
Sunday, November 08, 2009
During a lifeless class...

Thursday, October 22, 2009
Mumbaikars loose - MNS wins

Maharashtra poll results along with the poll results in the other two states of Arunachal Pradesh and Haryana has come as a bad news for the BJP. And the saffron colour continues to lose its shine.
It must have been a happy day at work for people at 10 Janpath as the hard work finally paid off in Maharashtra. With the party gaining an absolute majority, it will hope that it will be able to live up to the expectations of a common Indian living in Maharashtra.
But the disheartening news was about a goon party gaining more strength.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena won in 13 seats in the state including 7 seats in Mumbai.
And there can be two ways of looking into the performance.
The first one has more to do with Not reading much into the party’s win. As the seat where it won was not on the basis of the party tag but because of a careful thinking that went into while selecting the candidates. The candidates who won were not imported from outside. Most of them were active in their constituency for years and were earlier a part of Shiv Sena.
So to say that the brand MNS worked would be wrong.
The second way of looking at this is that whether Mumbai has accepted and given its nod to the hooliganism way of politics that was carried out by MNS? And this question needs to carefully understood in the backdrop of the violence that MNS cadre carried out recently.
Infact none of the media post election talk show focussed on this aspect of MNS. Not much time back, this was the same party who held the whole state to ransom and ransacked the city and attacked anyone whom they thought was from north India.
Mumbai sure has a short memory.
Perhaps the Mumbaikars forgot that when 26/11 happened none of the MNS goons or Mr.Thackrey came forward to help. And those who died while tackling the situation where from all parts of the country, it was not a 'Me Mumbaikar' campaign at that time. And it was not just Mumbai who was glued into to the TV for news but the whole India
And it was not just Mumbai who felt frustrated for being so helpless and it was not just Mumbai who cried whenever a still body of an innocent “Indian” came out.
Try to remember; it was hardly 11 months back.
Anyone who saw Raj speaking before the media will agree that he has reached a new realm. The same old arrogance and lust for power was back in his eyes and in his voice as he dared people to perform Chaath Puja.
I thought that the MNS will be routed from the state but now realize that I was wrong. Might has again proved right.
Why do we point fingers at the illiterate class when they elect criminals to power? Don’t we say that the poor class doesn’t have the “intellectual” capability to decide between right and wrong?
What happened to the not so "intellectually backward strata" of Mumbai? Those who voted MNS to power how are they going to justify it?
Is violence the answer to the problem of people coming to a state in India in search for work? MNS had posed this question and many of you nodded in assent.
There were people who were lambasting Karan Johar for succumbing to MNS decree. Now we see why didn’t he resist.
We are moving backward in time. Democracy graduates from a violent natured system to a system that runs on a careful exercising of the power to vote.
This time it was MNS. Who knows by the next election time we might have NINS ( North Indian Navnirman sena). All justifying their violence on one reason or the other.
We pose some questions that can be answered only by ourselves.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Whom will you feed today
Friday, October 16, 2009
A day and a night on Bhopal-Patna broad gauge
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Obama, Osama and Lal Salama

Barack Obama getting the Oscars must be considered as the biggest goof up that the Film fare jury have done till yet.
It is simple: How can someone who played the role of an angry Rambo in the movie “Revenge of America-post 9/11” be recognized as the Best apostle of Peace.
He could have been nominated in various other categories. Maybe The Best Podium dancer, The Best Podium Lyricist or the Best comedian for his superb acting butt Peace.
Obama supporters say that he got the award because his sterling performance in various movies like Afghanistan -a rosy tale and Iraq- all about Tel , in which he was successfully able to justify the legacy of another comedian of yesteryears; Bush Baby. Also the encouragement he got from Tel Aviv did the trick.
While conversing with another strong contender of the Most peaceful actor, Laden Cage (he uses this pseudonym since he has been caged in the Tora Tora mountains of the Afghanistan Studio), I got the feeling that all was not well within the league. The League of Ordinary turned superhero man.
Laden was quite critical of the fact that he was not allowed the travel to Norway. He quite candidly admitted that his mere presence on the screen would have lighted up the stage or as a matter of the fact the whole Norway.
He admitted that he too like Obama follows Gandhiji, who he says always used to keep a stick with him as he very innocently shows me his AK-56 that he has tied on a lathi.
He quotes a couplet to make his point, which he says his grandfather used to recite him every time he asked him for a candy. Jiski laathi uski bhens... and encouraged with this inspiring words he would take a lathi and beat the crap out of anyone with a candy and gobble it up.
Just like the way Gandhiji used his lathi as a threat to the mighty Britishers daring them to stop him from going to Sabarmati.
Kaun kehta hai kalyug abhee nahee aaya hai
Jahan nazar dodao wohee to Gandhi ki libaas odhey koi na koi nazar aaya hai
Ache se dekho mere yaaro
Kabhie Osama aur Kabhie Obama danda karta hua nazar aaya hai
II
A major and hopefully decisive counter offensive has been launched by the security forces against the naxalites who have grown leaps and bounds. The recent killing of 17 security personnel in Gidhchiraolii and the beheading of police officer in Jharkhand have forced the Government to wake up and take stock of what I see as an epidemic threat that has been eating away into the very basic structure of this country.
Those who have been into the naxalites infested areas will agree that they in true terms run a parallel government. And they have eroded more into the integrity of this country with every passing day.
And those intellectuals and visionaries who come out with reason to support this red-bloodied cause should hang their hand in shame every time a mother wails or a child cries after watching dead body of a son or a father nearby.
Time has come to remove this menace once and for all. Lets for some time forget about the issues of development and rights of the oppressed and the exploited which the supporters of naxalism says forces innocent villagers to join the naxal movement.
In Kashmir every separatists has his problems that he uses to justify the killings. Back in the late 80s and early 90s when militancy was at its peak in Punjab the militants would give N number of reason to justify the bombings. And same in the North East.
But in the end it comes to a point that unless and until the state machinery is not allowed to do its work, no development can take place.
The naxalites still wants their followers to live in the dream world that they would be able to carve out a separate nation. How laughable.
Only one question comes to mind- what they want and who can give a reasonable believable answer.
Lal Salam deviated out of its path a long back ago.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
I bid adieu

