieties of ng’ombe to counter their assault.

It’s not easy absorbing and sifting through so much multimedia garbage daily; it’s not always pleasant.  I know it’s probably futile, and you’re welcome to laugh at me, but still I keep at it— like Sisyphus rolling the rock up the mountain, knowing it’s only going to roll down again. I keep at it because I think this is the only way I can remain – and maybe even crawl along – the top of the slippery, ever-narrowing Wall of Balance that runs between the two great Chasms of Choice that define today’s world.

That’s the thing: everything has become ‘binary’ – have you noticed?

I feel pressurized to choose, all the time, between great extremes, stark opposites. I feel driven to take radical positions on all kinds of issues and ideas and events and things about which I know little and have little or no personal experience on, issues that really have no bearing on my daily life, but that seem to have somehow become incredibly important for me, and every person on the planet, to have and to express very strong views on: political views, religious beliefs, ideologies, causes, calls to war.

And often I feel this pressure too: other people, not just media-folk, are always trying to CONVERT me to their view(s).

And such is the pressure to opine, so immense the flow and intensity of information that batters me, so compelling its power, that there’s no time to think – leave alone reflect. I’m asked to choose at once.  Choose NOW.  At every step, every turn, I am being pressurized to choose between binaries: between extremes of opinion, world-view.

Choose—and be judged. Choose—and be rewarded by group acceptance, or condemned by social isolation.

Choose between binaries like: Love Modi vs.Hate Modi. Love Rahul vs. hate Rahul. Bhakt vs. Tukde Tukde Wallah. Left—Right. Majority—Minority. Brahmin—OBC. Hindi—Tamil. White–Black. Us–Them. Blah–Blah.

Thus far, I’ve managed to gasp “Thloh!” or “Eff Off!” at the Spiders, and those who quote them, without giving in to the pressure of choosing; without becoming a groupie – a bleating Animal Farm sheep, whether of this flock or that.  Thus far, I’ve not alienated friends.

But I’m getting weary, I’m feeling more and more alone.

And I’m writing this because I’m also increasingly alarmed. I notice that people I’ve known for years and decades, wonderful loving people, young and old, are succumbing and becoming sheep; impatient and angry sheep, intolerant and abusive sheep, narrow-minded sheep. They follow cheer-leaders (bleat-leaders?); they echo the crowd; they parrot the safe slogans, the politically correct spiel. It doesn’t take much gentle conversation to reveal that they don’t make the effort to read and research and reflect and work things out on their own.

They don’t have the self-confidence any more. The self-confidence to swim against the tide; to be individual, unique.

I’ve said this before: I believe the information maelstrom on every issue, every subject, every topic, is designed to sap our individuality, our self-confidence; to addle our minds so that we respond like digital switches. ON-OFF. And that’s why, I believe, the whole world is becoming more and more impatient, more radical in opinions, more intolerant of differences.

O noble reader, I do believe every media house everywhere in the world runs on a business strategy that is even more simple, powerful, effective and sustainable than the age-old strategy followed by the shrewd paanwallah who blends a little opium into his qiwam (kimam).

For the paanwallah, I, you, all of us, are loyal clients to be hooked…and to stay hooked on his paan alone for the rest of our paan-eating lives.

Easy way to escape: don’t start eating paan.

But in the Web of Pseudo Reality woven by today’s marketing–advertising–media (MAM) Spiders, using artificial intelligence and Big Data and Allah and Rama and Jesus and Marx knows what other psychometric and information technology tools, we are already hooked, already trapped and secured.

We are a billion little flies in the Web. Flies with brains (sure, go ahead and laugh, I know that leaves me out…I wish). Flies that can make choices.

Our minds are trapped in the Web; the Spiders have painstakingly (lovingly?) wrapped us up in translucent pouches woven from silky-soft strands of psyche that define our personalities, our attitudes and emotions, our responses to stimuli—a thousand and more strands of our own private selves that we have so openly, so eagerly and thoughtlessly placed in public domain over the years. Our Facebook and Instagram profiles, our Likes and Dislikes, our Twitter and Snapchat and WhatsApp groups and follower lists and forwarding patterns, our responses to countless seemingly trivial online tests and surveys, our Google searches, YouTube and Netflix watch-lists,  reading habits, patterns of travelling, shopping, eating-out, entertainment…

Easy way to escape: none. [But for a while you can try screaming “Thoh”! “Eff Off!” and suchlike.]

