NIGHT RAMBLINGS

The Times of India’s Crest Edition on Saturday promised to deliver a lot – in-depth articles about the current socio political situation, articles that stimulates your mind, articles that provides questions and provokes answers. It would be so exclusive that if you do not book it you may risk the chance of missing it.

The daily edition of Times of India has become no more than an entertainment daily. It has got less and less of news (even if there is news they are all politically biased) and more of who’s wedding whom and how many times. I firmly believe the breed of investigating journalism, like in the movie,” The State of Play” is extinct. The featured articles on Sundays were also in a state of apathy till M J Akbar saved the day for them and Mr. Swaminathan Iyer returned sane from the lunatic asylum (you should read his articles two years back).

The Crest edition was not only a disappointment, but it showed how TOI lacks perspective. Or on the second count it may be that their research has found that today’s metro centric people want such articles.
I still miss “The Statesman” of the eighties (Mr. Sunanda K Dutta Roy – please come back, all is forgiven) and the promising start of “The Telegraph”.
Commercialism or pure lure for money has destroyed great institutions like “Indian Express”, “Jugantar” to name a few. The Hindu is struggling to keep its head up. While most newspapers struggle to get one full page advertisement, today’s TOI has six four color full page advertisements. One of my friend’s wife jokingly said that TOI is a great monthly earner – she earns more by selling the newspapers than she buys them for.

To commemorate the tragic events of 26/11/2008 there were lot of support shows/functions/rallies.
As usual there was a candle light walk to the Gate Way of India (which caused a lot of disturbance to the new inhabitants of the old monument – jawans from the Indian Army), release of a book by Mrs. Karkare (no offence, but if the book was released before hand then I think we could have shown some sensitivity to the issue at hand – I squarely blame the greedy, sympathy seeking publishers), chat shows on all television channels (TRP ratings were based on the decibel level).
Photograph of one such rally by a group of school going children was posted on Facebook. All boys were within twelve years, dressed in a specially made outfit of blue T shirt with red sleeves and a matching red shorts. They skated on the old Mumbai Pune highway. The parents, organizing committee followed them on bikes, cars etc.
The best part was the comments on the photographs complimenting how good the kids were onto skating and should be properly trained etc. (I cannot publish the photograph, maybe it will be against privacy policy.)
I think that I have the right to be cynical with this hypocritical, metro based selfish middle class society.

I always wonder why people living in the Gulf countries wish “Eid Mubarak” on the Facebook. Are they more secular than us or is it a feeling of insecurity? Whatever it is, hope they had a Happy Eid.

Confessions of a Social Activist and Fashion Designer

I am broke, I am bored and I am lost. Life was in full glory till January this year. Although the schedule was hectic, but I liked it as money was also flowing in. But after that came the lull as if to sympathize with the recession that followed with the global meltdown. It has been almost a year I am without any job, not exactly, there are freak shows here and there, but I miss the monolithic movements that pumped up my adrenalin.
The suppliers, whom I have shown the gates of Utopia, are now after my blood. They have invested on expansion based on my assumptions that one incident is not enough and things will definitely be repeated if not in Mumbai but elsewhere in the country. The “movements” will be the best and most grandiose in Mumbai, after all Mumbai rocks.

The designs I have crafted are in a state of putrefaction. I really wonder why the color of peace is white. It restricts my creativity in terms of choosing colors to go with it. All other movements allow my creativity to fly like a butterfly. I still remember the T shirt I designed for the “gay” movement. It was awesome and I received appreciation from all quarters. Mr. Mutalik still rates my designed pink lingerie as the best gift he ever received and wears it to all the rave parties he attends.

