The Dogged Dogma

I was pleasantly surprised today morning to receive a Facebook friend request from a very British sounding name of the opposite sex. Without batting an eyelid, I accepted the request, basking in the glory that finally a Firangi has deemed me worthy of such wonderful gesture. Lahwal Bilakuwal !! Expectantly as I looked up her profile, she turned out to be a fellow Bong from Bangladesh, her religion stated as Catholic-Christian !! Why on earth would a homegrown Bengali girl have a British name beats me. What has religion got to do with our Bangaliana ? 

I got some really funny insights about dogmas that are both stupid and conformist at the same time, thanks to the profile page of Facebook. A person with a political view 'Communist/Marxist' will invariably be an 'Atheist' for his/her religious view. A one with a 'Liberal' inclination would be a 'Proud' (sic) Hindu, as if his pride in being a Hindu has made him politically liberated ! Some young Bongs of the Red type even go to the extent of having 'Harmad' as their middle name, lest Didi have any doubts about the strength of her bete noire. The 'atheists' would be the ones posting the maximum number of Durga Puja photographs on their respective profile pages though !  And then there are those faceless Bangladeshi girls who would seldom have their own snapshots in their profile but prefer to be represented by the likes of Katrina Kaif and Bipasha Basu, bolder as they are. How do I know their religion ? From their names, silly. 

Now, there are some questions here that I have no answer of : why would the political belief of an intelligent individual cloud his religious or spiritual aspirations ? Similarly, why would individual religious beliefs supersede one's sense of regional and national belonging ? Why should names not represent who we are but what our religion is ? Lastly, if my photograph cannot be veiled, why would I try to hide behind the veil of another individual ?  Dogmas are always purebred in pedigree and perversion. To be iconoclastic has never been easy.  But I wonder if a modern networking site like Facebook used by the young and not-so-young alike cannot but help reveal the age old dovetail in us, what would ?  

The Clear and Present Change

History is important to gain a perspective, more so when a breeze of change fraught with uncertainty and expectations flow over us, slowly gathering pace and promising to turn into a raging gale within the next few months. As we look forward to exercising our right of franchise by March 2011, we need to look back at our options for ushering in a change in Bengal politics, after a long lull. Let us go back to the history of the three major players and try to understand their ethos. 

On 28 December 1885, the Indian National Congress was founded at Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College in Bombay. Allan Octavian Hume's poem 'The Old Man's Hope' published in Calcutta in 1886 aptly captures the sentiment of the founder :

Sons of Ind, why sit ye idle,

Wait ye for some Deva's aid?

Buckle to, be up and doing!

Nations by themselves are made!

Yours the land, lives, all, at stake, tho'

Not by you the cards are played;

Are ye dumb? Speak up and claim them!

By themselves are nations made!

What avail your wealth, your learning,

Empty titles, sordid trade?

True self-rule were worth them all!

Nations by themselves are made!

................... 

 Sons of Ind, be up and doing,

Let your course by none be stayed;

Lo! the Dawn is in the East;

By themselves are nations made!

125 years is a long time in history and INC has evolved from being the usher to the head of the table to the villain of the piece to disintegration to reorientation to back at the helm and so on.  But they have not only survived the test of time but also have been able to maintain her central position in Indian politics for all these years, as we transitioned from being Imperial subjects to a Democratic Republic.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) was formed at the Seventh Congress of the Communist Party of India held in Calcutta from October 31 to November 7, 1964. The CPI(M) was born in the struggle against revisionism and sectarianism in the communist movement at the international and national level, in order to defend the scientific and revolutionary tenets of Marxism-Leninism and its appropriate application in the concrete Indian conditions. In the fall of 1962, sharp differences over the question of the party’s attitude toward the Chinese-Indian border conflict arose within the leadership as a result of the heightening of that conflict. Subsequently, differences that had appeared as early as the Sixth Congress of the CPI concerning other questions of party activity—the evaluation of the role of the Indian national bourgeoisie, the nature and essence of the united national front, and so forth—also came to the fore. In November 1964 a group of leading figures left the CPI and proclaimed the creation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), a parallel communist party. The direct intervention of the leadership of the Communist Party of China into the internal affairs of the CPI played a fundamental role in the split in the CPI and the emergence of a parallel communist party in India. 

Mamata Banerjee was expelled from Indian National Congress on 22 December 1997. The All India Trinamool Congress (formerly West Bengal Trinamool Congress) was founded on 1 January 1998, consisting largely of defectors from the then Congress (I) in West Bengal. A little bird quietly tells us the background as a precursor to forming the AITC. In the Rao government formed in 1991, Mamata Banerjee was made the Union Minister of State for Human Resources Development, Youth Affairs and Sports, and Women and Child Development. As the sports minister, she protested in a rally at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata, against Government's indifference towards her proposal to improve sports in the country and publicly announced that she would resign. She was discharged of her portfolios in 1993. In April 1996, she alleged that Congress was behaving as a stooge of the CPI(M) in West Bengal. She claimed that she was the lone voice of protest and wanted a "clean Congress". At a public rally at Alipore in Kolkata, Mamata Banerjee wrapped a black shawl around her neck and threatened to make a noose with it. In July 1996, she squatted at the well of Lok Sabha to protest against the hike in petroleum price, though she was a part of the Government. In February 1997, on the day of railway budget presentation in Lok Sabha, Mamata Banerjee threw her shawl at the railway minister Ram Vilas Paswan for ignoring West Bengal and announced her resignation. The speaker, P. A. Sangma, did not accept her resignation and asked her to apologise. She stayed away from Lok Sabha for six months. Later she came back as Santosh Mohan Deb mediated. 


Not much is found documented about the vision of AITC except what is available on their official website and I quote "In our vain self conceit and ivory tower musings, we have abandoned the path that led us to win our political freedom – the path which could also have led us to our highest spiritual liberty. And what is the price that we paid and still continue to pay? We have become corrupt, narrow and indolent, we have steeped ourselves into all kinds of ignominious acts possible or imaginable. We have lost ourselves! In this hour of crisis, when everything seems to fall apart, how is it that we can turn around and fight our own telling weaknesses and miseries? We can fight by invoking the presence of the Divine Mother who is not only present in the very stuff of the land but also in our hearts and minds; by imploring Her to free us of our weakness and make us great and mighty, not to please our egos, but to make Her great and mighty." Unqoute. Howsoever vague this might be, the one point agenda of Mamata Banerjee aka AITC is anti – Communism, or shall we say anti her bête noire CPI(M).


