Recovering the Lost Ground

I strongly feel that if you don't write your blog as regularly as (almost) daily, you are not doing justice to this great leveler which Internet has given to us. In fact writing manually in this age of IT is a passé these days. I feel so horrified when I recall old days of writing examination. Being a student of Arts, all papers were generally theoretical in nature which required a lot of writings. In fact, the general feeling among the students was - the more you write the more you score. Although it never held true for me because as opposed to the stream, I was a staunch believer of Qualitative Writing. In fact in the examination hall, among peers, you were looked down upon if you submit your answer sheets before the due time. Most of the so called Pseudo Intelligent masterpieces were of the opinion that hold the sheet and keep writing rubbish until the examiner comes and snatches it from you and you have little or no time to even tie the supplementary sheets that you have filled in to befool the teachers would then evaluate you on the basis of your rotten writings. Being an excellent student (if you see my records), I always waited for the results and then could see the perplexed faces of those who wrote a ton of words but still couldn't score gracefully. Even then their first comment happened to be negative. "Why couldn't we score better than Rahul (that's me)? We filled in more sheets. After the year one of graduation they realized that Quality is a great asset and thus it was good to follow the same as I did. The next challenge was how to create this quality because unlike anything else, this comes with great practice.

Hey! I am drifting completely away from the discussion. Yes, we were talking about writing habits. I think there are a few exceptions who inherit this habit of writing and writing good quality without and exception and gap. There are few like me who have cultivated the habit of writing but are not so ardently following it on a regular basis. There are a few who write exceptionally good but would do this at rare intervals and then there are the ones who think writing is a waste of time. Many of you who adhere to the fundamental good of writing would agree to what William Shakespeare said: “To be a well-flavored man is the gift of fortune, but to write or read comes by nature.” So, those who rubbish writing as a wasteful effort not worth giving a thought, must rethink what they are missing in life. I am not saying every man on this earth shall now start writing. But at least those, who have good ideas, those who are creative, those who think there writing can create some change to this static world, MUST write.

Oh my god! I drifted away yet again. I was here to write about the lost ground between today and the time I last wrote but what an anecdotal discourse I just wrote on the virtues of writing.

Ananya, our angel daughter turned two months old (in fact a few weeks later she will be three months). Time since Vasudha conceived her till today seems to be defeating me on every count. It's been a year since we relocated to Delhi after having spent a year in Bangalore. I think it was just yesterday that we came back.

What a nightmare it was when I saw all my valuable household goods perished and come to me in unacceptable shape. Alas! Again I drifted. So, a lot has happened the last one month. One I just told you - Ananya is now two months running in her third. Mumbai was terror struck and I didn't waste that opportunity to write a couple of small pieces on that. as many as 5 Indian states went for a fresh mandate and look what happened...the tall claims of BJP were dashed and it remained confined to its popular bastions. In fact Indian National Congress snatched a traditional BJP stronghold and claimed power. I am talking of my home state Rajasthan. Congress also won Delhi the third time in a row and Mrs. Shiela Dixit (the powerful face of Congress who worked her way out to gain power for the third time) was again smiling at the faded faces of BJP - the same old morons Advani, Vijay Malhotra, Arun Jaitley and the likes...

India raised its voice (though for little or no consequence) to step up pressure on Pakistan to hand over the 20 Most Wanted terrorists but all in vain. Poor Manmohan whom I always refer to as the most ineffective Prime Minister of this country, couldn't even speak in strong words to condemn the attacks and take a firm step to curb this alone. He had to call Mrs. Rice (the US Secretary of State) for his rescue and mount pressure on Pakistan - the natural Ally of US in all times. I call it the helplessness of a state head when they are not able take a decision on their own in the interest of the nation. A lot of my colleagues rubbished my arguments to recall the diplomatic mission from Pakistan - which, according to me, could have been the strongest form of protest, followed by a strong and planned action to nab the coveted terror camps run under the guidance of ISI (Inter Services Intelligence - the breeding ground and guiding force for all the extremists originating from this land of Quid-E-Azam Mohhamad Ali Jinnah. Anyway, the exchnage of cold, hot and lukewarm dialogues still continues and this is how the incident will fade away in the ocean of history - nothing new to us.

Another fact emerging out from the elections in the 4 states was that Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (the so called savior of Dalits and downtrodden in India) increased her share of votes across all regions. Initially considered as a spoil sport, now Mayawati is on her way to claim power in Delhi. My strong feeling is the day she has over 50 seats in Lok Sabha (Upper House of Indian Parliament) she will be the most potent claimant of the leadership of this nation and there would be nothing wrong in it. If this is how we elect our representatives, why would she be deprived of a chance which she gets by fair means? Look at what she did in Rajasthan, MP, Chattisgarh and Delhi. Her vote share has touched or about to touch double digit figures. Most of the so-called elite classes of India are not able to relish this fact and start immediately abusing her. They also say it will be the most unfortunate or black day for India democracy if she is elected PM. I don't think so. If she acquires a ton of wisdom and use this opportunity wisely with a focus on development, she could be a better leader than many of the current ones.

Why would the so called elite like to see a Dalit/downtrodden lady like to see her emerge as the strongest leader. They know what their fate would be in that case.

I think I will keep drifting away from the main point. So, today I am stopping here and will come back as soon as possible.

Shoes Welcome George Bush

Ultimately it happened to the first citizen of The USA. A pair of shoes hurled at the joker - the outgoing President of the US whose name, if you ask, people would not like to place not only in the history of the USA but also in the World History for reasons known and unkonwn. Finally, George Bush Junior, the destroyer of the modern imperial empire called The USA got the deserved treatment. I wish it could have been more! This was the public way of expressing the sentiment and hats off to the guts of the Iraqi journalist who dared to do this. What if you can't take guns inside such meetings. A regular part of your basic attire can be a deadly weapon too and quite derogatory, if I may say so - enough to insult and to be ashamed of being oneself.

The journalist was probably the representative of millions of Iraqi people who have been under subjugation of the unauthorized (even if UN authorizes them) US occupation fo Iraq. I found it pretty usual and so would millions of like-minded people across the world who hate Bush for reasons more than one. From the day one of his presidency, he has done nothing but committed crimes all over the world. Yes, we all agree or rather succumb to the hegemony of the US post the cold war but this man (I hate taking his name with any kind of dignity) had neferious plans to sabotage every possible move taken for a peaceful coexistence in this world. Thank god we still have some power blocks left in this world like Russia and China otherwise this man could have done what we can't even imagine!

Before I close, I leave this link for you to enjoy it whenever you hate this man: http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=8o4W06CQbcw

Mumbai Ruined, Is it India Next?

Yesterday in my blog I questioned whether we really possess the fundamental right to life. If people are taken to ransom at gunpoint, if we are subjected to bow down in front of unconstitutional people without a reason and if we are still stating that this system is NOT responsible for all this, we are not doing good to anybody.

The system, this current government and the kind of leadership we currently have is to be blamed and nailed. Democracy has its advantages and has a flip side too. The flip side is that anyone can get away without being labeled or tagged, which means no one shall own the responsibility. If our lives are our responsibility then what's the difference in living in an orderly society and a barbaric one? The leadership has to answer this question.

Secondly, more fundamental than just the immediate leadership is the question of what model of development are we following and at what cost? Are we turning ignorant or blind in the wake of economic development so much so that we have forgotten how to keep our social fabric intact? We curse Europeans for their chauvinism but hell, its time to learn from them. Despite being in the top order of economic development they are equally aware and vigilant about developing their social order, which calls for greater civilian security, greater social harmony and last but not least greatest amount of awareness about their national interests. We, as opposed to them, have not even an iota of nationalistic fervor. And to make the things even worst is our political system/s which allow such things to happen every now and then and still don't take definite steps to curb such criminal acts.

My view is very straight: A piecemeal solution to this problem will never be a permanent cure. We need a fundamental paradigm shift to make things work in our favor. We shall not forget that we may have a civilization that is over 5000 years old but our democracy is not even a century old. It is still very fragile and prone to destruction. And if the keepers of this nation, whom we entrust to run it efficiently are so careless, better look at it with a fresh perspective. We might be approaching a stage of systemic change to live peacefully.

Do We Have a Right to Live?

It's a big question mark! I thought we have a right for peaceful social life in a country which we inhibit, where we feel duty-bound to contribute to its progress and in as many crude words - where we pay tax to run this country efficiently, uninterruptedly. But hey! I again question my own thinking! Aren't we asking for too much from the system here which is downsized to a puppet with its strings in the hands of people who don't have any feelings for this country. Why!!! That what is a 'right' of the citizens of this country now seems to be a privilege which is available only for those who can avail it by way of influencing the system/machinery.

I am a thoroughbred nationalist/chauvinist or whatever you want to call me but at the same time the biggest critique of this nation today. More so, I am the critique of the system which is running this nation. These are weak hands. Not only weak hands but crippled bodies, paralyzed minds and to top it all emotionless creatures who just don't have time to think of the billions living under this threat and can die anytime, anywhere.

