62 Years: State of the Nation

Today is India's 62nd Independence Day. But the Nation's mood is not upbeat. There are various reasons to it. To me, the nation is weak, challenged and down-under. Half of country's agricultural land is facing an unprecedented drought. "Kisaan" - the farmers - are hopeless and in aghast despair. Probably for the first time in the last 25 years, I didn't hear the Prime Minister's speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi. I didn't feel like listening to a speech prepared by a moron bureaucrat which talks about the absurd and unrealistic achievements of my country. I am indeed a chauvinist from the core of my heart but the current state of the nation makes me feel very depressed, vulnerable and non-committed.

This monsoon poses a challenge of sorts to us. We are not only facing a drought but also shall be ready for farmers to succumb to untimely deaths. Inflation is low but the prices of essential commodities are sky high. Prices of pulses, vegetables, edible oil, sugar, and other essential daily needs are fast becoming unaffordable. Capitalists are sucking the blood of workers to produce more with least amount of facilities. The exploitation of labour is on an all-time high. This is the state of my nation. Then why should I be listening to those artificially crafted speeches of these insane and irresponsible leaders?

The times are not far when there will be mayhem on the streets. People will be violent and aggression will be on top of their minds. There will be chaos and anarchy. And this system will still boast of its credentials for Indo-US nuclear deal, privatisation, disinvestment and grooming the capitalists society.

This is what makes me sad on this otherwise very sacred day, which I wait for every year. Not even one responsible leader of this country is talking about the plight of my farmer brethren and the labourers in the dry fields. They are all just bothered about filling in their coffers and making riches. No one is there to address the poor man's anxiety about his/her future.

That's where I am and that's where we all are on the 62nd Independence day. Think about it.

What's in my eyes is in the world

Last I wrote here was on 14th April. Precisely a month and a half ago. Probably its lethargy and nothing else. One can easily steal some time for writing every day but it's that small extra effort which very less number of people are able to take. Anyway, lots happened between 14th April and today. Prabhakaran (if we believe so) is dead. An almost 30 years of Tamil-Singhali war seems to be over. The fight of LTTE cadre over a separate Tamil province is mercilessly killed. No matter what happened to Prabhakaran, there're misreporting on civilian deaths in Sri Lanka.

Indian elections concluded a few weeks ago. Manmohan Singh became second time lucky in absence of any formidable challenge from any of the Congress leader. Sonia succeeded the second time to run the government by proxy. Interestingly every political prediction, which gave births to 1000 speculations, failed and was crushed by resurging Congress. The party stood tall overall gaining a massive lead in UP, Rajasthan, Kerala and the bastion of leftist parties - the West Bengal. It was shocking enough for me to take a few days to digest the fact that a baseless-aimless-idiot lady in Bengal can shake the leftists from their roots. She, along with Congress, had written a new chapter in the history of Bengal politics. The leftists have just 2 damn years to save their 30 year long undisputed, uninterrupted rule before it becomes a chapter in the books of History. There was an era when the communist ruled West Bengal for 30 years and then came a lady - small, short, aimless, baseless but still devastated the mighty red bastion. Before it's late left parties have to really reorganise themselves, come out of air conditioned shells and be on their feet to save themselves from further damage.

Advani, Modi, Jaitley, Rajnath, Joshi, Swaraj...do these names ring any bells into your years? Well they were the architects of BJPs 2009 election plan - Mazboot Neta-Nirnayak Sarkar' (Powerful leader-decisive government). A tall leader in stature and PM in waiting - remained grounded. Probably he will never get a chance to stay at 7 Race Course Road. All of BJP's poll planks boomeranged on its cadre. The party got humiliated on all fronts - Modi didn't do any good in his state. Shivraj Singh Chauhan (CM of MP) could not retain his charisma. Vasundhara fell flat in the race. Everywhere there was a loss for the party, which was around 100 seats behind Congress. We new can expect a less vocal opposition in the Parliament and least disruptions too.

Most of this was routine events which were slated to happen. Prabhakaran was trapped and was plotted to be killed. Manmohan was to become PM - it was almost certain if not cast in stone. But something that wasn't expected and came as a shock was Nepal's political drama. Prachanda - who looked like an ultimate reformer and had rightfully clipped the wings of the monarchy - had to resign from the government. It was not expected at all. But radical leaders are not spared to do good work. There are always forces pulling them back and under the able guidance of the US, any nation professing progressive leftist ideology is subjected to the destiny Prachanda met. There is no support to people who want to create new social order. I'll explain this next time I write.