Let us go back again to the days she was part of NDA. In less than five months, she had threatened twice to withdraw support to Vajpayee's Government. Within the next July, she sprung a unique surprise by ``temporarily suspending'' her party's support to the Government. People understood it as her protest against some action or lack of action on the part of the Centre, but the method remained baffling. Then again, as she pulled out of the coordination committee of the BJP and its allies over the issue of rising prices, she was again making a point but not quite explaining it. In 1999 she had joined the NDA and became the Union Railway Minister in 2000 under PM Vajpayee. She walked out of the NDA in 2001 and allied with the Congress in Bengal to fight the Lok Sabha elections, with disastrous consequences.  She returned to the cabinet in 2004 only to remain the Union Coal and Mines Minister till the elections of 2004.  Then happened the indignation of single MP party in 2005, Nandigram and Singur. The rest as they say is history.

Now that we have a perspective of where the Congress, CPI(M) and Trinamool stand, the one single factor which is common to all of them is this : they are all children of anti establishment philosophies. While the former two, due to their long years in power at the national and state level, have become the establishment themselves, Trinamool does not have any seperate image other than that of Mamata and as Ashis Chakrabarty wrote in the Indian Express way back on Nov 8th, 1998, she has been able to portray herself as a ‘Rebel without a pause - sometimes apparently without a cause too. Revolting against friends and foes alike… And never failing to make her rebellion a spectacle eminently worthy of newspaper headlines. More often than not, her methods of revolt will be quite unconventional. So much so that one keeps wondering which is her message and which the medium. But her people lap it all up because in her they see the girl next door relentlessly fighting the venerable Jyoti Basu. They adore her but also fear her unpredictable turns in mood.’ 

The most interesting bit is what Rahul Gandhi is trying to do now. Congress has not been in power in Bengal for thirty three long years. Irrespective of those tumultuous last years of their rule here, the present electorate does not really have a feel of Congress as establishment and are best seen as reluctant former political allies of CPI(M) due to compulsions of National politics. To position Congress as anti establishment now will bring the party back to the mainstream mindset of the electorate and reposition it as a National party with regional perspective, which Trinamool lacks. There is another factor though, which Rahul will surely bring to the fore as days progress : quality of leadership. The vast experience of the Congress at running successive Governments and Rahul's ability to attract the young, from which future leadership will surely emerge, can actually eat into the vote base that was theirs originally, but later migrated to the Trinamool, slowly and dejectedly, during the last twelve years.

Actually, in March 2011, CPI(M) will not fight any opposition, they will be fighting themselves, as they did in November, 1964. They are now fighting the policies of their  utopian central leadership with more vigour than any opposition can even imagine and they will continue to do so till a clear political line emerges within. The Congress will fight the Trinamool and together they will take on the CPI(M). In the following years, this fight will intensify and one of them will emerge as the principal party with mass appeal. Since Trinamool will be spearheading the Government in Bengal now, Congress may be playing the anti establishment card against them in a run up to 2016. The future is impregnated with possibilities. Rahul probably has already started building up his team for governance. And he knows he can't do that without Congress having a solid political base, the task being easier specially in the states which lack strong National political representation to articulate and influence regional aspirations singularly.   

The Great Divide

The facts first, unearthed by a Parliamentary Committee : between 1997 and 2007, 1.83 lakh tonnes of wheat, 6.33 lakh tonnes of rice, 2.20 lakh tonnes of paddy and 111 lakh tonnes of maize rotted due to either lack of storage facilities or poor maintenance of stocks in the existing facilities. As on January 1, 2010, 10,688 lakh tonnes of foodgrains were found damaged in the depots of the Food Corporation of India, enough to feed over six lakh people for over 10 years. The storage losses of foodgrains in 2009-10 amounted to Rs 228.39 crore and transit losses another Rs 182.46 crore.

Let us look at another set of statistics. The Arjun Sengupta Committee Report in 2007-08 pointed out that while 235 million people are able to take care of themselves, an unbelievable 836 million people still remain marginalised. The National Sample Survey (NSS) data has divided the poor into four groups : 

The extremely poor : average per capita consumption income is Rs 9 per day; 

Those above the poverty line : Rs 12 per day; 

The marginally poor : Rs 15 per day; 

The vulnerable :  above Rs 15 but less than Rs 20 per day; 

Can we, the urbane middle class imagine a family of four or more living on less than Rs 20 per day? Incidentally, the middle income group earns Rs 37 per day and those in the high income bracket earns above Rs 93 per day. In short, the Arjun Sengupta report tells us that 79% of Indians are poor. Let us not forget that the NSS data is based on measuring expenditure and then using it as proxy income, which I personally feel, is the correct way to measure poverty at such a marginal level. 

However, there are divergent views and one cannot ignore the logic behind a different scale for measurement of poverty which assumes that people are earning much more than what is revealed by expenditure alone. Fair enough. Let us then consider a new dimension that has been added by Rajesh Shukla, director of the Centre for Macro-Consumer Research under the aegis of the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER). His recent book, ‘How India Earns, Spends and Saves’ reveals new data at variance with conventional thinking. According to him, 45% of Indians earn less than Rs 20 per day. Great. That means we are less poor than what we thought we were.

Then there is the Government accepted Tendulkar Committee Report that has  estimated poverty figures at 37.2%. While being much higher than the 27% estimated by Centre, Tendulkar's figure is closer to what the states have been claiming. 

Finally, there is the issue of a suggested pilot project to estimate the poor according to recommendations of the N.C.Saxena Committee Report. The pilot project, if taken up, will test the methodology suggested by Saxena. The villain of the piece is Centre's estimation of poverty based on extrapolating sample survey and the BPL census which is based on a door-to-door identification. The key flaw in the NSS survey exercise is that rigid uniformity ignores local concerns which vary from state to state. The questions have to be relevant for socially diverse regions with extremely backward and tribal populations while there is an issue of state-specific minorities against nationally designated ones. The two give divergent results with the Centre sticking with the statistical estimates. Saxena has suggested a method to reconcile the two exercises. The pilot study will test out the efficacy of Saxena's methodology and suggest fine tuning.

The fact of the matter is that we do not know how poor we are, even after sixty years of planning for poverty eradication. Government after Government has set up several committees to figure out how to plan for the poor, both rural and urban. No wonder the Prime Minister is uncomfortable with the Apex Court's directive to distribute the rotting food grain free to the poor as the Government does not even know to whom should they distribute this to! Again, if CITU had those figures, they probably would not have dared to call the nationwide strike they did yesterday. Their constituency is the the organised labour, who are a small minority. It is the millions of unorganised and marginal labour who went without enough food yesterday due to the strike which would surely reflect as an additional anti incumbency factor for the ruling combine in Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. Even INTUC does not seem to realise the effect of supporting a strike at this juncture due to lack of awareness about the extent of need for daily subsistence. 