My nationalism goes for a complete toss when I come across such incidents. I start questioning my integrity towards this nation. At times I want to resort to 'Escapist Tendencies' whereby I want to leave this country for a safer habitat and secured future - even though I've pay an exorbitant cost to make it possible. But when I come back to my senses, I still think of my nation. My nation which gave me space to live, freedom to exert and air to breathe. My nation! Am I not being unrealistic? Or am I sounding too artificial? I don't know! Even I am confused. I am not too sure whether I'll be ever leaving my country for any of these stupid reasons but I am sure that if I leave one day, I won't be missed here for the great amount of patriotism that I have. I will certainly not be missed for whatever integrity I show towards this nation. I am sure people of this country will not miss me for my faith in this country.

Then why am I living here? Is is purely for a reason that I am not equipped to do anything anywhere else than India? No! I don't think so. On a serious note I am a great believer in making contributions to the systemic changes and not deal with problems at a superficial level. I don't subscribe to piecemeal solutions. Rather I will give time to great thinking and solve things for better and for ever.

Now is the time for all of us to question our conscience. Do we really have a right to live or we need to fight with our own system to snatch this right and in-turn become barbaric for all such things to come in future.

Happy Coming Home

After five days away from Indian shores, it was a good home coming. I was mentally really not with myself when I was away this time. Before I was leaving, it left me in a quandary whether to go or opt out of this trip. Then said my mind not to compromise on the professional front and shy away from the duties. With a lot of internal rift, I decided to go to Singapore - a town I have visited five times till now. It was an internal event so this visit was a little different from the previous ones which which were press junkets and the treatment given to us was no less than a prince/celebrity. Unlike that, this was a different experience where we were hosts to as many as 80 odd people who didn't go nasty but could have gone anytime.

Anyway, from the very fact that we were traveling Jet airways to the fact that I was leaving my new born chota bheem (I call Ananya by this name)and her adorable mother behind, things were really not working around but work is work and to me its a little more than that so had to go. Anyway, the experience this time was not so good to be honest. Not because that I wasn't being treated like a celebrity but the beginning was faulty. For a flight which could be as short as four and a half hours, it took us a full night and a few more hours as we were traveling low cost and thus had to undergo the agony of an unwanted hop. And then started the clockwork. Every day till 10 at night we were working like mad maniacs and robots. Time after 10:30 PM was our own as if we were left with a 1000 horse power energy to run around the town and enjoy. But still everyone made most of it because there were many first-timers and probably the last timers too. I had no idea why the hell in this world journalists are pampered to this extent...Why?

Probably this backlash is because of that pampering only. Never mind. During this trip three of my colleagues lost a whole lot of money. Nitin, my colleague from Delhi lost some 15,000 and Rupesh from Mumbai lost around 50,000 and Chetan, who was from Mumbai too lost around 10-15,000. I was feeling so very sad for all three. Hard earned money should not go the easy route and specially in a foreign country where you don't have anything to fall back. As I said, this was not my first trip to that town, i was shell shocked to witness three thefts in a day's time. But with the office coworkers, in a foreign land - it was definitely a different experience. When we go as journalist, we really don't know who is who (in case we are lucky, there are a few known friends around). But office colleagues you know well and thus you don't have to waste time to mix up and make plans for the unofficial hours. We all grouped according to our tastes, likings and wants. I didn't want to explore/exploit the town so preferred to be a part of the group which was like me. But there weren't many like me. Somehow, people tend to do more with less - even if it is time they follow the same route. But I certainly don't believe in it. Shopping...I was not too keen except for the fact that I'd determined to buy some good toys for Ananya and a few souvenirs for Vasudha.

Can I finish this tomorrow?

Obama - The People's Man

"Black Power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny."

Mark these words said by Huey Newton. Huey Newton (February 17, 1942 – August 22, 1989), was co-founder and leader of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, an African-American organization established to promote civil rights and self-defense. Newton read the works of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Frantz Fanon, Malcolm X, Mao Zedong, and Che Guevara. It was during his time at Oakland City College that Newton, along with Bobby Seale, organized the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in October 1966. Seale assumed the role of Chairman, while Newton became Minister of Defense (From Wikipedia). But this great reformist and preacher of black solidarity was brutally killed.

Now is the time for Barack Obama, the newly elected President of the USA, which is in shambles today, to realize this dream of reining supreme over the whites (not all but those who consider themselves to be a superior race) and tell this world that blacks are also humans and can't be subjected to any secondary treatment or subjugation. John McCain, yet another Bush in reckoning, had to bite the dust and in what a way! Damn good Obama!

I am sure that after the great Martin Luther King Junior, this is the biggest rise for any black in America with few more in-between who created some ripples in the history of the USA.

Although Americans don't fight elections based on races but this was quite an evident fact during this election wherein the Republicans left no chance to deface/defame Obama with nasty racist comments to tarnish his image. The guy came out clean and the working and middle class of America fought the battle for him to see him come out with flying colors. It makes me so much more happy today. Despite being a student of international politics throughout my life and having decent knowledge about the world governments and their methods of elections, I, for sure, had not taken so much interest in American politics. When it comes to America, the political apathy of its citizens is so evident that you tend to lose hope on that country. But this time it was a clear demonstration of American will to oust the non-people power centers.

I recall the legendary remarks of Great Nelson Mandela and I quote: "I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man." Working and Middle class Americans quashed all tall claims made by the selfish republicans who tried to destroy the image of the great leader in making - that is Barack Hussain Obama, a native of Kenya, who made the destiny look smaller for once. Once Mandela also said, "When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat. Obama, in his fierce battle to claim the so-called highest seat of power in the world proved this saying verbatim. He, for once didn't give up on his dire efforts to reach the stage wherein he doesn't have to look back upon. Particularly for me, he is a man of character. I love it when people say Barack Obama is a 'Marxist Mole' in the USA. I have read that Obama's childhood mentor Frank Marshall Davis was a communist and there are multiple instances which prove that if not a hardcore/hardliner, Barack Obama is a people's man and is towards the left of the center.

This could change the entire outlook of the world intelligentsia and can prove to be the master mold which will reshape America and thus the history of the world.

This Time It was Guwahati

The terror rocked India once again. We were feeling damn lucky to have a peaceful Diwali (though fire crackers deafened my ears and more so created a great amount of discomfort for Ananya who's less than a month old). But the cordial atmosphere didn't last long. Yesterday morning the news broke out from the already turbulent North-Eastern parts of the country (Capital of Asaam province of India) telling about a very nasty blow by terrorists masterminding 11 serial blasts of high intensity killing 70 people (official figures) and injuring hundreds of them.

The thunder of the blasts may have been 100 times more deafening than the fire crackers on Diwali, a few days ago. It would have been a halt of life for those who lost their kins. It would have been a disaster of sorts for whom who lost the bread earners of their families. All these innocent souls were on roads not to die. These people die for no reason.

In my last blog, I wrote about the State of the Nation but that was about another sad aspect of the society, which rejects the right to the people who beg on streets. This aspect also reject the right to live but it has a completely different connotation. This is about those handful of people who take the system in their stride and keep the law under their feet. What a sham it is! These incidents of terror and violence make me believe that we don't deserve to be democratic. And if it is a democracy managed by such weak and selfish politicians, it better be replaced with an alternative, which protects the proletariat from being victimized without any reason. I don't want to sound an autocrat but I am forced to believe that a tighter control over the system is a must to cover all the loopholes of this spongy democracy. It's very frustrating to see the innocent people dying. Some of us foolish citizens (just as a gossip) even say "this is the way to curb population control" or "how does it matter if a few hundred die of such attacks, we are a billion odd people." But the phenomenon of death is natural and shall remain so. Such unscrupulous warrants of death should not be the prerogative of people whom we even refuse to accept the part of our society. Aren't we growing completely agnostic towards emotions and human well being? Yes we are! I say this with full conviction and include myself in the growing population of those agnostic and emotionless humans who, despite being made of conscience and emotions, remain grossly ignorant and believe that "What is destined, can't be undone." I shall ask the people of this country, what is destined? What is so bad about us that we can't stay united and step up the movement to curb and eliminate such nasty elements from the society.

It must be sounding very idealistic and you may stump me with sarcasm that its only good as a pep-talk and very difficult to go out and make it possible. Yes! indeed the feeling is not wrong. It's easy to preach than do. But then its also a fact that intelligentsia is not the brigade with its feet on the ground. They are the people who provide the way...Our cruel, senseless politicians have to take the next step to make this happen.

Another most important observation that I have made (Most of you might have made the same observation)is that in India such attacks are only being carried out by the mercenaries who some way or the other are associated with a SEPARATIST MOVEMENT. What is this damn separatist movement. In a nut-shell, the definition shall read: "Those organization or people, who have taken up the cause of separation of that province/area, and do not want to be a part of the federal republic. They want to disassociate themselves from the country, reject to adhere to the sovereignty of this country and want a separate state for themselves. Now, when India was declared independent in 1947, these was a concerted effort under the leadership of Nehru and Sardar Patel to reorganize India and assimilate/force to accept the sovereignty of one nation and leave the notion of any princely state. During that period a lot of actions were taken to crush the uprisings and then after a great deal of effort, the dust started settling. But in case of those independent states also, there were a few who wanted to affiliate themselves with some other nation than India. Like in J&K, the Muslims of the valley (read only valley) affiliate themselves more with Pakistan than India ( Though its my opinion and can't be generalized but its slowly getting established as a truth). Same is true for some of our other provinces including that of the North East. And these are the two most turbulent parts of the nation facing threats of the nature of cross border interferences. There is a great depth in this comment and it should not be taken lightly. This argument, for the heck of it, can be countered by another argument that this is true for J&K, where the influence comes from the across the border but what is the case with the separatists in North East. Not as a learned scholar on North-Eastern affairs but as a very ground-zero person, my observation is that these people affiliate themselves more with the surrounding nations than India. There may be a few aberrations here and there but in bulk they are more inclined to closer territories than India. Thankfully, in favor of India, the rest of the parts like Goa, Andaman, Pudducherry are not raising their eyebrows for a separatist demand.