And the Spiders now feed on our naked minds, for they can better predict and measure our responses to different stimuli, our behaviour in different circumstances. The Spiders use our minds as testing grounds for innovative propaganda ideas and actions on behalf of their transnational political–corporate–religious–criminal–terrorist clients.

That’s why for us, the flies in the Web of MAM, every day is becoming like every other day—a long, blurry, endless  series of frenzied jumps from one stressful decision to another, one crisis to another, one worry to another, with no time to think or rest or reflect. Only the Products of the Day change; only the Products of the Day dominate our conversations when we meet; and each of us must make a YES-NO choice in regard to each Product each day. There is no place for neutrality, moderation, no room for a third way, a middle path…and a pall of dread hangs over the very idea of choosing not to choose. I am made to feel I must choose, one way or the other…or be condemned to the pseudo-death of total social isolation.

And what are these Products of the Day?

You guessed it: Love Modi vs.Hate Modi. Love Rahul vs. hate Rahul. Bhakt vs. Tukde Tukde Wallah. Left—Right. Majority—Minority. Brahmin—OBC. Hindi—Tamil. White–Black. Us–Them…ad nauseum, ads and advertorials nauseum.

So it is that sooner or later, you and I will succumb to making a choice without hesitation. Without thought. To respond instantly and ferociously to just about anything and everything, however trivial, however important.

And as my progressive choices help the Spiders categorize me and adjust their individualized Product presentations accordingly, I easily, almost unconsciously, adopt a certain narrative; a certain ideology; a certain world-view. I won’t even know that my mind is trapped and my vision clouded.  On the contrary, I will continue to think that I’m broad-minded, sober, independent, unbiased; that I am right, WE are right. And I will eagerly try and convert others to my view — because there is comfort in numbers, there is less fear of being socially isolated.

And the sheer beauty, the sheer horror of it all is, my short-term memory becomes shorter and shorter till it dwindles to nothingness. And because this is happening to everybody, I can switch my opinions, my stand on issues, my entire world-view, 180° overnight – or even within an hour —without my feeling in the least bit guilty or ashamed about being hypocritical or deceitful or unprincipled. And without anyone even noticing.

“In the Realm of Subliminal Consciousness, Conscience withers… and Memory dies” – Bakasura the Great, 2477 BCE

I know there’s no escape from the Web while I live. The sleepless Spiders watch; they see all, know all.

So long as I have ever used the Net (and I started  20 years ago), so long as I have a mobile phone, so long as I use any social media platform, so long as I use credit cards and debit cards and passports, I am naked before the cold, clinically efficient, half-machine half-human million-eyed monsters that are the Spiders of MAM.

Even if I fling my phone away, shoot my TV set (and cable operator with it), burn my credit cards and de-register from all social media, I will be as free as a butterfly impaled by a sharp pin on wax paper.

You too.

If you don’t believe me, watch this TED talk to learn how and why the entire Brexit farce-turned-horror of June 2016 was orchestrated by a Spider named Cambridge Analytica and Facebook et al … leaving the peoples of Britain, and indeed the EU, still grappling with the aftermath in August 2019. Watch this TED talk to understand why, and how easily, Russia and Cambridge Analytica manipulated the entire American electorate to turn against Hillary Clinton and vote for Trump as President. If you want a detailed account of all this and much more, watch ‘The Great Hack’ (it’s on Netflix; here is a trailer.)

You might think: “Arre boss, this is all about USA and Britain, what’s it all got to do with India that is Bharat, hahn jee?”

Well…check out how the same Spider—Cambridge Analytica—was wooed by our very own Indian National Congress and possibly other political parties to help win Lok Sabha elections: [click here]

Of course, gentle reader, as soon as you visit any or all of these links, the ‘data points’ that define your existing electronic psycho-profile will instantly be updated and suitably modified by the Spiders on countless databases in unknown locations on the Web of MAM…

And then you will wait, as I do.

You and I  wait, secure and comfortably numb in our own little silken pouches in the great Web …we wait for the next Spider, the next brain-numbing stab of e-heroin that always marks the start of the next Product of the Day campaign…

But don’t worry: we’ll have forgotten the pain, and the very memory of today, by tomorrow.