Now comes the news that the food security bill may be set for a radical overhaul. I guess that is welcome - it can't be worse than the early attempts at drafting one. Take for instance the meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers held in February. They were to "discuss the enactment of the proposed National Food Security Bill." The first thing the EGoM came up with was this gem. 2.1 (a) "The definition of Food Security should be limited to the specific issue of foodgrains (wheat and rice) and be delinked from the larger issue of nutritional security". Food security delinked from nutritional security? Note that the same line concedes nutritional security is "the larger issue." 


Why then the need to delink the two? Is 35 kg of rice at Rs.3 a kilo (for a section of the population) food security? Are there no other determinants of food security? Like health, nutrition, livelihoods, jobs, food prices? Can we even delink the fuel price hike from discussions on food security? Or from the wilful gutting of the public distribution system? Or from the havoc wrought by the ever-growing futures trade in wheat, pulses, edible oils and more? The truth is the government seeks ways to spend less and less on the very food security it talks about. Hence the endless search for a lower BPL figure. To the government's great dismay, all three officially-constituted committees have turned up estimates of poverty higher than its own.

Hunger is defined not by how many people suffer it, but by how many the Government is willing to pay for. That is the bottomline, really.

The Prince and the Pauper

His Royal Highness had come visiting our part of the country yesterday, which, for the past 34 years, has been to Akbar Road what Wales was to England in the 13th century. HRH, as reported in the media, connected with his people like never before. He breached the barricade, jumped out of his vehicle to shake hands, stood on his bulletproof doorway exposed to the elements and won hearts with his simple, enigmatic smile. He has done this in UP, Tamilnadu and Bihar before. Finally it was the turn of Bengal. However, here his intension is different as, if won over, this is the last bastion which can give him his Crown without the thorn of coalition. He then shall bestow upon all future generation of heir apparents the coveted title of Prince of Bengal, thereby relegating the willow weilding Prince of Calcutta to humiliating wilderness.                                                                    

Internecine struggles and external pressure from the English and later, the Norman conquerors of England,  led to the Welsh kingdoms come gradually under the sway of the English Crown, as we all know. And so would happen in Bengal under HRH, one believes, as he assumes his new assignment seriously. He has promised his partymen of such repeated visits henceforth, that they might grow wary of him. The end of the Roman rule in Wales was followed by incursions by the barbarian tribes from the east like the Anglo and the Saxon, who, inevitably, later became the English. HRH is ready for a repeat of history in Bengal. The transition from the Romans to the Anglo-Saxons have just started to happen, it seems.

The Romans are actually a conglomeration of three parties : The Romans of Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. They are very different in terms of nature, character, lifestyle, culinary habits and appeal. Each one cooks their own fare according to their own taste and serves it the way they feel would have the maximum impact on the discerning. Their Poiltburo, though, has a different skill set altogether. They have this fantastic ability to taste and reject each recipe, after they are served, in true Roman style. They would direct a fellow Roman to be Speaker. Naturally a Speaker, by virtue of the constitution, is above party and is prohibited from being partisan. Then, when the Roman discharges his duty diligently like a model Speaker, the Politburo will order him to be partisan in office, failing which he shall be expelled from the Roman Empire ! Regimented as they are, they have this immense ability to come up with a new non-regimen every time they are nearer to mainstream politics. They did something incomprehensible to one of their very own Patriarchs from Bengal, who was an architect of the Party as well as the Third Front. When it came to becoming Prime Minister, with all Third Front constituents unanimously electing him as their only choice, the Politburo pondered over and said no ! Which Party on earth would not like to propagate their presence in every nook and corner of the kingdom by enacting such an enlightened 'historical blunder' ?  They have done it again to the First Roman of Kerala, who happens to be one of the founders of the Party in that state. This old-world honest Roman has been expelled from the Politburo as he could not tolerate corruption and publicly spoke out in despair ! 

The 'K' factor seems to do more harm than good to everyone except Ekkta Kkapoor. Let's look at the Romans again. The General Secretary was enjoying the fruits of power without any responsibility but suddenly was bitten by the intellectual bug and started nuking the 'K'ala 'K'anoon, the effect of which, from other than providing nuclear generated electricity, no one really comprehends. Maybe the double K had the double effect of loosing considerable bench strength and clout in national politics plus the burden of Opposition uniting in their Bengal stronghold, giving the Bengali Roman nightmares they have not dreamed for a long long time. The 'K' couple in the politburo notwithstanding, the latest 'K' in Bengal, ironically an atheist named after Kali, is a Roman labour leader who gives a damn about the Eid shopper and despite adverse public sentiments, gets ahead with his customary bandh, just a day after HRH finished his whirlwind tour of Kolkata. The 'K' s never participate in elections and therefore is neither connected to nor concerned about popular sentiments. He lives only by what the Book says.

His Royal Highness has gone back with a lot of hope. The Romans are falling and the Anglo-Saxons would inevitably become English, eventually when their Queen fades into oblivion. HRH is concerned in the least about the temporary effect the Anglo-Saxons would have on Bengal's polity.  In 1282, the death of Llywelyn the Last led to the conquest of the Principality of Wales by King Edward I of England. The King had patiently waited for his turn to come and then made his irrevocable conquest. In this case, it is even easier as the Anglo-Saxons cannot assume power on their own without a little nudge from the English. Neither can they stay put in both Governments, if they dare to defy them beyond a certain tolerable limit. HRH drew the line yesterday. You can be Prince if you choose to. You would be a pauper if you cross the line. And the Romans will vouch for this hurtingly but without question.

The differently intelligent

Oh what a relief ! I have found an antidote to the new breed of intelligentsia that is hounding the Bangla talk shows nowadays. Our very own chaiwalla knows a thing or two about the arts, believe me. He can keep a count on the innumerable cuppas that does the round. He can simultaneously keep a tab on all the cigarattes, without which the thinking Bengali fails to stimulate his overworked brains. He does break into a Bhojpuri song whenever he is in his best re-re-brewing mood and can also very aptly transition to a dramatis persona when  need arises to collect money from the upteenth credit seeker (only for the sake of treatment for his long dead father). He has qualities of all the intellectuals put together, either red or green or pseudo neutral, and more. He can actually keep the gossip going by chipping in with his wily bits when the orders for fresh rounds of chai diminishes according to the theory of marginal propensity to consume.