According to my perception, which may be grossly wrong, there has not been enough effort to make these people feel an integral part of India. Rather, they were discarded to an extent and only when there is a territorial threat to India that our system realizes its diplomatic significance and tries to bind these communities together so that we look as a united nation.

Time is running short I will complete this in the next sitting.

State of the Nation

Today is Diwali. A festival, which everyone in India wants to celebrate. Although the origin of Diwali stems from our grand old mythological tradition yet it continues to be one of India's universally celebrated festivals. I said [one of the] because India and its natives celebrate a ton of festivals and Diwali is one of them. There are many connotations of this festival but the most agreed upon and widely accepted one is that this comes after some 14 days of Dussera [yet another widely acclaimed festival] celebrated by burning the effigy of Ravan [Once King of Lanka]. Why do they burn the effigy of Ravan? What's the context. I will just explain it in as less words as possible and will then get on to my real message in this blog. Ravan was the ruler of Lanka [probably today's Sri Lanka] and he was a devil. He abducted Lord Ram's [one of millions of gods in India] wife Devi Sita while the latter was in exile for 14 years. Now that's all to explain Ram and Ravan. When Ram killed the evil spirited Ravan, Indians celebrate that day as Dussera. And after nearly 14 days of it, comes Diwali, which denotes the home coming of Ram after killing Ravan and finishing his exile.

That was Diwali of pre-historic age. Cut short this story to today: It's still considered to be a festival of victory of good over bad. But the meaning, rationale, the way how it is celebrated and its whole design has undergone a serious change. It is now a festival, which still every Indian, tries to celebrate only at one condition: If his pocket allows him to. The level of commercialism it has been assigned to is beyond explanation. Welcome to the state of the nation on this day.

For past over a fortnight, I have been thinking to write on this grave issue 'State of the Nation' and I want to remain focused only on a particular aspect of this otherwise very vast and open subject. The thing that disturbs me the most and which shakes my entire conscience is the poverty and unequal distribution of wealth. I see this everyday on the streets of Delhi. On route to office from home, I cover a distance of nearly 35 kilometers and in this patch I confront with almost 12-15 traffic signals, where I get to know the real sense of what India is all about. People who seemingly have not taken a bath for more than 10 days, with a real maze in their hair, torn clothes (sometimes very less of them), very dirty and stinking people rush to the swanky cars when they come to a halt on a stop signal. A lot of them do different acts including raw begging. One message that I want to give upfront though this particular blog is that when they approach towards us, there eyes say just one statement: "I want a share of your wealth." "I need a small portion of money to live today." "I am hungry give me money to feed myself and my entire grand family." Along with every adult (and sometimes even with the infants) there is a small kid who may be as young as a month to as old as 1-2 years. Children above that age are helping hands - they themselves start earning small portions to help their family live.

There are a tons of such people whom I see everyday. I see certain anger in their eyes when people don't react to their requests. Without much hesitation they have now started knocking the doors of the cars to register their presence. They lean on the front window to make us feel so very vulnerable. This is the state of my nation.

Now look at the flip side. A minor crash in the Stock Exchange of India, the place where the wealthy people multiply their money and the middle class try imitating the act of their wealthy and rich cousins, creates havoc. The impact of this havoc is so evident that even the Finance Minister and Prime Minister of the country come running to the rescue of these wealthy few. We have been hearing this every day that the top 5 or 10 or 20 wealthiest corporate and their proprietors lost trillions of rupees. Every day one of these wealthy peoples creates furor in the media to ask for a probe as to who is responsible for this treason and coercion of their wealth. These wealthy few are so highly unsecured that they can't even resist one big blow their wealth. Not even for a second these wealthy few think of the plight of the poor and those who sleep without eating even one meal of the day. This is the state of our nation.

Once while having lunch in our office, one of my colleagues very casually made a passing remark: "The poor deserves to be poor because they don't want to progress. Everyone is responsible for his/her own destiny and we should not blame the government for everything." Although I interrupted him immediately and refused to accept what he said but that made a really deep rooted impact on my mind. If an average middle class Indian thinks like this, what do we expect from the wealthy few. This is the state of my nation.

The very fact that we (the economy of the world) are on the brink of an economic collapse once again after some 75 years, reminds us to be such vulnerable and poor. This all comes alongside the detachment of ideology from politics. We the nation don't have a people-centric and pro-poor ideology. Our political leadership overlooks these masses on the streets who sleep hungry every night. The layers of dirt on their think skin, their innocent hungry eyes and even their bare bodies shivering in cold do not invoke any reaction in the minds of our system which is bothered to know why this Diwali markets have no buyers. This is the state of my nation where the system is shaken to the call of these rich businessmen but the same system turns its back on the call of people ridiculed in the abject poverty.

The state of the nation is so sad that the headlines of the newspapers don't report the death of common man due to unavailability of food and bare minimum resources to live but they do report the closure of the banks in America and its ripple effect on the economy of the nation. The state of the nation is so very weak that it doesn't bother about the unavailability of health and educational resources to the masses but yes it is bothered about the fight between the two wealthiest brothers who control a major part of business for this country.

Next time when you come across these glaring eyes of the beggars on crossings, look at them from my perspective and realize that this is the state of nation, in which the system gets panicked if the Growth Rate shows sins of decline but remains totally ignorant and unmoved if these unnamed natives of India die on the road.

Is this what this nation is made of?

Continued from Last

I will continue from where I left last time. As I told, mornings have become colder. It takes a while to warm up in the morning. In few days it will start creating trouble and then it will gradually become a challenge to get myself out of bed in the early hours and go for walks. Anyway, that something usual. We were discussing about the unusual stuff that is grappling the whole world - the infamous economic slowdown. In my last post I was very keen to compare this slowdown with the one that destroyed the capitalist world in 1930. It is still considered a misnomer in the countries which were worst affected that time.

But the capitalists of today are dreaded to accept the fact that this economic crisis is going to be similar as the one in 1930. In a recently published article in Monthly Review magazine (a leftist publication from the USA) it has been very categorically compared with the great depression of 1930. William Tabb(Professor, queens College, City University of New York), in his article (which is actually a Lecture given in the University of Vermont, has told it very clearly how this crisis is going to be worse than even the 1930. In his Lecture, he has mentioned great examples how things went wrong in the US, which finally culminated into this economic massacre. This lecture also mentions about how charmed Nicholas Sarkosy is with the US model of capitalism and says that the capitalism is a system that has enabled the extraordinary development of western civilization. And Sarkosy goes on to say that Anti-capitalism is no solution to counter this crisis. I was today discussing this factor with my father, who himself is a great follower of Marxism and the result was that this needs to be tackled in a completely different way. George Bush (Junior) the outgoing president of the USA has, in a way, succumbed to the fact that the dirty and ugly face of capitalism and free markets is not going to help even the Americans. This was very evident in few of his recent actions and gestures which he'd shown in his outcry. Even in low town, Bush has started talking about the concept of nationalization of banks and financial institution. No wonder, he is shitting bricks in this event of crisis. No big deal that Americans become the most conservative souls in this world and change their outlook towards life. Until now, Americans don't have the habit to save monies. Now probably they will.

In the same lecture Professor Tabb has also sighted two very relevant examples of how two very developed nations (one Asian and another European) dealt with the internal economic recessions and came out of it. The Asian nation was Japan, which took resort to the Paulson Approach (The much coveted US$ 700 billion bailout plan), which received severe criticism within the USA. In 1990s, Japan, like USA, didn't realize the size of the crisis and started bailing out the financial institution financially. Today, Japan may not be into a state of crisis but it’s also true that it is not the same Japan which ruled the world of manufacturing and technology. It banking system is still not in the best of health. Tabb's second example, the European country was Sweden. In case of Sweden, it took over and reorganized the banks under state ownership. In 1985, Sweden deregulated its credit markets, leading to the same situation as the US is in today. As a result, the bubble burst leaving 90 percent of the banking sector with massive losses, including the countries largest banks. In the way to restructuring, Swedish authorities decided to intervene and then the growth came back on track. If this is any learning, America should be following this model. I think it already, in somewhat way, is coming on the track to this way. George Bush says that the Paulson Approach is only there for some institutions and not all. In fact the buying out of AIG (America's largest insurance player) is the first step. But it is futile to expect too much from this nation, which is sold to capitalism. The people of this Model nation (for the rest of the world) don't think the way I or Professor Tabb is asking them to think. Soon after the crisis shows the signs of decline, this nation will again start boasting of its capitalist regime and ethos. It will really not remember the miseries which it is reeling under today.