a silent stare,a silent nod,
Monday, September 28, 2009
Dholu bhai- a tribute

Saturday, September 19, 2009
Abhivyakti- a rich past
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Bhopal diary III

Saturday, August 22, 2009
Tough time calls for BJP
The Chintan Baithak at the scenic and cool Shimla got off to a rather hot start with the safari suit clad Jaswant Singh being expelled from the party. Not quite a long back, he along with Atal and Advani constituted the face of BJP.
He might not had a dramatic rise but a crestfallen Jaswant Singh sure had a rollicking downfall. No single reason can be attributed to the recent development.
The crab mentality that plagues every organization, which currently is working at full force for BJP, the emergence of new ‘young’ leaders, who have waited years for their turn to come but all in vain, the recent poll debacle, the RSS factor, and the slow but steady disappearance of Atal from the party, all made it easy to show Jaswant the door.
We have been hearing the same name in BJP for all these years. Names that have been in queue to climb up the ladder, a ladder whose top three stairs have been booked for Atal, Adavni and Jaswant. Of all the three, Jaswant was the weakest, and he had to go. Advani will be next and with Atalji retired, it will be everyone for himself for the next generation of party leaders.
The loss in general election was a good ground to start with the assault. RSS saw it as a golden opportunity to once again tighten its grip over the party. RSS had reasons to believe that in recent years its hold over the party had been shrinking. With Jaswant Singing Jinnah and blasting Patel, they found a much needed cause to show who the boss is.
The other big reason is that BJP is still figuring out what to do with the Muslim population. It is still going to and from whether to appease the minority population go soft on Hindutva or stick to hard core Hindutva. In between this undecided scenario, Jaswant thought that maybe praising Jinnah was the next best thing to do after denouncing Patel. And as we all now know, neither of them worked in the way he expected it to be.
There have been far greater grounds for axing leaders in BJP in the past, but as I said, if it was just on the basis of the core reason, Jaswant would have been still alive and kicking. It is obnoxious to expel a leader who have been in the party for the last 30 years, who had just won a lok Sabah election by more than 3 lakhs vote and a man who did good, if not great work in various capacity at the central level, just because he wrote a book.
To start with there was no bigger ground than Kandahar to expel a few sleeping man who waited for the god to intervene before the aircraft took off to Kandahar, then came Kargil, still the same old guys continued to ‘serve’ the nation.
And finally came Gujarat. Not trying to sound a pseudo secularist, what happened at Godhra was and is unpardonable and and exception should have been made out and the perpetrators should have been given a medieval kind of punishment. But whatever happened thereafter could and should have been controlled had the BJP state government followed Raj Dharma as Atal pointed out.
BJP right now is going through a churning process, which as we all know is not very memorable. From now on it will be Advani who will have to fight and stave attacks, depending on whether he has any desire to do so.
Don’t think that Rajnath Singh will have to bear the same as he doesn’t have ambitions that require a bloodbath as he knows his position, strengths and weaknesses well. Sushma swaraj too is now a shadow of her former self, and with no Atal to provide her support she too will be contended in whatever she is offered.
The two people to look out in the near future are Modi and Jaitley. They will be the two poles that the others will have to choose from in the near future.
But a party cannot be run by two men who are highly ambitious. Atal always knew that he can never be replaced or upstaged. And Adavani too was aware and accepted the fact that he will be more highly rewarded if he stays with Atal, if not behind him. There was never a dichotomy or any doubt in any of the BJP workers mind that who had the final say in the party matter and that made for a smooth running. In a relationship, of every nature, one has to be one percent more than the other for it to blossom.
And between Modi and Jaitley, one of the two has to realize this. The sooner they do it, the better it will be for them and for the party. RSS should limit its role to that of a guardian, and that too in a strict sense, only coming in the picture when it’s truly required.
There is a difference between meddling and offering advice. This is something that Mohan Bhagwat has to make himself and his organization understand.
The Chintan baithak will come out with many ideas, but only with time, will the BJP regains it full glory, till then it has to wait and bid its time.
Looking at a larger perspective, India, just like any other democracy, will be benefitted more if we have a strong opposition party, which as of now is nowhere to be seen.