Mumbai, Vada Pao and Memories

Till 2001, I'd just heard about Vada Pao (a local Mumbai dish which, if I say 'Mumbaikars swear by it' won't be any exaggeration). The first time when I tasted Vada Pao, it appeared to me as a cheap option to satisfy the apatite. You shell out just a couple of rupees and you are through. It's nothing but a fried ball of meshed potato (Vada) going inside a loaf of locally made bread (Pao) wrapped in a piece of old local newspaper so that you don't spoil your hands and there you go!!!

So, when I came here (Mumbai), I hardly knew anyone and thus reaching out to a Vada Pao seller was slightly out of the way. It's only later that I came to know that every nook and corner of this city you can find a seller of Vada Pao.

Once I got that taste, in those two years of my stay in Mumbai, I must have eaten Vada Pao 100-200-300 times without bothering about the oil that it is cooked in, the hygene that a seller follows, the affect it will have on my tummy. I got addictive. And when I left Mumbai in 2003, among a few prominent things which were unforgettable was Vada Pao.

I must have visited Mumbai at least a dozen times after that for office work and what not but didn't get one damn chance to eat this dish.

Today after a gap of six years, I earned a Vada Pao at last. It was so gratifying that I just can't explain. Despite being in a very strict diet program and off the oily food, I didn't resist the temptation to go for it and I realized it was a risk worth taken. I mean, silly dish, cheap stuff but still addictive. I suggest Mumbaikars should patent this if nothing else!!!!

When Political Ambitions Grow Beyond Reality

It's spring season and its time for yet another General Elections - probably the fifteenth one ever since we gave ourselves to a sovereign nation. In this journey of around a decade plus ten years, the character of our political system, political ideology and politicians has seriously deteriorated.

This reminds me of the famous lines of Sir Francis Bacon who once said, "Men in Great Place are thrice Servants: Servants of the Sovereign or State; Servants of Fame; and Servants of Business. It is strange desire to seek Power and to lose Liberty." You must be wondering why I am quoting Sir Bacon abruptly and without any context. No! Indeed there is a context to it. In past two decades, Indian polity has lost its shine so much that these lines are most apt to describe our leadership. Today my focus will on the "leadership" of India. Thanks to the emergence of regional (it would be better to call them seasonal and opportunistic) political outfits, which have little or no ideological inclinations (except claiming themselves Secular), that we have got at least 10 claimants of the position of the Prime Minister. When we look at the landscape ahead of the 15th Lok Sabha, there is a dangerous situation emerging out if it. Even a political outfit which is not sure of winning more than 20-25 Lok Sabha seats are projecting and thus lobbying their leaders to be the claimants. I wouldn't regret naming these "10" Prime Ministers in making. But at the same time I won't touch upon those names who are "fit" to become PMs and have the legitimate way of doing so.

Candidate Number One - Mayawati: She claims herself to be the most acclaimed "Dalit" Leader (leader of downtrodden and backwards) after Babasaheb Ambedkar (a great man and great statesman too). She has thrown her entire weight behind the 80 most vital Lok Sabha seats of Uttar Pradesh (the largest political province of India). If she wins half or more of these 80 seats and a few more in other provinces, she is a strong claimant of PM's position. An attempt of was made when the current UPA government was seeking the vote of confidence. She has no political ideology, no strength of thoughts and also no experience or exposure of handling international affairs. But so what! Even Devegawda who became a PM for 10 months didn't have any.

Candidate Number Two - M Karunanidhi: He is yet another aspirant of the top position with his expectations of garnering maximum seats in the state of Tamil Nadu. His political rival J. Jayalalitha (both of them are of similar stature) would like to see him biting dust in the forthcoming elections though.

Candidate Number Three - Mulayam Singh: A wrestler turned politician again from Uttar Pradesh, who always keeps his bag packed and has a sharp eye on 7 Race Course Road - the official residence of the PM of India. His political adviser cum fund raiser cum spokesperson Amar Singh always has this target in mind to place "Netaji" (Mulayam is popularly known as Netaji) into this top slot. But if his party reaches an agreement with Congress on seat sharing then he will have to support Congress' PM candidate. If not so, he is not in a position to get enough this time. Last elections he had 37 members in Lok Sabha.