A few days ago, I was talking to an American lady (online), who happens to be a Life Sciences teacher in the state of California. She was almost in tears and said the government has kept its people in dark in terms of expenditure and engagements in wars around the world. But she was not really known to the real reasons why America has fallen prey to this economic recession. Americans won't even agree to become communists, is a cast in stone. But at the same time it will not be able to stand above the rest of the world. If you've noticed that there is a very uncomfortable silence on the issues such as Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs. American intervention in Afghanistan is also in a cold bag. Probably Americans want to just leave Iraq on its own at this stage and just get the hell out of that region. Probably Americans won't be interested into anything else but to save itself from the crisis as of now.

This is probably the best time to mobilize a new world order. As American goes into deep depression and feels vulnerable to spend even a single penny without reasoning and as the oil prices keep falling due to drastic shortfall in the demand (specially from the Americans), its the best time to create a new world order. The oil and gas reserves (apart from the traditional gulf nations where the resources are diminishing) are now concentrated in countries where America can't dare command. The Venezuelan oil reserves and Russia's gas resources can be exploited in order to create this new world order. I wish America crumbles and this new world order emerges wherein India is forced to change its political and economic affiliation with the USA.

Today, Manmohan Singh is calling the US capitalism the "Casino Capitalism", the meaning of which is very clear and straight. America gambled and lost the entire bet. Now when it recoups to gain force, its time to shift the epicenter of world's political and military power to forces which are friendly to the human beings and not anti humans like the America.

Mist, Meltdown and Miseries

"Winter either bites with its teeth or lashes with its tail." I'm sure many of you have read/heard this old proverb. From extremely moist and humid, the winter is changing its colors now. I've been feeling this for past few days while I go for my morning walk before the rise of the Sun. It feels very good. The best of innovative thoughts strike your mind when you are to yourself and least affected by the routine, mundane and rubbish activities of the day. I wake up quite early in the morning. These days I don't need an alarm. There's a natural wake-up call these days. Ananya (my 17 days old daughter) gets up invariably at that time every morning and creates ruckus all over.

The Sun has started giving solace rather than being treated as an unsolicited guest every morning. There's a thick carpet of dew on the grass all over every morning now. The initial shiver and laze leaves the body only after a few rounds of walk. Of all seasons, I adore winters the most. It certainly is not one of the popular choices yet I feel I am most productive during winters. I get inspired by the sheer feeling of cool breeze in the air.

This winter, unlike others, is little unusual. The feeling is different. Despite the so-called festive season around there's no zing in the air. Global meltdown and economic downturn has hit the entire world. Even wwe Indians are not spared of this onslaught. Stock markets across the world have perished. Trillions of dollars have sunk and the middle class, which wants to earn quick money, is feeling extremely vulnerable. America, the world's strongest consumer market, is pledging for help. The European Union seems to be on its knees to follow its big brother the US. Once considered the world's richest and healthiest companies, are already history. World's largest financial powerhouses are all hoping against the hope. They're all biting the dust one after another. Is it winter that's playing nasty? Greatest of the stalwarts are now showing remorse in what they promoted. All of a sudden 'Das Capital', Marx's answer to capitalism, has started gaining popularity in various parts of Europe. Why? People have started realizing that excessive lust for wealth leads to such massive falls. This is probably just the beginning of a new conscious age wherein people will question the ideology of capitalism and liberalism. Winter's really going to be chilly this time.

The ripple effect of this all is just not confined to those individuals and/or nations who committed the crime which led us to this state but has engulfed the entire world order whosoever was dependent on these so-called prosperous economies of the west. The entire world has started crumbling to this deep rooted economic downturn.

If the Great Depression of the 1930s was the economic event of the 20th century probably it wouldn't be any exaggeration to call this crisis the event of 21 century. Both are very similar in nature and the epicenter of both is in the US.

The Great Depression of 1930 began in 1929 when the entire world suffered an enormous drop in output and an unprecedented rise in unemployment. World economic output continued to decline until 1932 when it clinked bottom at 50% of its 1929 level. Unemployment soared, in the United States it peaked at 24.9% in 1933. It remained above 20% for two more years, reluctantly declining to 14.3% by 1937. It then leapt back to 19% before its long-term decline. Since most households had only one income earner the equivalent modern unemployment rates would likely be much higher. Real economic output (real GDP) fell by 29% from 1929 to 1933 and the US stock market lost 89.5% of its value.Another unusual aspect of the Great Depression was deflation. Prices fell 25%, 30%, 30%, and 40% in the UK, Germany, the US, and France respectively from 1929 to 1933. These were the four largest economies in the world at that time.

If that was some example, this depression is going to be no less fatal. May be the potency will vary from country to country but the fact remains that it is going to affect the lives of millions. Miseries have started engulfing the lives of the middle class everywhere.

To be continued...

And the angel arrives

Our angel has finally arrived. Vasudha gave birth to 'Ananya' - our first baby (girl) in 11 years of our marriage. It was 5th October 2008, during the most auspicious season of festivities, that the Ananya came in this world. Everyone said goddess Lakshmi has come to our home. Indeed! even if I don't believe in god, I must say a woman/girl is no less than a goddess. On 5th we took Vasudha to a special Maternity hospital known as 'The Cradle'. Her gynecologist Dr. Witty Raina recommended this to us. Vasudha was very nervous and tensed and why not! She was to undergo an operation to give birth to our first kid. I was nervous too. More than anything else, I was worried about Vasudha's health and mental state. But the D-Day came and the time was there.

The moment we got Vasudha to settle in an exclusive room (the hospital looks more like a luxury hotel) a heard of attendants, nurses, doctors started their job on her. Various checks, tests and measures were to be administered. all happened very quickly. Dr. came and told me her turn was third in the operation theater. The heartbeats were almost double. Though we knew the outcome still I was too anxious to see the first sight of our angel and immediately to know whether Vasudha is safe and in good shape.

In good 15 minutes a pediatrician doctor came out holding a very cute, fair and angle-like baby girl in his hands. "Who's Neel", he asked. I was about to cry seeing my daughter. She was so pretty, innocent and cute. I just saw this eyeful of beauty and screamed to call my mother. "Mummy, come see her, how beautiful she looks," I said. Ananya's eyes were open. She was feeling this new world and wasn't crying at all. She had good bunch of black hair and very soft looking rounded cheeks. I asked the doctor to take her back. Her image was captured in my eyes. She went into the nursery of kids, where they keep the new born babies. Vasudha was still recovering. I thanked the might nature for giving us this eternal gift - our Ananya.

Father's Paintings

 
 
 
 

Wasteful Youth

Saturday last week was my second trip to Jaipur in less than a month. The earlier occasion was to help do the CIO100 event, IDG's biggest event initiative in India and this time I's there to get my parents to Gurgaon. They come once in two months to stay with us but the condition is that they'll have to be picked from Jaipur. This time around, they're here for slightly longer duration to help me deal with Vasudha's pre and post pregnancy woes. Anyway, the purpose of writing this edition is not to narrate who is here for what and why! I encountered a very interesting person during this trip which gave me a fair idea of how the youth - especially those living in the rural India - are either misguided or have no idea how to look at their future.

Meet Vimal, a small but certainly a true representative of rural India, who due to lack of guidance or direction, lead an aimless life without any window to see where they are going to land in the future. This time, as I was driving Jaipur (250 kms from Delhi) the second time, I thought it would be a good idea to be driven rather than drive on my own. Secondly, I wasn't feeling well too (I was in the grip of the seasonal viral, which can be damn irritating during driving etc.). So, Vimal, was the driver. Vimal works as a contract driver with GAIL (a public sector unit of Government of India, dealing with Gas). He’s one of the 120 drivers that company hires for driving their officials to and from office. This is typical of India's 'Babudome' (a British legacy still continued) to be driven. In private sector, it comes at a cost and only after a level but in government jobs, its part of perks.

Vimal comes from a rural family residing in a small village near Kanpur (a prominent industrial district of Uttar Pradesh - otherwise a filthy place to be in). He is the only SON in his whole family (read Joint Family) and that is no less than an achievement for anyone in India. being a boy/male/son is considered to be so auspicious here that even today thousands of girls are either mercilessly killed by their parents or are subjugated to worse living conditions, which include subhuman conditions and substandard treatment. Due to this male child fascination India is currently reeling under tremendously erroneous male-female ratio that can distort the whole social fabric of India. And it is more evident in the North Indian states as compared to south where the better literacy rate has worked in favor of treating girls on par with boys. So, Vimal is a single male child of his generation. His father has two brothers - one elder and one younger to him. The elder one has 6-7 daughters and the younger one hasn't been blessed with a child. Vimal has two sisters too.