I am a full time social activist and a part time fashion designer. Being a fashion designer I pretend to be gay as this gives me more credibility in my line of profession. It also allows me to hug and take in my arms all the beautiful models; I love the feeling of warmth in their bosom.
Being a social activist is not an easy job, you need to keep tract of all local events, and you have to have your contacts, liaison with the ruling party and also the opposition.
Unlike Medha Patkar I have no particular choice, whether it is against forceful grabbing of land, death of farmers, construction of a dam, atrocities to workers in industries, I attend all where they pay me well.
Nowadays trade unions have lost their respect with common people and so they rely on neutral activists to get through their demands. The money is good, the job is safe, police are told not to treat us badly (today who is in power maybe in opposition tomorrow and we are friends with all), if the situations gets out of hand we are escorted out safely. Have you ever seen Medha Patkar ever shed a drop of blood in any of her “movements” or lose weight after the innumerable “fasts” she conducts? Magic and social movements are all slight of hand, you are there to be deceived, and however intelligent you are.
We have to maintain a team who will follow you through the movement. We take extreme care in script writing and keep it minimalistic, so that there is no error or confusion among the team. Have a look at any of Medha Patkar’s “movements” you will see the same people with her, whether she is in Narmada or in Akola or in Singur.

My favourite is “movement” for peace, its hassle free, well coordinated; you do not have to travel to godforsaken villages where you do not have a decent toilet facility or the warmth of an air conditioner or even a proper bed to rest after staging “fast” or shouting slogans.
Taking out peace processions, arranging loads of candles for the candle light procession to Gate Way of India, getting signatures of thousands of people (I am still using the back sheets for my rough sketches), appearing in television channels, blaming the politicians (off course we all had a nice round of drinks afterwards), writing posters, hugging live coverage. This is what gets me going in life.

After the 26/11 terror attacks there seems to be a recession also in terrorist activities. The prime time news is so boring nowadays. The new channels are losing their TRP’s to “Balika Badhu”.
Who is interested in India’s foreign policy, increase in rise of onions and potatoes, Madhu Koda swindling thousands of crores, or Manu Sharma (poor sweet guy) trying to enjoy a life after serving such a hard jail sentence?
I want news with action, real life reflection of what we see in movies, blood and blood galore. The 26/11 incident was a big hit in our circle, so many people lying in a pool of blood, AK47’s, grandees, firing – it was a real blockbuster and we knew that it will create a demand for us or we have to generate the demand.

Peace and all this nonsense are good in lectures and in political meetings. It is terror, crime, rape, vandalism, oppression, caste fights, debilitating democratic rights, social injustice which earns bread for us, the media and thousands who are in the ancillary support system including the police, judiciary and the political system.

So please rise and assert your rights, fight for injustice, create a fuss and we will be there to support you.
We can give PEACE a chance tomorrow.

Left is sometimes Right

A section of the Left Front government in West Bengal wants dissolution of the state assembly and to go for polls as early as possible. That would be a very prudent idea, but for the ones in power, abjuration is not that simple as it is said. The anger against the Left Front has reached its peak and there is no point in continuing with abject refusal by the polity every other day. Any new policies, any new development plans will be turned around them and rejected hands down – they have lost the face.

This is the right time to quit, as Gorbachov once said,” A party or a person who has been in power for too long is no more than a tyrant.” Left Front does not realise that there is no legitimate alternative to them – Trinomool Congress is riding on the wave of sympathy and on the apathy towards Left Front. Trinomool's win in the 2010 will ensure that Left Front comes back to power with triumphant majority in 2015. Why waste a year if the writing in the wall is clear?

Five years will be good enough to reinvent the grass root level cadre base for the left. The flab needs to be shed and running on the treadmill for five years will do more than what is prescribed. Five years will be a good enough time for the leftist turned sycophants to be sidelined unless they kick the bucket themselves. The situation for the Left is not as bad as the BJP; they only need to reinvent the method of communication. Pigeons may be the best way of reaching a message to the villages in sixties but now even Harimadhav or Rahim chacha has a 3G enabled iPhone. The Berlin Wall of Bengal is made of bricks of strong ideology gone wrong; so you need some time to break it.

Trinomool Congress is a bunch of clowns who are fooling around. They have never realised that they do not have any ideology or for the fact that you cannot run further with a borrowed idea. “Ma, mati ar manush” of Trinomool is no different from the land reform movement that the Left Front started in the sixties. Shabbir Kumar could not last long copying Mohammad Rafi – if Trinomool wants to last long they need to first invent the road on which they can walk for ever.