The new breed of intellectuals are mostly indoctrinated, either way. They come in all shapes and sizes, bald and bearded, articulate or abusive, provocative or believing, powerful or power seeking, famous or infamous, in every way one can't envisage them to be. Nowadays they seldom wear that trademarked crumpled khaddar punjabi with a frayed pajama and can suddenly drop upon you like the infamous London drizzle. You don't even have the chance to dodge as you cant differentiate them now sans their traditional course cotton jhola, that unkempt beard and those pearcing eyes staring at your heart from behind thick rimmed glasses. The original ones were available aplenty on the hard benches of Presidency canteen, on the steel chairs of the Coffee House, or on many stimulating staircases and porticos around the city. The alma mater of all intellectuals happened to be the little magazine shelter in the Maidan Book Fair and one was free to experience the Great Thinkers if one did not mind sitting on green grass and enjoy the smell of dried grass all around. They had a air, an aura, a buzz of intellectualism around them, and revered as they were, you had a chance of giving yourself a miss, if you so wished. But they were dogmatic and spoke about their belief without any trace of vengeance. Not any more. The new breed now hound you down to your drawing room, in your bed room, or any other room you may have placed your television in, and try to shout each other down inelegantly, depending on which colour they happen to wear that day. But they do make you think, like they used to even before, a little differently though. Now they are intellectually 'us' and 'them'. If you are with us, you are not them. If you are with them, you are not us. 

Let me get our famed chaiwalla back here as I cant handle so much of intelligence alone. He is partisan too, towards his own art. He is not bothered if his patrons are black or white, high or low. He draws power from his skills and does whatever is required to keep that growing. He is neither vague, nor divisive, only committed. He is a microcosm of the society at large, but equally participative in her macro element by virtue of being the pivot of a binding togetherness. Many new faces surface in the adda every now and then. Some stick on, some don't. Some revel, some get addicted. A whole new social order and space emerges surrounding the steaming cuppas and he seems to hold the mirror to one's face for one to unashamedly see one's reflection over time, and course correct like a shining knight. He is the custodian of our right to argue, right to disagree, right to dissent and still be ever helpful thick friends. He is the one constant in our ever transforming mind game, who does not transgress, yet does not let us regress beyond recognition. He is the true intellectual. And thankfully, he does not need to bang on our head every time to prove he is not. 

Mahanayak

As the screen lit up with a beatific smile, comfortably tugged between my Ma and Kakima, I watched the phenomenon called Uttam Kumar for the first time. And that was many many years ago. That enigma has lived on in my life, and likewise in many lives of my generation ever since, as the yardstick of good looks, good acting and an essential goodness. When he laughed, we laughed with him. When he was hurt on screen, we felt the pain. When he lipped those sweet melodious songs, we hummed along with him. There was never a hero who captured the hearts of million of Bengalis like Uttamkumar did, while he was alive and even now, thirty years after his sudden death. He was the greatest of them all, our Mahanayak. We fashioned our hair after him, emulated his walk, smiled his smile, laughed his laugh and even sang like him, but still could not help feel the pain of not being able to gather his aura and effect. We dreamt of  holding the sensational Suchitra Sen in our arms if only our looks could kill, like his did. Ruefully, we envied him as much as we idiolised and admired him.

I remember buying a commemorative LP record cut by HMV and getting scolded for wasting money on a "cinema-fellow" by one of my holier-than-thou Mama. I had to protest, not because I was unnecessarily being pulled up for no reason, but because my hero was being demeaned. I remember gearing up enough courage to tell my Mama that only the greats like Netaji and Rabindranath have LPs cut in their commemoration , and some peole did not appreciate their true worth, while they were alive. Coming to think of this rebellion now, it needed immense courage for a young boy to stand up for his idol and get into a head on collision course with a no-nonsense elder at that time and age. But I had to fight for the dignity of Uttamkumar, who could not do any wrong, and the end justified the means. We read the gossips, but believed that a creative genius had the right to indulge in what the society may not find proper. What really mattered was what we saw on screen, blown up forty times than normal, and that extraordinary screen presence which had the power to transport us into a make believe world for those few magical hours. With him, went the art of Bengali celluloid. With him Bengalis lost their moments of enjoyable respite. With him, we lost our alter ego, for ever.  

Thirty years have passed by after Uttamkumar passed away. That fateful day in July, when as kids returning from school, we got caught up in the teeming multitude of mourners that engulfed their hero during his last journey, I remember getting up on a tea stall bench at Rashbihari crossing to catch a glimpse of the man many of us never saw in flesh. I also remember the pain, the tears, the grief and the deep sense of loss that the quiet mourning millions felt and shared with each other. It was just not about loosing an actor forever. It was about loosing one of those rare icons that were essentially Bengali, but universal in appeal. With him we lost an integral part of our growing up years, our parents' fantasy, and a bit of being Bengali, that day. 

And then, like our lost childhood, we lost fifty percent of his films during the past thirty years due to our Government' shameless apathy to preserve heritage. Rarely I come across a glimpse of him on television now a days. Maybe it is a song that I have heard a thousand times before or a dialogue I can quote ad verbatim even in my sleep. I stop to greedily steal a private moment with my hero. I rewind subconsciously to my childhood that can never be taken away from me, being quintessential to who I am. The negatives may have degenerated beyond repair. But the reels keep on running in my mind. This film has no end.

Power that be

Ever since Mr.Pawar has found a new avenue of enjoying gentlemanly power, the rather rustic power of feeding billion plus hungry Indians have increasingly started to take a back seat and the power to wield the hallowed willow has rightfully started to take precedence. We have experienced this for quite a few years now and the rise in food price index, accentuated by the abnormal rise in sugar prices largely has been attributed to his able stewardship of the food ministry, as and when he finds time from playing his own game of cricket. But the ICC President-hood has helped him develop an acquired skill of bowling 'doosra' and like the poor French Queen Marie Antionate, he now wonders why people who can buy cola for Rs.11, cant buy food ! Does 'Saheb", as he is known to his sycophants, have any data about the wretched cola drinkers in this country that we do not have ? Did the farmer about to commit suicide in Kalahandi or Vidarbha  wanted to have his glass of cola and not food before he died ? Mr.Pawar had his own little role to play in that contaminated-water-used-for-cola controversy that got swept under the carpet too, remember ? He might just know better.