Because there's some awareness in the rural areas too about education, at least the male children are sent to schools (its not that females don't attend school at all but still the ratio is in favor of males). Vimal went to school too. Out of sheer anxiety and to break the silence in the damn car, I asked him, "How much have you studied?" "Sir till 10th," he promptly replied and then he took chose to take up a monologue without even waiting to breathe for a moment. It wouldn't matter to him whether I was keen to listen to his story. Probably, he got an outlet in me to whom he could narrate his 'not so eventful' story of how he ran away from his village only to become a driver in Delhi. He told his entire story in those four hours that we were driving back to Delhi and I, out of sheer curiosity, didn't discourage him to stop at any stage. His tale was a creation of an amalgamation of absolute rural upbringing minced with his 6-7 years of urban touch. Vimal is now 25 years old and not yet married. I was astonished to know despite the abject poverty of knowledge and scarcity of other essential resources to sustain in a metro, Vimal ran away from his house to find a life in this inhuman city. My mother knew that I was going to Delhi but that too was half truth. I told her that a few friends are going to Delhi and will come back after seeing the capital. She didn't resist. But I didn't tell my father or any other person in my family," he said. I was still clueless why he chose to run away from his home leaving studies and probably a few comforts and assurance of food, which he wouldn't be earn without undergoing tremendous pain in Delhi? "Sir, I felt exploited at home. As a young child I was quite curious to drive the tractor in my village (believe me it doesn't require to have a valid/invalid license in India to drive a tractor and especially in the rural areas)," he said. That habit of driving tractor for no reason landed Vimal in a soup. This passion of Vimal was observed by all elderly mails in his family and very soon he was asked to plow the fields in his village. This continued for some time before Vimal started hating it. "Soon I realized I was only good for plowing fields. Everyone would ask me to do just that. The tractor gave me nightmares - so much so that I even lost the battle on my height. I am barely five feet one inches sir," he told, with a grump on his face. But Vimal didn't stop. "Not only that sir. My father and his brothers are so united with each other that they don't look beyond a collective life. We grow a lot of cash crops in our fields but the yield we get at home is not distributed according to the labor that we contribute. It's the elder brother of my father (who is the eldest in the clan) who calls the shots as to what will go to whom," said Vimal. By now his tone had changed. What appeared to me as an interesting story a few minutes ago was turning out to be a calamity and Vimal was just a sample case (representative) of millions of youth in India who, in quest of life, not only loose their youth but also remain deprived of education, knowledge and foresightedness for all their life. But as I said, this was just the beginning of the ordeal which was being unfolded by Vimal. He proceeded with his tale and I was, as ever, again curious to know more. It appeared to me as if Vimal was just better than a slave/bonded labor who, despite having lot of wishes, are not given a single opportunity to fulfill them. The slaves, as they appeared in the due course of history, around the world are considered to be the most resounding examples of how humans are exploited by humans. This is not a new practice at all and specially in developing countries where a large part of rural population neither has land to plow nor has anything else to sustain themselves. Post independence the tradition of slavery may have slowed down but it still exists in a few forms. The poor, landless laborers are exploited to the hilt and there voice is suppressed if they raise it for their rights. Anyway, this is not the platform where I would deal with slavery and its impacts. So what Vimal said so far was giving me a feeling of how his entire family crushed his youth and compelled him to become a tractor driver (mainly to plow his field). "Sir my passion of driving a tractor was actually misused by my family members." Now Vimal was going all out to convince me that life was not all that good in his village. By now he'd shed all his inhibitions and was telling me everything as if I am going to act as a messiah and instantly give solutions to all his problems. By now I was getting a good sense of how, in the absence of any proper guidance, can ruin themselves. And specially the ones living in rural areas are more vulnerable than the once living in the urban areas. Although this boundary is blurring today (I mean youth from both rural and urban areas are vulnerable to threats of getting mislead by external influences). By now I had got a fair idea of the rebel that Vimal was planning and what would have been on his mind before he took a decision to revolt and run away. But imagine if he had trained his guns and energy towards attaining a level of education and tried to make his career in some damn field. In India, there are millions of youth who, despite having great educational background, remain unemployed. But that doesn't give us the right to decide against getting any kind of education. This would be the highest form of pessimism otherwise. Now Vimal was unfolding another set of reasons which prompted him to leave his clan and run away to be on his own.

"In my family, there's nothing called individual wealth. I have seen my father and uncles spending money on different things. We don't have any right to own individual wealth. I felt so deprived and dependent on them for everything," he said. Now I was smelling something even more rebellious. In India, we'd nurtured the tradition of joint families and common wealth. With the influence of time and the tradition of nuclear families (which we've inherited from western influence) proliferating into the rural India, this is an outcome, which was inevitable but not so solicited. If I have to believe Vimal and the likes of him, they all are vying for their personal wealth bank. It may not be very dangerous but it certainly takes us away from the values of history, wherein we were more prone to common wealth and united families.

"Sir, I wanted to earn money for myself, at best for my core family. I told my mother very clearly that I can live in poverty but can't see the unequal distribution of wealth," said Vimal.

That brought him to Delhi. Although he was not a dumb ass to come to Delhi without any platform to fall back upon but the end result and the great message hidden in this story is to know how badly our youth wastes its potential. Today Vimal lives in a small one room set paying close to 1/4th of his salary towards rent. He pays another 1/4th of his salary to feed himself (that's food) and some more expenses here and there would see him spending his entire salary in just sustaining himself. But he is slightly more intelligent that I thought he would be. As a contract driver he works for five days a week and the two days of weekend are his own. Though killing his instinct, Vimal prefers to work on weekends for his small set of clientele, which includes me as well. As part of this deal, he earns an additional sum of money and saves his salary for good. By the time this story got to an end, we were already entering the hustle bustle of the bust express highway. Vimal concentrated on driving and I was occupied thinking something else. We reached home, I paid Vimal his due and the story ended there. But I can say it with great conviction that millions of youth in India are following what Vimal did - escaping the tough route to get isolated and get lost in the crowd of millions just for a fake experience of freedom and independence.

Reformed Parallel Cinema

It seems the face of the so called Parallel Cinema in India has finally decided to change its mode of messaging to the masses. The movement, which started with the legendary film maker, writer Satyajit Ray by making of his film Pather Panchali in 1955 (the genre of films which were popularly known as the 'Indian Parallel Cinema'), seems to have entered into a new era. I am of the opinion that it was long overdue. By bracketing it for a particular class, the deep social message, communication for the masses and subsequently its impact was lost because the medium was either not suitable for the masses or it didn't have a binding appeal so that the masses could get attracted to it.

Finally Shyam Benegal, who made films like Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975) Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977) and created a new wave in this genre of parallel cinema, has decided to break away from the elite group of cinematic directors who only want to remain on the discussion boards (rather gossip groups) of a few pseudo-intellectual class/s. Welcome to Sajjanpur! Don't be shocked. This is the name of the latest experiment of Benegal, which I saw day before on 19th September 2008. And to my surprise, the movie which was running amidst urban crowd but in a language popularly used and understood only by rural populace of Easter Uttar Pradesh, was a massive hit. If the maestros of Indian Parallel Cinema were alive, they would have given a standing ovation to Benegal for his new experiment - An experiment, which is not done using the Parallel Stream but Mainstream and still keeping the messaging as intact as it should be.

Although Benegal's experiment with this alternative approach started way back in the 1990s when he made a trilogy on Indian Muslim women, starting with Mammo (1995), Sardari Begum (1996), and Zubeidaa (2001). But it was probably Zubeidaa, when Benegal decided to breakaway from the so called 'elite group' (far away from reality and not interested in addressing to the masses). Even if the messaging is anti-establishment, anti-government and pro-proletariat, it doesn't have to be through an isolated medium, which only appeals to a certain class or I would say pseudo intellectuals. I think Benegal realized it and revived the old, dead tradition of Satyajit Ray, who must have died in aghast despair having no successor to his popular, parallel yet very appealing cinema for masses. Though Ray made a lot of it for a regional viewership (mostly West Bengal) but still those movies had mass appeal.

The so called parallel cinema (also known as Neo-realist) which got the somewhat desired acceptability through the makings of Satyajit Ray, followed by Shyam Benegal, Mrinal Sen, Govind Nihilani (not of the same generation but greatly inspired by Ray, Benegal and Sen) and Adoor Gopalakrishnan (in South) did not last longer than two decades (mostly 702 and 80s) Later, it got severely overshadowed by the glitz and glamour of the commercial cinema, which ultimately pushed the parallel cinema into history except a few aberrations where we saw a couple of releases here and there.

This parallel cinema, which gave careers to a whole new breed of actors including Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Amol Palekar, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Pankaj Kapoor (who now form a brigade which either decided not to act or succumbed to the massive push from commercial cinema), seemed 'dead' without a reason to me.

The socio-economic conditions remained the same. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that conditions have worsened since then. The political situations have drastically changed - more towards negative side. Earlier, when this cinema was born the political ideology of India was still left to the center. Today, we are not just right to the center but also embracing the capitalism in totality. When the Neo-realist cinema could got accepted in 1980s and 90s, today's conditions are more ripe than ever for such kind of cinema. Then why did it disappear? I think there were a few very important reasons behind it. One, the onslaught of the commercial cinema on the minds of non-thinking masses was too strong for their resistance. The glamour of the commercial cinema, depiction of unrealistic things in an almost real way, idealizing the whole world for those two-three hours (normal duration of a movie) compelled an average Indian to opine that Cinema is ultimately cinema and one should not relate it to reality. There is a huge class (i would say vast majority) of people who don't see cinema for any kind of messaging but only go there to step out of the real world and go into the world of fantasy. Exploiting this are our dream weavers (the producers and directors of cinema) who, knowing the psyche of Indian masses, have started serving them totally unreal stuff - made after taking a misconceived inspiration from the Supernatural Powers. Without naming the films (as almost all of them belong to the same genre), I can say that Indian cinema, instead of created an awakening, created apathy and lethargy amongst the masses. The average cinema viewer, as I mentioned earlier, started believing that best cinema is the one which leaders him/her to fantasy than provoke him to think or believe in reality.