Candidate Number Four - Lalu Prasad Yadav: A joker by profession...sorry by nature and deprived of any ideological leanings, he is also an aspirant. Though he comes across like a bodyguard of Madam Sonia Gandhi (the owner of UPA and the one who runs this government by proxy). Whenever there is a crisis over her, Lalu spits his beetle leaf out and starts performing his role of a joker. But in his own bastion - Bihar Province - Lalu has been overthrown by the good work of Nitish Kumar - the incumbent CM and the leader of a political outfit called Janta Dal (United). Probability is strong that in this election Lalu won't be able to retain even half of the seats that he has in the current Lok Sabha.

Candidate Number Five - Sharad Pawar: This king of Maharashtra Sugarcane lobby and a tall Maratha leader (now only in height) is out on a propaganda to project himself as of of the potential candidates for this coveted post. Had he been part of the original Congress party, he had bright chances of gaining popularity but with just being confined to Maharashtra and fighting a battle of anti-incumbency, his claims appear as superficial as a mirage in the desert.

Candidate Number Six - Mamta Banerjee: Wow, what a lady she is. She, I think, is an icon of fighting the battle always on "Wrong" grounds and is a Dharna/Hartaal (different local names for strike in India). She was finally able to keep Tata away from Nandigram (a site which Tata Motors have selected and invested on for its most ambitious Nano Car project). But she was also able to win the by-election for that assembly seat. But she looks deserted by all her political allies. She can at lest retain her own seat and rest nothing else. Even BJP has decided to withdraw its friendship to her. Go Mamta Go!

Candidate Number Seven - Narendra Modi: A larger than life figure, a staunch supporter of Hindutva ideology of BJP/RSS and a so-called proponent of Industrialization of Gujarat province, Modi is trying to infuse delimma within his own party so that people start thinking of alternatives for Lal Krishna Advani - the PM in waiting for this election. Despite his all round superb lip service and self acclaimed progress in Gujarat Modi is still a regional leader and not much accepted outside his own State boundary.

Candidate Number Eight - Pranab Mukherjee: Pity - the guy always puts his best foot forward but somehow misses the real target. He has been trying ever since the death of Rajeev Gandhi but hasn't been successful. At best he is a confidante of Sonia and a make-shift PM when MMS (Man Mohan Singh) is unwell - like he is doing currently. If fortune really turns in his favor - the next elections can see him the light at the end of the tunnel.

Candidate Number Nine - Rahul Gandhi: Here's where the immaturity of Indian democracy comes down to its lowest ebb. The country thinks there can't be a leader outside Gandhi-Nehru family. If not the country than the Congress party is of this belief for sure. So there's always a Gandhi-Nehru dose that's injected in the party workers. But even the thought of making Rahul the PM will ruin this nation's prospects. He is unfit to be a parliamentarian, forget about thinking/aspiring for the top slot.

Candidate Number Ten - Sonia Gandhi: That's where the buck stops in the current scheme of things. Why, in the first place, the Congress party decided to bring her into politics? The answer is known to everyone. One election that Congress fought without the blessings or actual involvement of a Gandhi-Nehru shadow and the results were miserable. As it is, Sonia runs the government by proxy. 10 Janpath Road (the house where she lives now) is more popular in India than 7 Race Course Road which is the official residence of the PM here. That's where she actually controls all the key decisions and issues diktats to MMS or whosoever. Even before the government announced the reduction in Petroleum product prices, Sonia Gandhi had an authority to do so in her own political constituency. If there's no resistance from the so-called nationalists/chauvinists in India in 2004, she was the PM.

The counting is over. What I promised you in the beginning, I have fulfilled. Please tell me if you have a counter argument to offer on any one of the above mentioned candidates. So if there is one PM in waiting in Great Britain (the model that we follow here), there are 10 of them in India. Do we have any parallel?

I agree that Sir Bacon's saying was not very directly relevant here but imagine we have as many as 10 people in this country who are eager to lose their Liberty at the expense of gaining Power - that too happily!!!

Keep thinking!

We are indeed the greatest democracy.