Let us share some interesting facts about the state of sugar industry in Mr.Pawar's backyard. According to a CAG report in Maharashtra, the state has 202 co-operative sugar factories, 116 of which are loss making. Of these, till June 2006, 74 factories had negative net worth and 31 factories had to face liquidation between 1987 and 2006. 70% of these factories are controlled by the powers that be and the CAG had pulled up both the State Government and the Sugar Commissioner for not taking action against the Board of Directors of these companies. But the powerful can ignore such trivialities as this opens up the import market and also helps create a supply gap. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and leads to many sensational flag offs from  powerful men, even in speeches made inside the hallowed precincts of our democracy, to their baron brethren to freely hoard sugar and barren the sweet market.

I am sure the Supreme Court was more pained than us yesterday when they had to pull up a senior minister  for avoiding it's directive to freely distribute grains, that have been rotting in the open since 2008-09, to the poorest of hungry Indian. A national shame it is indeed that as people across the country are dyeing of hunger or are severely malnourished with enough food grain either rotting or turning into rodent food, our Great Servants are faithlessly but unfailingly attending to the lavish spread served at political iftaar parties of each other. Their gorging behind the well protected walls of Luteyns' Delhi are being dished out daily by print and electronic media for the hungry to tantalisingly savor and dream about during ramzaan. 

On Aug 19th, 2010, NDTV carried a report, which has been etched in many of our minds. Let me quote the report to refresh our memories : Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh:  Across the country, there have been reports of grain going to waste while hundreds of thousands continue to starve. The latest one comes from the state of Madhya Pradesh where a whopping 67 percent of the people live below the poverty line. On February 5, The Food Corporation of India had sent 1,100 quintals of wheat to be distributed in Khandwa's ration shops. Three days later, 39 wagons of the wheat reached the station but one wagon went missing. The FCI claimed compensation for the missing stock. Now, six months later, when the missing wagon was found, it was found that it had 85 quintals of wheat, that were rotted beyond repair. Those 85 quintals would have easily fed 250 Below Poverty Level (BPL) families for at least a month. This is just the tip of the iceberg though. 

Times Of India reported on Jul 27, 2010 that Haryana and Punjab were unable to protect or sell the 15.5 million tonnes of wheat lying in the open under tarpaulins. While Punjab admitted that 49,000 tonnnes of wheat had gone waste, the Union government warned that 1.36 lakh tonnes of wheat that it procured in 2008-09 and 27.38 lakh tonnes of wheat procured in 2009-10 had exceeded the one-year period grains can ideally be stored without rotting. 

Does this ring a bell ? Does this power the juggernaut to roll and try to alleviate the poor man's woes ? On 28th Aug, 2010, The Deccan Herald writes and I quote :' Good and normal monsoons over the years have helped produce foodgrains output to 231 million tonnes in 2008. As we claim ourselves as super power in waiting, the rampant malnutrition and prevalence of anaemic children and women to the extent of 48 per cent of population is a definitive indicator that we have failed to feed the empty stomachs. Under such critical circumstance, it is a criminal act to waste food grains'. It further says, and I quote again : 'Ironically our food storage methods are not only inadequate but also antiquated. In tropical climate, there is acute need to invent methods of food storage that can deal with the high moisture content leading to fungus and damage by rodents. Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) made the Central and state government aware of the problems of food storage way back in 1956. “If the problem persists after warning was issued more than five decades ago, it only means that government is not serious in shoring up the storage facilities to keep up with the expanding production” said Dr Parpia, former director of CFTRI'. unquote.

The Government is more bothered about the commonwealth games than it is about feeding our teeming millions of poor countrymen. The Prime Minister found time to visit the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium to check on it's progress and we are told, was mighty pleased by what he was shown. But he leaves the food business to an empowered GOM as he probably does not have time or the will to take on his most erring minister due to compulsions of coalition politics. Ultimately, it is about politics, rotten, stinking and as hard as a cricket ball.

The friendly neighbourhood

Our neighbour is livid and rightfully so. If the case was reverse, wont we be agitated ? It is their flood, their people are dying while their President is smoking cigar in London, their economy is devastated and to top it all, China has already given some loose change as aid. How on earth could we barge in with our aid package and when they refused, got the Big Daddy to prevail upon and force such a bitter pill down their throat ? The least they could have done is to shield the flood victims from our tepidity and brinkmanship and that is what they did by ordering us to follow the UN route. Hats off to their sense of patriotism and fellow feelings.

The whole nation seems to be out collecting aid from all over the place. Their cricketers have also tried to chip in their bit but the insensitive West is calling them match fixers !  This is really hitting where it hurts most at the time of extreme human tragedy. Irrespective of what they had pocketed during the last 82 matches, this one at Lords was only for charity and the stacks of cash would have gone as aid to fellow countrymen for sure. If only the Brits could understand why that runaway Afridi left test captaincy in a huff and poor Salman Butt had to take over for the sake of the nation, they would not, rather need not, have reacted so strongly.

Moving further west, we enter the hallowed precincts of our neighbour's neighbour who has also been outraged, thankfully not by us, but by the French. If our neighbour is angry because we wanted to help, so is their neighbour, because some imbecile First Lady staying at the Elysee Palace is daring to help reform their system of justice ! If they need to stone a lady with two young children to death that is their business. When the French eat muscles, isn't that crude ? When the Spaniards enjoy a bullfight, isn't that cruder ? When the Bazillions dance Samba, isn't it the crudest of all ? Then why pick on a Holy land governed by the laws of the Ayatollah and create such a ruckus about flogging or stoning or hanging to death a poor Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani ? This is highly unfair and biased indeed ! The Nobel Committee should consider the Ayatollah for a Peace Prize instead and set the records straight once and for all. 

Shall we move westwards further ? All right, this is the farthest we shall travel today. Were you invited to the Libyan cultural centre in Rome to hear Muammar Gaddafi preach Islam instead of politics ? You had to be part of a large group of young women hired by a hostess agency to be able to do that. Press reports say that 3 women were moved enough to convert their religion. I am so delighted that the era of Samrat Asoka has made a quite come back to our date and time. Imagine our very own Manmohan going to Pakistan to preach Sikhism. Or Sarkozy to Iran to preach Christianity ! Imagine a world devoid of nasty politics and filled with the preachings of different kinds of Ministry. Wow man !  I am all for rechristening (rather reislamising) the Libyan leader as Guru Gaddafi. He should also be awarded the prize jointly with the Ayatollah. 