With Benegal's experiment with 'Welcome to Sajjanpur' the wave of parallel cinema (with a new dimension and way of messaging) seems to be back. The characters are chosen from mainstream cinema (all good artists - mostly from National School of Drama) because to appeal the masses, its the first condition to have an acceptable faces and not the aliens. The set up of the film is not at all unusual. There have been umpteen number of movies made in a village set up with rustic surroundings and folklore, so that was the second stroke of Benegal to make sure that the movie doesn't remain confined to a particular class, which I suspect even exist in India today. Third, the messaging is not done using an elite style. It is subtle using the trusted mediums and styles. For example the nationwide furor over the Nuclear Deal and left's resentment over it (Benegal belongs to that ideology) is very craftily depicted in the film. Another very drastic deviation from the erstwhile parallel cinema was inclusion of a couple of songs in the movie. Generally the Indian parallel cinema had been serious, one-set, one location kind but welcome to Sajjanpur was shot in a vibrant setting, breaking away from the monotony. Whether it was Mahadev's (the key character of the movie who acts a letter-writer) desk or the election campaign of Munni Bai (the eunuch who wanted to contest the election using the democratic right to contest an election) or the style of living of Bhayya Ji (the typical local goon who uses his might over the rights of people), everything looks transformed and engages the audiences - importantly not disappointing them.

Another minute observation that I made and was very relevant was not prolonging any particular shot to the stage of boredom. If the cinema was reaching to a level of seriousness where an average mass viewer would like to get agitated with this new experiment, the scenario changed.

And the topmost change (according to my evaluation) was that the film is not shot in a gloomy environment. If there is a barber or a cycle repairer working in poverty, they are not depicted as people who have lost the right to 'Laugh'. Don't we see the 'rickshaw-pullers' enjoying and launching? Sure, they don't have everything that they desire but they do have a desire and aspiration to attain a decent lifestyle one day. This is normal and Benegal has changed this perception and has depicted it very well.

As a conclusion, I would say the stigma that parallel cinema is meant only for classes and can appeal only intellectuals, is broken by Shyam Benegal. I salute the film maker.

The Changing World Order (Written on Live Journal on June 13, 2008)

I still recall that much publicized picture of Boris Yeltsin (the erstwhile President of Russia) in the year 1990-91 when he stood over a tank top and made some so-called historic announcements which paved the way for the disintegration of USSR. Michael Gorbachev, the leader who hasted the reforms, was soon turned into a matter of history and Yeltsin desired to go westward and embraced principles of open economy. As Pundit Nehru said, "The forces in a capitalist society, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer." And Russia (leaving the other 14 sister countries which were under heavy influence of Russia) was moving towards the similar situation. All of a sudden the whole of media backed by the free-economy nations like the USA and Britain declared the death of communism and socialism. Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Bulgaria - the whole block perished and at the same time Michael Gorbachev, sensing some crisis in the economy of USSR planned Glasnost (openness) to overcome the crisis. The countries, which looked at the communist block of Eastern Europe as their savior and the only resistance to the American economic dictatorship, were in total dark. There were many things at stake. World order was tilting towards unipolar world and America was piped as its boss - an undisputed don to implement its ideas.

The emergence of China as a force to reckon with is as recent a phenomenon as 1998-99. Before that China was also looking up to USSR as a natural ally and supporter. What I mean while saying all this is the whole of communist block was under a severe threat of being extinguished. And the forces working towards it were pouring in money, men and all sorts of other help to make it happen. And it happened the way America liked it. The moment Gorbachev decided to withdraw Russian forces from Afghanistan, it was quite evident that American pressure was mounting up and the fall of Eastern European communist block fueled the fire. First, the fall of Berlin wall, then the freedom struggles and internal conflicts in the small communist block nations and finally the disintegration of Russia in favor of openness put a full stop on any practical example on communism in the world with China, Vietnam, Cuba and a few more smaller exception.

The poor of Russia and other countries perished. America was laughing. It was a reason for the USA to be in a celebrative mode. The resistance to its economic dominance was withering away. The weapon-factory of the world was about to become the sole distributors of instruments of destruction. The economic dependence of weaker nations on America was on a steep rise. And all this was good for a nation which always wanted an overall dominating role for itself. The erstwhile comrades, who somehow got convinced about the so-called benefits of open markets, were all looking up to America now. And at the same time, the still existing communist countries were worried about their subjugation.

Now there was no one to ask America about justifying its rationale for controlling the world oil resources - the one and only thing which kept and still keeps American leadership awake at night. The fast diminishing natural resource which is fortunately not found much in America remains its top priority followed by weapon sales and loan disbursements. By way of having control over the gulf and west Asian countries, America as it is rules the roost and then post the disintegration of the USSR it started dominating the rest of the resources cruelly. Another good reason for America to rejoice was the visible end of the cold war between itself and the whole of communist regime. America was waging a (both directly and indirectly) gruesome war on the whole of communist block to arrest the growth of Marxist philosophy and stay ahead in damaging the bipolarity of the world order. People's Republic of China was the only sizable nation who could have put a brave front to American plots and CIA's plans to enslave the vulnerable, fragile and weaker communist nations who were looking out for economic and other kinds of aids to sustain themselves. But it remained true for a large part of the period (1990-2000) that America and its smaller allies didn't find any strong resistance from any other nation. While the smaller states of disintegrated Soviet Union were busy fighting for their survival, the bigger states were making historic blunders by opening up their markets for the capitalist forces and thus becoming natural victims of oppressive American economic game plan.

Similar to an epidemic, this untimely disintegration was proving very nasty to the whole of communist block. Only after the incident occurred that the countries realized they were heading for a big trouble. Be it food requirements, infrastructural needs, capital investments to sustain the public works all started crumbling and as a result conflicting groups got indulged into in-fighting. America, as ever, was enjoying all of these sad incidents.

But as evolution is the name of life, America and its entire allied forces forgot that new forces were taking shape in the world order. These forces were, to some extent, the result of American oppression at some point. If not oppression then at least economic atrocities were the reasons for this new build up. If nothing of the above then dominance of oil resources were becoming the order of the day. And there was certainly a simmer in the whole ecosystem wherein America was creating a laundry list of enemies and forces which could ultimately become fierce and troublesome for it.

Part two of this write up will talk about that new communist block and the changing dynamics of world order and the oil politics.

Waiting for our Angel

These days, after work I am mostly confined to home, looking after Vasudha - my pregnant wife who is in her 8th month now. It's been a long wait for both of us. And why just both of us! For all of our families. This 28 December we'll be celebrating our eleventh marriage anniversary. It sounds magnanimous that we've spent a decade together. It's been very eventful otherwise. It's full of ups and downs. We've literally seen all in these eleven years. I became very serious, docile and concerned man. I grew quite well professionally. Vasudha attained maturity too. We both started saving money. And lots more. But there was this big vacuum, which always haunted both of us - vacuum of a child in the family. Now when that vacuum is about to get filled and the everlasting wait is soon to get over, we're both gearing up for a new life. I am really waiting for that moment when I become a father. I've just seen people bringing up their kids and I've (by nature) always been a severe critique of the immaturity of the parents in dealing with a perfect upbringing.

Being brought up in a family where my father has always been very cautious about the balance of culture, modernity, ethics and respect, I am preparing myself to face this daunting task.

Daunting! But why? Because the time is different. I was born in times when Radio was the popular medium of entertainment. There weren't ant TVs, Computers and Internet around. Today, its different. We are a technologically superior world now. Even classrooms are going virtual today. In my times, it was a low-cost schooling, with little or no peer pressure for luxurious life. Today, the situation is different. I see kids wearing trendy clothes everyday. They want to go abroad for spending their vacations. As a father with a middle-class orientation and upbringing, it would be damn difficult for me to cope up with these changes.

I have seen days where market was just 'once-in-a-month' affair till the time I learnt to ride a bicycle. Today, the kids want to routinely visit malls, eat outside, and celebrate their birthdays in style at McDonalds or Pizza Hut. I don't remember celebrating any of my birthdays after class three. Even before, my mother used to call a lot of family friends (and fortunate me to have their kids) for a home party...mostly Lunch (not so lavish) and that was the party. We had this sweet shop called 'Brijwasi' at Ganga Mandir (a market in Bharatpur) from which we got 'Chocolate Barfi' and 'Gulab Jamun' and that was the pinnacle of this fiesta. Today, ask any kid to settle with anything less than a up market McDonalds or Pizza Hut party and you'll face the ire of your own kids. Amidst these hostile and untoward situations, we're waiting for our child to come into this beautiful world.

Without making it public, I spend time with myself to prepare myself to grapple with this situation and make efforts to keep my child away from these distractions. I am not averse of the children using technology to their advantage but we all know a tender mind can be the easiest target for getting lost.

Anyway, that's still a very futuristic thought. For now we are waiting for our angel to come to us on this earth and hope that time is not too far.