When my mother almost succumbed

A lot happened in the last 30 days that I was away from writing. The biggest of all the incidents that I wanted to record was my Mother's heart attack. My mother, who is over 70 years old and is the sweetest lady on this earth (for me and I am sure all mothers are like that), suffered a mild attack on 18th Jan 2009. It was not just shocking but was a sad moment for all of us at home. It won't be an exaggeration to say that my mother is the one who runs the family (not financially but operation-wise). She is the central nervous system of our family. It was 2100 hours when I got a call from my dad. He was just crying and could just manage to say, "they have taken your mother to the hospital." I gauged the seriousness of the matter. The iron-lady (that my mother is) doesn't give in to small pressures. She is the goddess of tolerance and even when it comes to her ailments, she tolerates it till the last. I'd to fly to Bangalore (to attend Team Leader's Meet) on 19th - the next morning. My bag was packed. All I did was told Vasudha (my wife) to stay put, stay calm and take care of Ananya (my daughter) and within a few minutes I was on the road to Jaipur. Thousand thoughts crossed over my mind. Meanwhile, I kept calling people. First, I called Louis (my CEO and a dear friend outside office) to tell him that I won't be able to attend the meeting. After I gave him the reason, all he offered me was moral support and asked me to drive safe. Next I was calling the doctor, a family friend and neighbor in Jaipur who was attending my mother at that critical juncture. Vasudha kept insisting to accompany me but I knew it won't be possible for me to wait and take risk with our daughter who's just 4 months old now. All I told myself repeatedly was drive carefully and not to be absent minded on the busy highway. I some how don't like driving at night. One, the road sense of people is rubbish here. Secondly, the high beams of trucks irritate me a lot. But that was an emergency and that too pertaining to my mother. It was a non-negotiable journey that I'd to take at any time of the day. Thankfully, the traffic was less and I managed to reach Jaipur in flat three hours (the distance from my home in Gurgaon and the home in Jaipur) is 220 Kilometer. I think I drove at a high speed but that was natural. Meanwhile, I was constantly talking to both my elder sister and Mayank (our neighbor and the doctor) and by 11:30 I was assured that mom was out of any pertinent danger and she was breathing normally though with the support of artificial infusion of oxygen. When I reached the hospital (it was really a messy one but came out handy in the case of this emergency), mom was awake. She wasn't able to sleep. She glanced at me. I saw great amount of helplessness in her eyes. A lady who's always on her toes and always ready to sacrifice her life for others was lying and was breathing with support of oxygen. A few more needles were pierced in her body to infuse glucose and a monitor was also by her bedside monitoring her pulse etc. It was already midnight. I was told we need to take her to a bigger, better hospital. Fortis ( a super-specialty hospital on the outskirts of Jaipur with supposedly excellent cardiac-care unit) was our target. There were still 1000 questions criscrossing my mind. Nobody knew what's wrong with mom. She's a saintly lady. Her eating habits her lifestyle, her routine - all indicate she is not one of those greedy ones. But yes! she's a diabetic and thus equally vulnerable to heart and other such dangerous ailments. But the way (as I was told) she collapsed, I was compelled to think of the worst. After a brief spat with the Doctor (not my neighbor but the one who owned that messy small hospital who was not ready to discharge her) we were on our way to Fortis. No sooner did we reach there than a fleet of medical attendants started performing their jobs on my mom. Then came the doctor, Sanjeeb Roy - a senior cardiologist and a specialist. He examined her and said, "there's little or no danger. Her ECO was sound, her heart wasn't damaged and she will be alright but he said she will have to undergo an Engeography (a process to see where all there's a blockade in the vessels). Both I and my eldest sister (Anamika) kept sitting in the waiting area and took turns to see mom in the CCU (cardiac care unit). She was doing well. But at the same time she was a little fearful as to what's going on with her. Then came the moment in the evening. The doctor called us to tell a good and a bad news. My heartbeats were haywire. I was a little nervous at that juncture. Vasudha, without much of my consent but thankfully had reached Jaipur with Ananya. She took charge at home front and to top it, took change of my emotional father who was just crying all the time. He is one of the most sensitive souls I have ever seen in my life. Doctor called me to tell that one of my mom's vessels was 80 percent blocked. "We have to perform an Angioplasty (a process to put a stint to broaden the vessel so that the blood circulation becomes normal)," said the doctor. In no time he was explaining me the cost of doing it all. Probably I was in no mood to listen to that part of the conversation. "Money is not the priority this time doctor," I said. And asked him to do the needful urgently. He took me to a consulting room and we were asked to sign at umpteen number of places before he went off again and disappeared. Probably he'd gone to do the surgery. In the next half an hour, he came out smiling and said one of us can go and see mom. My sister went ahead of me. She came out with the news that mom was feeling a lot better and that was the time I breathed normally.

As I said a lot happened. I will tell the rest in my next blog but for now I thank nature to save my lovely mother.