The most terrible poverty

'The most terrible poverty' : that is how Mother Teresa used to define loneliness. I had pondered over this and have not been able to come up with a more suitable attribute. She also used to say "Give till it hurts". Two very significant statements indeed as, if you think about it rationally, they are opposite sides of the same coin and only we have the power to flip it the way we want. When one climbs towards the top in one's career, one gets a lot of solace and also derives pleasure from the fact that one is essentially lonely at the top. It is an achievement rather than deprivation. Did one feel poor then ? No Sir. Rather, one feels enriched as pride and greed and the trappings of power take precedence over inner wealth, humaneness and the power of giving. 

But the Humpty Dumpty invariably falls. And Jack also falls down with it and breaks his Crown (and Jill comes tumbling after). And then comes loneliness as Jack had moved away from people who cared and rushed through life like an obsessed humbug. He may have mauled the feelings of his fellowmen as he did not consider them to be fit to be his fellowmen anymore. He may have hurt the sentiments of his well wishers as he felt he did not need their wishes anymore. He must have changed his priorities on the way and "usurping" may have taken precedence  over "giving" or even "receiving". He is hardly recognisable anymore as the person his mates knew from before and had become a stranger. Suddenly and mysteriously, he looks for compassion and empathy, all over again. How terribly poor this poor fellow must be ! If only he could at least give recognition to his friends while he was climbing the ladder, he would never have been so poor today. If only he valued human sentiments more than he valued his invaluable time, if only he recognised then that he had a real need for the grounded folks in his life, if only he had spared himself of his selfishness for a few moments every now and then, the world around him would have been entirely different. I have seen this happening to many one-time-close unfortunate people. Life was laughing on their naivety when they thought they were enjoying a real good time and did not need "irritants" from the past to bother them. When they needed those "irritants" back in their lives for company and understanding, they were gone for ever, no where to be found again !       

I still recall that one sultry afternoon in Kolkata, when as a young boy, I saw the Mother in a car that had stopped in a traffic light just next to the tram I was in. As she looked at me with compassion and smiled, acknowledging my folded hands, I felt like never before. For her there were no irritants, no demand greater than humanity, no labour not encompassed with love and no person ever insignificant. We cannot possibly even begin to imagine the dedication, love, compassion, sensitivity, dignity and uprightness that makes Her what she is. She could give so much only with her smile, like she did with me. I was looking at her from a window and so was she. That beatific smile merged the two windows into one vast space of recognition for a young obscure school going teen. I had learned a lesson of a lifetime in that brief  moment of trance. If we could just smile back, our life would never be lonely ever again. Happy Birthday Ma.        

The legion

I was rolling on the streets of Kolkata just about a while back. My wife tells me that I am fat enough to resemble a football. If indeed I do, it is damn good for me as football is a multi billion dollar industry for the truly industrious. Also, a football rolls and gathers no moss, my dear. I was eagerly watching those around me, some of them in a tearing hurry, some strolling casually munching on peanuts, some just wanting to cross a busy intersection and not knowing whether or not to be a martyr, some more, young ones at that, quite oblivious of their surroundings and walking right through the traffic, hand in hand, as though they can handle life's odds better by being blissfully unaware of it's offerings. So many different shades of life, livelihood,  legacy, longing, loneliness and legion. 

I would like to particularly emphasise on the word legion, for, that is what I observed most as I rolled over again and again. The Gospel of Mark, 5.9, notes the following : 'And He(Jesus) asked him (the man), "what is thy name ?" And he answered, saying, "My name is Legion : for we are many'. On a casual Saturday afternoon, the broken dusty streets of Kolkata seems like the backwaters of the river Bhagirati. and every soul on the streets, their spirits soaring or melancholy or stoic, their colour red or green or saffron or any shade in between, seem like seafarers sailing towards the great exit. There seemed to be only one name for them, for all of them together actually; legion. Our great political masters call them "aam admi" though I liked the earlier version of "aam janata" better since it was more gender neutral. Mind you, I can differentiate myself from all this legion business as I roll and do not stroll, and therefore can rightfully have a ball-istic perspective.

And there was this Bhadrolok. Neatly dressed, well pressed (or well placed), short haired, shiny shoes, tiny handbag, and a head full of worries. Can he stay afloat and still manage to balance between what the Government and what his family requires of him ? Can he go to the bazzar every morning and come back with a canfull of wonders instead of a bagful of woes ? Can he meet the bills of all the utilities that he cant live without and still make all ends meet ? Can he hold back from turning into a legion and fight to remain a middle class, whose employers make sure that he travels cattle class every time he flies ? He had a smile on his parched lips that said it all. There is no one, really no one, to hold him up if he slips. The banks will hound him if he fails on his EMI. The other Bhadroloks will start avoiding him (as Bhadrolok is not legion). The legion will not support him as he is not one of them either. The Government will naturally look the other way as he does not qualify to be "aam"

I rolled up to him and looked sharply. I do not have any moss as I have been rolling for a long time. If only he could understand that rolling is better than strolling, at least we, just the two of us, could have become legion2. Remember, football is a multi billion dollar industry for the truly industrious to share ?  And when the football hits the nets, it is never kicked but carefully picked up.      

The tale of two flights

"Kaan paini ki mo jami chaddbi (why should I leave my land)" : said a Dongria Kondh girl Lindaja Samri after she welcomed Rahul Gandhi on his visit to Kalahandi yesterday, post the Vedanta licence cancellation episode. Very significant statement indeed. And very similar to the ones we have heard in different dialects over and over again for years together, but ignored in the name of development and public good. 

I was reading this wonderful book by Arundhati Roy "The algebra of infinite justice" and the human cost of "development" suddenly stuck me on my face like a tight slap. She has written about many hapless Adivasis who became landless labourers and came to live in shanties after their land were forcefully acquired in "public interest". One example is enough : In a village called Kothie in Gujrat, as a preqursor to the Sardar Sarovar Dam, the Government acquired 1600 acres of land from 950 Tadvi Adivasis in 1961. An aghast Mohan Bhai Tadvi watched 8 acres of his land with standing crop of jowar, toovar and cotton being levelled. Three years later he received his cash compensation of Rs.250 an acre in three separate instalments. One can well imagine what he must have gone through after being robbed of his land, livelihood and security, all at once. This was during Pandit Nehru's time. He had actually flown in to switch on the beginning of this massive destruction of the Narmada valley. 