Bloodbath in Delhi

On 28th July, precisely a month and a half ago, I wrote about the blasts in Ahmedabad and Bangalore ("Deals, Deaths and Democracy). And yesterday Delhi got bombed. Not one, two...there were five severe explosions in the crowded market places - the pulse of Delhites especially on a weekend. We (I am Vasudha) went out too but for a movie (The Last Lear) but that was in Gurgaon and not in fateful Delhi. It was 7:00 PM. I was in the kitchen preparing food when my father called up and told about the TV reports on serial blasts in Delhi. I was shell shocked and so was Vasudha. We'd got a movie DVD to watch but the terror strike was so intriguing that I got hooked to it and the movie was a passé. But once the gory details and the scary pictures started coming in, it was soon a sad scenario. 15 Dead and still counting...There were over 100 injured. By the time I switched on the TV in the morning at 5AM, the death toll was already double (30) and there were several severely injured waiting to die in the hospitals all over the city. Welcome to New Delhi, the capital of the future Nuclear Power and the world's fastest growing economic super power. Our entire political machinery is busy licking American ass and feet to make the nuclear deal happen forgetting that there is a huge nation to manage.

The whole of police machinery, intelligence agencies and the so-called political faces of various political parties were all in action all of a sudden. There were condemnation notes issued by various political parties. Burkha Dutt, the high profile Editor in Chief of NDTV sparked the political blame game by calling the opposition party leaders and forcing them to comment against the ruling UPA. On the other hand, there were other news channels literally arm twisting the government's ineffectiveness and failure of the entire intelligence machinery. Again, welcome to the country, which is fighting more battles with in the nation than with its external enemies. No sooner did the blasts occur, the TV channels started beaming the copies of emails sent to them about the "Game of Death". The so-called Indian Mujahiddins (a new terror outfit supported by Huji and LeT) took the responsibility of these blasts across the city challenging the cops and intelligence 'Do whatever you can, try if you can catch us'. The defiant terrorists are out on the move - freely roaming across the length and breadth of India creating havoc time and again and the alertness of Indian intelligence is just not bothered to pay any attention to the clear and present danger looming large over us.

Who cares? No one! Is it the people of this country who are responsible for their own security and well-being? This situation calls for a national scrutiny from province to province. Not even one province is doing well!

J&K is burning as ever. The terrorism is still not ready to spare this troubled state and to top it all, there are bloody controversies like the recent 'Amarnath Row'.

Rajasthan, the Gujjars barely withdrew there agitation that the terror struck in Jaipur. The Cycle bombs killed over 70-80 people in the walled city.

Uttar Pradesh is forever reeling under mismanagement whether it is administrative failure or civic amenities.

Orissa just saw a very bad incident of ethnic violence, which erupted, with the murder of a Hindu saint. After that Kandhmal and the whole of Orissa was burning and the points of attack were the churches all over the state. The memories of the heinous murder of the social worker Graham Stewart Stains are revived.

West Bengal is otherwise a peaceful province but the unwanted protagonists and not-so-mass leaders like Mamta Banerjee have created a windfall for the state's industrial growth by her never-ending agitation in Singur - the place where Tata were to set up a car factory for the Rupees One Lakh dream car of India - Nano. The whole agitation took a really bloody shape when it became political and started serving the interests of low-grade politicians like Mamta Banerjee, who has little or no base in the state.


Andhra Pradesh is always under a naxalite threat.

In Maharashtra, there is a new type of terror evolving - the terror outfit is Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), the so called political outfit of Raj Thakre, nephew of Shiv Sena patriarch Balasaheb Thakre. Although Mumbai is called the financial capital of India and also the hub of all cinematic activities but when it comes to dogmatic style of living, it is second to none. This MNS and Raj Thakre have just one agenda - drive non-Marathi speaking population out of the state. But this is purely a gimmick to conceal the effectiveness of this breakaway outfit. As it is Shiv Sena is losing ground in Maharashtra and to top it all Raj Thakre's MNS has no concrete agenda to follow and pursue so the Marathi plank is the makeshift agenda for the party. If nothing else, Raj wants all the signboards on shops and commercial establishments to display names in 'Marathi'...Ask him if this really solves any purpose.

Gujarat, the otherwise peaceful and prosperous state was again a target of terror attacks and Surat, which was nowhere on the terror hit list was chosen to plant uncounted bombs.

So this is our national scenario. And then there's Delhi - the most sensitive place to live in this country. Three year's back the capital was attacked by terrorists killing over 100 people just before the festival of Diwali. Yesterday again, the capital was compromised.

But as ever, Rs. 5 Lakh for the kins of dead and Rs. 50,000 for the injured and a few statements from our thick rhino-skinned politicians - "It's a moment of national grief", "We shall stand united", "The terrorists will not be spared". What does it all mean? The terror gods know its India. A place where the law of the land is taken for ransom and everyone knows that it is not only easy to escape after committing the crime but also easy to escape the judicial system.

Ask those thick-skinned politicians if they are moved at all by such instances. We have a few ministers like Shri Prakash Jaiswal (Minister of State for Home Affairs) who shamelessly accept the defeat of government machinery and say, "I agree the terrorists were able to dodge the intelligence. But we are still just bothered about 'Nuclear Deal'. I am sure you’ll all agree with me that the state of affairs of this country and the problems of the nation are more pertinent and to be looked into rather than just running behind this coveted nuclear deal, which god know will ever be able to do any good to India.

The New Sporting Super Power

The recently concluded Olympics in Beijing must be both an eye opener and a threat to America. There emerges a new sporting super power and that's none other than China. I distinctly recall the backlash and hatred towards this only surviving communist power (there are many more but not as powerful as China)just before the start of Olympics on two fronts: One, the much coveted Tibet issue and a worldwide protest and false propaganda against China. Once the Tibet Issue got a little sublime, the whole of sporting community (mostly from the nations opposing China Americas and Europe) stood against the dragon nation on the pollution front.

There were many heads of the nations (sitting in the Bird's Nest - the national stadium as it was popularly known) who either threatened to pull out of Olympics completely or showed their unwillingness to join the opening ceremony of the games. But ultimately it was the might of the China which reigned supreme over any other wish. Hu Jintao, the Chinese President hosted a banquet lunch for some 80 state heads - many of whom must be feeling high and dry in the absence of any strong point to criticize him and/or his country. These heads of states included every possible strongest leader one can recall. India, though not represented by its PM, also saw Sonia Gandhi, the chairperson of the ruling UPA coalition standing in the VIP stands and waiving her hands to cheer the Indian contingent. Hu Jintao, in his speech said, "holding the Olympics is the long-cherished wish of the Chinese people."

And then started the saga of Chinese dominance in the 29th Olympic games. From the day one till the end, the country didn't disappoint over 1.3 billion Chinese nationals and at the end it became clear that China and not the USA or Britain or any other nation, is the new sporting super power. Winning 51 gold medals (total 100) was still not a big deal but with the mission of defeating every possible opponent on their soil, China gave a perfect example of a nice host and the most competitive nation.

Look what Washington Post has to say about this success: Indeed, the 2008 Games seemed likely to go down as a political as well as an athletic victory for China, reinforcing the image of party leaders as adroit managers of the world's largest nation on a double-step march toward greater prosperity. In the view of the Chinese, the appearance of dozens of foreign leaders during the Games, including President Bush, meant the world had effectively endorsed the Communist Party's rule, despite its continued political repression (this is the true American view on China).

The praise to an otherwise enemy nation doesn't stop there. "The party state was clearly a winner in the eyes of the people," said David Shambaugh, a George Washington University China specialist who was in Beijing for the Games and who wrote a recently published book on the Chinese Communist Party.

"The emphasis on China's national achievements was intense, responding to guidance from the Central Propaganda Department as well as spontaneous pride. The U.S. lead in the overall medal count was nearly ignored, for instance, in favor of China's winning tally of gold. In another example of the tone, the headline over a story on the success of Australia's Matthew Mitcham in a diving competition Thursday read: "Mitcham Ruins China's Clean Sweep in Diving." concludes the Washington Post article posted at (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26374226/).

Imagine how the country prepared itself for this mega event and how they made it a good occasion to plan a showdown for the western world (specially the countries opposing China and its so-called Anti-people government). Very smartly China managed the Tibetan protesters too. China designated three parks for approved protests during the 2008 Olympics and officials say they received 77 applications. None were approved. And why should it be approved. Tibet, I strongly feel, is an internal matter of China and it has all right to manage its territories. Millions of people in India will disagree with me on this point. I have been always of the opinion that Tibet is one bone of contention ruining the Sino-Indian relations. We have given shelter to the Tibetan government in exile (The Dalai Lama and his gang) and look what's happening in Dharamshala (the seat of Tibetan government in exile in Himachal Pradesh) and areas adjacent to it. Indians are treated as outsiders there. I have personally experienced it. What do we want to tell the whole world? On Tibet issue every country, including the ones like France and the US tried to pull the strings. So much so that the Olympic Committee was feeling threatened of sponsor back out. But what came out after the games was not only a flawless arrangement in a free-from-pollution environment but also a triumphant China which one most gold medals - a tight slap on the propagandists who told the world in as many words that China can't do it.

The Opium Masses Love to Indulge In

You must be wondering what am I up to today? Why suddenly I decided to wreck my nerves on a topic like 'Opium'? But those who have read Marx will instantly recall his famous statements around this term.