Running a government is not as easy as running Rajdhani Express on a dedicated fast track. It is more like a fifty coach “Samjhouta” Express running on a brick road instead of a track, chances of derailment is very high if there is no proper coordination. The question is can Ms. Banerjee keep his flock together when they taste blood in their hands. A tiger that just had a gazelle for lunch is much safer to the public than the one who has been starved for ages; Madhu Koda is a glaring example of that.

The crisis or we can say the pending crisis in Bengal proves a critical point that the people need to be more assertive in choosing their local representatives. They need to involve more in their political thinking rather than counting money and first of all they need to vote. If our perception of politics is mentally challenged then we land up with fascist regimes like the Left Front for thirty years. The opposition loses its bite, sitting in the opposition for so long and when the time comes to prove their mettle they are sometimes clueless. Maharashtra is going in the same direction as West Bengal with no credible opposition in sight people have to settle for the lesser evil.

Smart News: A senior journalist had referred the Bhatt’s as a “dysfunctional” family. I call this real, true journalism.

In the land of Snow White

I have a confession to make – I have become addicted to Big Boss 3 (“tritiya” as the original Big B says).
I can see the pseudo intellectuals covering their nose as my addiction stinks of the gutters of Mumbai but I care two hoots for their reactions.

The concept of the show is brilliant and I have great kudos for the person who would think of such a reality game show.
People from diverse background holed up together in a house under constant surveillance with no connection to the outside world. Their aim is to earn a living by doing tasks as told by Big Boss, manage the weeks livestock supply with the points earned, and finally to emerge as a winner among the housemates by being the ultimate survivor in the game of elimination.

This is group dynamics at its best. People go to management institutes to learn the strategy for survival in corporate world, conflict management, team building, and situational behavior.
The show proves that people are born innate with all the instincts. The inmates of the show are not men/women of letters, most of them are from the entertainment world, but still the way they reprise their roles in the situations given to them are laudable.

I think it is not new, we have done it in our lives and are still doing it. When we were in school we had a group of “close” friends both in school and outside school. We never realised that we were playing in the hands of group dynamics. The others were friends but not as special as the ‘our” group. The same followed through the college and now into office.
We had our favourite relatives from all the relatives we had. We did a mental selection of people around us and we never asked the reason for that. It was the way of the world we thought.

In workplace it is more vicious. The situation is quite different here. Unlike schools or colleges we do not have the privy to written examinations to stamp our superiority. The workplace is a dog eat dog world – anything is fair for the next higher position. Spreading rumour about the contender, sabotaging his work, oiling the boss for a better review in the “confidential file” – haven’t we seen it all in the Satyajit Ray movie “Seemabadhya”.

Those you had the opportunity of being in a joint family, the show is a reflection of their lifestyle – the family eats together, enjoys together but there are infightings, gossips, favourism, and adhocism, all inside the closed walls of the house. The only difference is that the family is not under constant surveillance.

People hate the show as it is a mirror, you see your reflection and it bites your conscience. No one likes to be told the truth let alone see the truth. We are happy in our shopping spree, dinner parties, and discussions about sex, money and Camus over a glass of wine.
We go to sleep thinking that the next day we need to run faster that the fastest of the comradriees to reach the goal or to find out a way of reaching the finish line without even running.

Enlarge the canvas, stretch it a bit to encompass the full society. No one would be ready to be under 24X7 surveillance. No one will like the whole world to see the way we conspire everyday to survive in this convoluted world.
We will all cry foul. It is a democratic country, we have our rights. We may take out candle light processions with fancy T shirts.
Yes, we do have our freedom of expression. The show is a big reminder to the fact that we, who shed crocodile tears over trivial issues, never ever realised the value of “freedom”.

We hate such shows just like we hate asking,” Mirror, mirror on the wall, tell me who is the meanest of the all” – least it shows our own reflection.