Atleast, land used to be acquired then for large infrastructure projects, notwithstanding their viability or validity, that the powers genuinely believed in, would serve the common man. Over the years, and as the political parties have grown hungrier, we have seen land increasingly being acquired for private good. The most fertile land, the most fragile ecology, forests, you name it, land has been indiscriminately usurped to benefit the politician-bureaucrat-industrialist  nexus. People, mostly Adivasis and small farmers, have protested, pleaded, begged, been intimidated, taken bullets, been lathicharged, starved, died to protect their homes and hearth, but nobody listened.  Democracy, as we know it, strangely never got reflected in this particular case. Be it brutality on protesting farmers in UP or bullets for their brethren in Bengal, the nation has experienced the same insensitivity cutting accross political beliefs and spectrum. 

Till very recently, we were all deaf. To many of us urban brats, the likes of Medha Patkar were an irritant. They created unnecessary hassles in the path of development to serve their own tiny interests. To some of us more inclined to imaginary threats, they were agents of our unknown enemies, blocking our nation's progress. To the more fashionable elite, they looked unkempt and agrarian, therefore untrustworthy.

When hundreds of tribals worshipped Niyam Raja, the Hill God of Niyamgiri, and descended the slopes to reach Jagannathpur to celebrate getting back their land and their Lord yesterday, something had changed forever. Rahul Gandhi's flight to Kalahandi is different from his great grandfather's flight to Kothie in more ways than one. But the single fact that stands out is this : the earlier flight took away land from the people, the latest one gave it back. There is one more fact to be considered though. The land had always belonged to their rightful owners and no one is doing them a favour by not snatching it away. By restoring their rights, what perhaps we are beginning to give back our own selves are sensitivity, democratic thought process, nondiscriminatory behaviour and sense of justice, finally. But who knows if someone is waiting at another airport to catch another flight to try to destroy another habitat ? Only time and the strength of our democracy will tell.                

Darth Vader robs bank

A brilliant and absolutely ingenious execution of an enterprise. A man dressed as Star Wars antagonist Darth Vader robbed a Chase bank branch in New York recently. Customers initially thought it was a joke and began laughing as he entered in a character themed mask and blue cape, actually saying aloud that he was robbing it ! What an idea Sirji ! There is so much to learn from this brilliant performance, even  for a hardcore entrepreneur like the Vedanta Chief. If only he could entertain the poor Adivasis enough, he would have got his bauxite easily. By the time they would have realised, their temple on the Niyamgiri hilltop and the five perennial streams would have all got converted into aluminium. This is what you call opportunity loss, in strict economic terms.

Mad that I am, structured thinking has never been my forte. I delve too much into dreamland, believe me, even when I am wide awake. As I was thinking of this fake Darth Vader, I suddenly had this dream : a man impersonating as the West Bengal health minister, entering a 5 star hotel in the city, and robbing all those glittering exhibitionists of their jewelery, the slim fashionable ones of their satoosh shawls and the accompanying gentlemen of their mock chivalry and fat purses. Hey, but why was this impostor not checked at the gate, you may ask. Did you not know : the West Bengal health minister is no ordinary mortal and is allergic to any kind of frisking or security check. Who knows, he might even be carrying germs from his twenty odd years of ministration and therefore, in Public Interest,  has directed the home secretary to instruct the police chief to pull up anyone who dares to frisk him anywhere, lest others catch those deadly germs. He is also afraid of inadvertently transferring the frisking allergy to the frisker himself, and the Union health minister(s), both senior and junior, agrees with him. 

Now that Delhi is swimming and boats are plying on the hallowed roads of the Capital, will the GOI get a breather and wriggle out of the Commonwealth Games citing "act of God" ? Well, since we have spent Rs.11k crores on the games (infrastructure costing another Rs.15k crores), we might as well have some entertainment going in the indoor stadias we built. Even the likes of Bappi Lahiri shows would do, really. Served along with freshly fried pakoras on a wet day, where we can put our feet up (on the back rest of the seat in front) and enjoy a Bollywood feel-good show, we might just forget the Kalmadis and the OC and the national shame and the wealth that has been plundered, et all, and do bhangra in our typical forget-it Indian style. We do not need to wear a Darth Vader mask to do that, just as the games organisors who robbed us of our hard earned money, and our children of basic education, and our parents of health care etc. etc.didn't. Bharat Mata Ki Jai.                

Babudom Boredom

I was watching the evening news munching on an unhealthy parantha, when my jaws literally dropped and I almost chocked with a silly bit stuck in my windpipe. This was about a month or so back. Television may sometimes have this terrible effect on you and I recommend every programme should come with a statutory warning “watch at your own risk” or “you may go crazy” and so on. Let me tell you what I saw. An infirm, dilapidated, rickety old bus was parked outside the Reserve Bank of India office in Jaipur with quite a few crores of rupees inside  her belly (this was around the time rupee got a symbol), right on the main thoroughfare, being guarded by a few very nervous looking policemen. Ironically, the large iron gates of the RBI compound were tightly shut with the Babus well guarded inside their living quarters and the money they were supposed to guard lying open outside on the streets. One could literally see the tin trunks from the large cracks on the sides of the bus and it all looked so tempting and surreal. Why on earth, you may ask. These 90 odd crores were supposed to be deposited within 5 pm. The bus got delayed due to a traffic jam. The Babus got fuming and left for home, within the same compound. Babu’s Day Out was over for the day. Rules, my dear friend, Rules. As enshrined in the Holy Rule Book. I wonder what the RBI Governor and /or the FM did to those Babus. They certainly deserve a special service medal for exemplary sense of duty and upholding the Rule Book, don’t they ?  

The same set of Babus have made a more recent pronouncement. They have taken away our world champion from ourselves and adjudged him Spanish. Lo and behold : GM Vishy Anand is Spanish !! What is the nationality of HM Juan Carlos then ? An Indian, possibly ?  But this is only the culmination of a series of Babudom methodology. Lets go over them one by one. First, why on earth would an university need to seek any permission from any one, be it the HRD Ministry or the Visitor's office or anyone else, to confer an honour on any honorable person it deems fit ?  Second, how does the nationality of the person being honored matter or does his country take precedence over his good work ? Third, if atall a Government clearance is sought (God knows why it should be), why would several ministries, in Ananad’s case HRD, MEA and Raisina Hill, play handball with the recommendation of Hyderabad University for months together ? Why cant just one Babu take one final call and be done with it ? Like any corporate would do, given a similar situation : leave it to the experts to handle and just ensure logistical support. The Holy Rule Book, when used diligently by our un Holy Babus, make our one and only World Chess Champion, Un-Indian !!! I dare not stay away from our shores anymore. Who knows what would happen if I do ? Maybe, according to the Rule Book, my family may become un familiar !!