When Marx interpreted religion (whatever little he's written on religion directly), he said, religion is an expression of material realities and economic injustice. Thus, problems in religion are ultimately problems in society. Religion is not the disease, but merely a symptom. It is used by oppressors to make people feel better about the distress they experience due to being poor and exploited. This was the origin of Marx's comment "religion is the opium of the masses". Today I want to interpret his comment in the light of contemporary Indian religious fanaticism, which has not only created a nationwide divide amongst believers in different religions/sects but also created a threat scenario including the severest danger of cross-border interference in our local affairs.

Yes I am talking about the infamous Amarnath row which has now been continuing for over a few months and still there is no solution in sight. In fact any solution at this point will be turned down by the two groups, which are indulged into this rigorous fight for their unscrupulous religious demands and a naked showoff of religious fanaticism.

According to Marx, religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. But here in this context we see reversal of the highest proportion. The people involved are not the once which Marx was talking about. The people here are the ones who are highly politically motivated and who want to play murky games in the shadow of religion in India.

Now, for a while, we need to digress a bit and know what this whole Amarnath row is all about. I will not go into the historical perspective but still would like to comment that for many decades the Yatra (March) to the holy shrine of Amarnath (related to Lord Shiva)has been serviced by the locals (mostly Muslim natives of the Kashmir valley) without any signs of resentment and anguish. All of a sudden the government (with unknown motives) decided to dedicate some land (claimed to be forest land by the natives) for the Amarnath Shrine Board (the caretaker body constituted for the welfare of the Yatris (devotees). This created furor among both soft and hardcore fundamentalists of Kashmir bringing the situation to confrontation. No sooner did this move take place, the political and diplomatic volcano started simmering and soon it went out of control. The Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti (Agitation Committee) and the Muslim hardliners were at loggerheads and it caused heavy political and civil damages all which were not just confined to the already troubled state of Jammu & Kashmir. Religion was just a means to reactivate the fundamentalist activities there and what added fuel to the fire was the stern agitation by the Hindus who dominate the Jammu region. The rightest political party and so called savior of Hindus, BJP took no time to swing into action and initiated a nationwide agitation which was heavily politicized.

Now, in this whole drama the religion and followers and devotees of Amarnath took a backseat and the political drama took the center stage. Off late the sectarian politics and religious fundamentalism have tarnished the social fabric of India and the beneficiaries are none other than the shrewd political leaders who know that religion and caste are still the most binding forces when it comes to mobilize the Indian masses. Those who oppose it are cornered to an almost non-existing entities. The so called secular forces (Congress party) in particular is no less than BJP, which openly claims to be the advocate of Hinduism.

When the situation became out of control, both the government of J&K and the center government tried to salvage the situation by making some very stupid moves. By then it was too late. The People's Democratic Party (a pro-J&K party and an ally in the coalition governments at both center and state levels) withdrew its support to the Ghilam Nabi Azad led government thus bringing down the popularly elected body and again pushing the state to Governor's rule. Now, that's where I have always had a very radical view. The states, which are facing the external interference (either through means of insurgency or internal fundamentalism) have to have very strong popular democratically elected governments so that the factors influencing the local political and social dynamics from outside are marginalized. If there is no government, which J&K is famous for, the anarchy rules the place simply because in the decentralized form of democracy where each state has an elected government and has many subjects directly governed by state laws, the locals do not feel very secured and are subjected to laws which are supposedly not meant for their welfare. In case of the state of Punjab (when the state was facing serious threat from sponsored terrorism (from across the border and some other countries who have vested interests in destabilizing parts of some countries), the central rules did not do any good. for all the years when the state was ruled by central authorities with Governor's office as the executive force, the terrorism didn't show any signs of decline. So much so that we lost one of our strongest Prime Ministers (Indira Gandhi) due to the hatred towards the central authorities in general and Congress Party in specific (Congress was in power at that time). It was only when the elections took place in the state, the terrorism started showing great signs of decline and things came back to normalcy. Today, even if the state of Punjab is considered as sensitive, the prosperity which it regained after the stint of terrorism is a classic example of how local people show faith in locally elected governing bodies and how they refuse to accept something which is imposed on them without a consensus. We shall not forget that India consists of a very diverse social fabric. The forefathers of our freedom struggle and the constructors modern India took a very brave step in uniting these provinces which were earlier independent states and were ruled by feudal lords and kings. But its been just 60 odd years that over 400 of these provinces who either volunteered or were forced to accept the sovereignty of India (as a united nation). Even today regional interests are so very dominating that the government has to succumb to some demands of carving out states based on the regional-ethnic-cultural demands.

Similarly, ever since the princely state of J&K, which was at that time ruled by a Hindu king, accepted its accession into the Indian sovereignty and accepted the rule of law of the land, the situation has never been less sensitive. Four major international wars with Pakistan (another unethical claimant of the Kashmir Valley), hundreds of internal sectarian conflicts, utter civilian disorder and to top it all the insurgency propelled by the intelligence of Pakistan and the fundamentalist and hardcore religious leaders sitting across the border have not left anything in the state which it was known for. For almost a decade and a half the state was nothing more than a battleground - witnessing a perpetual conflict between the terrorists, fundamentalists, religious fanatics and separatists on one side and the central government and its forces on the other. Barely when there were some signs of revival of the democracy, decline in the gruesome acts of terrorism and progress in state's economic activities, we saw a row again which is fought in name of religious affinities but is actually a politically motivated and staged drama to woo the people belonging to different sects.

Coming back to the premise of Marx, who never opposed the religion in the name of making people accept the fundamentals of communism and socialism, this form of religion is not the same he mentioned about.

My Father's Paintings

 
 
 
 

New Ray of Hope

The contribution of Indian left organizations since the days of freedom struggle has been prolific and unmatched. Post the first world war, whether they were influenced by the success of Russian Revolution or they they sought shelter into Mao's philosophy, their contribution has been second to none. Post India's independence, the communist movement of India took a completely different shape and still carried on with good work. They acted as a constructive opposition to the system's 'anti-proletariat' moves whenever required.

The biggest contribution of the Left Movement of India came in the shape of the great Trade Union movement when they were able to mobilize the great Indian working class, especially the workers in the manufacturing sector. It continued for a very long time. But today it seems to have lost the glory and is derailed by with the help of an organized propaganda under which the elite capitalists and the bourgeoisie have worked overnight to destabilize the whole of the movement. Closure of manual manufacturing units and the advent of mechanized processes further weakened this movement and the complacency of our Marxist leaders towards this fast changing scenario added fuel to the fire. The rightest forces in India worked overtime to stop any noticeable progress in organized trade union movements and workers agitation.

But I think the Left has woken up from its long sleep. The period of silence seems to be coming to an end. The parties here may have come to realize that without mobilizing the masses, the peasants and the working class it is impossible to create a conducive environment for a people's government. But it doesn't necessarily mean opposing the modernization and industrialization. What Buddhadeb Bhattacharya (the current chief minister of West Bengal where the left government has been in power for past 30 years) is doing is exactly the same which the Marxists should be doing to keep pace with the change. What Russia did with liberalization is no example but what China did is certainly a good example to follow.

Very recently I was reading an article published in an Indian News Weekly called 'The Week' published by the Malyalaya Manorama group. The article was about some definite signs of revival of the trade union spirit of the Indian Left Parties. In a meeting of all left parties held a few weeks ago, it was decided to reopen the closed books of the trade union movement. It was about organizing the 140,000 odd unorganized private security guards in India and the case in point of the abnormal exploitation of them as a laborers.

Here I have a very agonizing personal experience to narrate. My car met with a small accident and it required repair. I went to one of the largest service centers of Suzuki in my area. While I was waiting for the service engineer to attend my complaint, I came across a very touching scene. An old man, who was positioned as a security guard, was continuously crying and despite relentless efforts from his fellowmen he didn't stop. As a humanitarian, I was a little touched and was anxious to know what was the reason behind his agony. I was told by another security guard that the old fellow lost his brother a day before. The reason for his pain was more than justified. In India, specially in the rural parts, we still believe in the concept of joint (extended) families where generations live together as a single group. He went on talking to some of his relatives over phone and then started convincing them that the last rituals should take place in a proper way. He was still crying very badly. It made me really very emotional. Being a native of Madhya Pradesh (a state quite far from the National Capital Region NCR), the old man showed his inability to reach before a day later. But the most cruel aspect is yet to come. The so called managers (who are fit to be called bourgeoisie in today's conditions) were completely apathetic towards the old man's sorrow. I wanted to help this man but was waiting for the right occasion. The managers ruthlessly ignored him and probably sanctioned his leave with a lot of reluctance in their eyes. He was a security guard - a non-existent person for the Suzuki Service Center and part of the unorganized labor labeled as 'private security guards' who are hired on temporary contracts with no certainty of their jobs the next morning. This is the cruel face of contemporary capitalist society and the ruthlessness that rules our minds as humans. So, if the new trade union movement starts with this breed, its a good sign of revival.

As an extension to it, the communist parties of India should also take into stride the largest of all such unorganized workers - the ones who work as temporary farmers. They are the biggest force to be mobilized and taken into the mainstream. I think what Nepalese communists did was a perfect example to be followed here as well. The most downtrodden ones should the the first set of people taken into confidence and without attacking their primary beliefs and sentiments they should be taken as the primary cadre of the left parties.

This will not only help the left movement to proliferate beyond the traditional territories like West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura but also help mobilize the masses in an organized way.