An afterthought really. After the Commonwealth Games OC bungled, the PM has entrusted a team of 10 odd Babus to oversee the final touches. Has he snatched away the Rule Book from  their hands ? If he hasn’t, he better send someone in to do that right now. Who knows, we may land up getting the distinction of the only country capable of having a games by not having one after all. The paperwork will be complete, in all respects, I can assure you that, but the Games on ground ? Hope it doesn’t turn out to be like Vishy Anand’s aborted convocation.  

The great new pay hike

You must have heard the latest about the self inflicted good that our beloved MPs have done to themselves ? They have angrily further hiked their perks over and above the 300% they gifted themselves a few days back. The original hike is stale news anyway and I do not wish to add to your boredom or despair, as the case may be, by repeating. I would rather leave you brooding about how to negotiate your own hike with your own management (which is not you yourself), with the fear of getting the boot if you press too hard.

The interesting bit is the way one white haired cerebral Honorable Gentleman grabbed the only opportunity he had of becoming the mock PM and became one, albeit in his mock Parliament. And how the real PM relented and had the other PM (aka FM) grant him his wish ! This has proven beyond doubt that even a mock PM wields effective power and therefore cannot be considered anything below the real PM or the other PM.

Now, that brings us to the most important topic of discussion : what should be the responsibilities of the mock PM and what should his rights be from now on ?

Responsibilities first : Are there any really ? Ok, granting MPs and their kin more and more pay, foreign travel, first class travel, business class travel, chai allowance, samosa allowance, jelebi allowance etc.etc etc. may be considered his prime responsibility. But what else ? To vote for the real PM in times of crisis perhaps ? To walk out of Parliament during any crucial vote and "unknowingly" help the Government survive, perhaps ? To talk about the common man and all the uncommon good that has been bestowed upon him by the common cause of the Treasury Benches, perhaps ? And though not entitled to sit in the front row, and though part of the opposition, actually be the real commoner in the elite Government ranks ? Oh, I forgot the fodder bit. But that is the real PM's responsibility really. To forget all that for the time being till such time he is mock PM.

Have we not seen the ordinary ganna-ka-juice-walla grinding his sugarcane again and again till the poor stick turns into tiny back-broken shambles ? And doesn't that contraption with it's big cart wheel and all the grinds resemble some benefactors we see in flesh once every five years ? Just kidding ! You thought I could seriously write such nonsense without being knocked out of my senses ?  And what has an ordinary juice extractor got anything to do with the right of a mock PM anyway, eh ?

Now, the rights. All the perks of a MP surely, and much more. He should get SPG cover. His family and extended family and their families and anyone familiar with such families should get SPG cover. He should be outside the purview of CBI, CID, RAW, ED, IT etc.etc.. He should be above the Law like the Queen as he has responsibilities which cannot be discharged properly if he is brought under the purview of law. He should be alloted bunglows, both in the National and State Capitals and he may stay wherever he may wish with his bovine pets, BIL(s) and other pests. The Union Cabinet should be at his beck and call and irrespective of what the Prince-to-be-PM may opine about him, he should be invited to all important Government parties with mandatory litti-chokha on the menu. If he ever wishes, he should feel free to walk into any Ministry of his choice, provided he legitimately wins his seat in the front row any time.

I think they should have gifted themselves a hefty increase in their pensions instead of regular pay as life may be hard without the bearings of public service. After all, we Indians look forward to our life-after more expectantly than that on this wretched earth. Maybe, most of our MPs experience the opposite while in that August Office and ensure that they happily live ever after. Why bother about a measly pension at all ?. And here I am, like a damn fool, still concerned about their post ouster well being !!

The run up to a differently similar rule

Now that Didi is safely back from the back of beyond of Bengal called Lalgarh, literally meaning the “Red Fort”, which grew raddish for donkey’s era and have now, for the past few years, become quite blood red, the quintessential Bhadrolok has sighed his deep sense of relief, more due to the scare created by the last minute intrusion of an ordinary truck in the Supremo’s unscheduled tea party near Kolaghat and less due to any remote chance of the Maoist sympathisers creating a rucus there. 

When asked for the true reason of Didi’s visit to Lalgarh, one of her ardent followers, who did not wish to be named “with no content and out of context”, most respectfully admitted that since Didi has all the greatness of the Great Dictator and as her word is the last word for everything that is anything as far as her supporters are concerned, who is he to think of any reason other than the fact that She must be knowing the true reason and that is enough reason for others to follow her to the little red fort. He fondly recalled the story of the Pied Piper and his followers and became rather ecstatic, almost went in a trance, while he visualised himself as one following his own Great Piper. I left him in his own ratty world and quietly left without a rattle towards the neighbouring Left office.

And lo and behold, they still have that bearded German hanging right above their main entrance with the other duo of the Holy Trinity, the gentleman from Russia and the eternal Angel, all duly decked up and in their rightful prominent places, this one set almost looking like an alter, getting me foxed enough to search for the telltale signs of Indian worship in an un Holy terrain. I even searched for a small framed photograph of beloved Buddha, who could have become Mahavir as well if he had the courage to face the brigands of his own brigade, but found none, not even a whimper. The great “Karat” (i.e. hacksaw in Bangla), him neither. The Chairman, aptly known as Biman (i.e. airplane in Bangla), grounded too. What the heck is this yaar, I thought. Do they still think that the Holy Trinity, long gone, buried and ousted from their own chambers, will bring them back to rule the hapless proletariat again (thereby help them become richer bourgeois)? Where have all the home grown ones gone, who could have done them less harm at least?  I just could not find anybody in that well lit office to clear my doubts and I was told by a neighboring chaiwalla that no one has really turned up ever since Didi last celebrated her Sahid Divas, choking the city like a dog on a choke chain.

Wandering, I was wondering if I could find the BJP office but no one seemed to know the exact whereabouts! Sometime back, I was forced to experience one burly gentleman, who, on assuming office of the State President, suddenly decided to have his, rather their presence felt, and created havoc in the already chaotic Kolkata. As I had watched him on local news that evening, I tried to recollect where have I seen this one before? Back home, as I flipped through the rags, riches and conniving homemakers on primetime, my thumb automatically grew numb when I hit upon The Grumpy-turned-Gorgeous Ms.S extolling the virtues of   live marriage bids (sic) on air. I stopped. I watched. I realised. The resemblance, that is.