A UP-wala who loves Raj Thackeray

The Star Screen awards this year would have definitely taken a big toll on me if I had not the company of some really quirky people while working on it, apart from some of my colleagues that is. Leading this list is a man called Babu, a UP'ite who drove me around Lokhandwala, Versova and Seven Bungalows on Day 1 of what would be a tiring exercise delivering invites to celebs as well as non-celebs to turn up for the awards, slated less than a week away.
Babu was an atypical driver. He was dark brown, with a balding patch in front of his pate and his reddish brown mouth gave ample evidence of his paan chewing addiction. He is also convinced that every watchman in all the towers and decrepit buildings to trudged to in the above mentioned areas are Biharis. He tried to conceal it first but as the day wore on and he realised he could not keep making long distance calls to his hometown, he slowly opened up about his hate of Biharis.
Babu is from Jaunpur in UP and has been driving cars for about seven years now. He left a lucrative business and came to Bombay in search of more money than his farming could give him and his extended family of 17 members. He lives in a decrepit one-storey building with a roommate, paying about Rs 2000 as rent per month. Babu believes Biharis come to Bombay and do not pick up its ethos. That they in fact, bring their own culture and force it down the throat of people here. "Take Chhat Puja for example. They celebrate it very differently in Bihar and here too, just to have their show of strength displayed, they somehow conduct this ceremony haphazardly. What's the use? They do not realise how important this festival is," he rants.
His disgust of his fellow Hindi speakers is evident in the way he talks to them in uncouth language and with scant regard for their background, adopting the familiar twang in which the language is spoken up North. What really got his goat an event playing in his hometown. His sister's brother's daughter was being married off on the same day as our card distribution was occurring in Bombay. After coming back from delivering a card to Archana Puran Singh's house, I found Babu pacing outside the rented car and pointedly speaking into his tobacco stained handset. His tenor, like his sudden gear jerks, went up and down with every other sentenced. When he was finally done after a good 15 minutes, he said he was threatening as well as cajoling someone from the groom's side who were demanding a bigger car to get the groom and his family to come to the venue along with a few more "essential" items packed into it. He spat out the words, "Goddamn fucking Biharis." Needless to say, the groom was from Bihar.
As the afternoon sun gave way to twilight and the temperature dropped considerably, so did Babu's temper. He did have something interesting to say before he quit the subject though. "I feel Raj Thackeray is right in beating up Biharis. Stupid, mean bunch of people deserve to be beaten. I wonder why he's stopped now," he said. Tell him that Thankeray's people had attacked cab drivers from UP as ell and he says cryptically, "He must understand we're different from these lowlife Biharis. I think he knows it already."

PS - I did not know Babu would be featured in this blog, else I would've had a photo for readers' benefit.

PPS - I have made this promise and broken many times, but I hope to continue this blog and give it a direction and flow in the days to come. More on the Screen Awards coming up in the next few posts. Stay with me and pray for me .. Thank you

Is this man Prabhakaran?

This image released by Sri Lankan authorities made it to the front of all papers in the next day’s edition. News channels had a field day investigating and analyzing the Lankan endgame.

President Rajapaksa seems to have made good his promise of liberating his country wrecked by LTTE for over a quarter of a century. A recent conversation with a friend showed me how much I had analysed and believed in the war.

I reproduce the conversation verbatim. Red is a good friend who works with a South Asian paper. What are your views? Let me know?

do u believe prabhakaran is dead

  or rather the dead man is prabhakaran

 me: i dont think he's dead

  looks like SL propoganda

3:07 PM he wud've made plans for the day when he wud hv to go underground

 Red: there is no ground to go under now

3:08 PM whatever happened to his family

  did u see his pix

 me: yes .. top of his head blown off .. bullet in the middle of his forehead

  eyes still open

3:09 PM Red: yup

  does he look anything like prabhakaran

3:10 PM me: he doesnt .. i dunno how they'd do a DNA test to confirm as well

3:11 PM Red: did they have prabhakaran's dna profile stored in their computers before

3:12 PM me: they will regroup after a few months .. maybe a year .. go after SL in such a way, i can only imagine the sheer disastrousness of it all .. like taliban going after Pak now .. that chap is way smarter than rajapaksa credits him for

 Red: so that at an opportune moment they cud just recall the data and match

 me: SL thought they'd just stop all the international outrage by announcing its over

  sounds very logical and reasonable to me

3:13 PM Red: hmmm

  but its not over till its over

 me: by over it depends on who's side u are on

3:14 PM if u believe rajapaksa, its over .. he's won .. become a national hero

3:15 PM no matter the ethnic cleansing, gagged and butchered media, the silenced opposition and international outrage

3:16 PM Red: hmmm

3:17 PM ethnic cleansing and gagged media were true for both sides

  prabhakaran was not a messiah of free speech

  nor was he open to letting sinhalese stay in Eelam hewanted to carve out from the Lankan country

3:18 PM me: but he never shot journos like rajapaksa had wikramatunga shot, did he?

3:19 PM Red: but he made sure his own extravangant living and comforts were never published for the Tamil people to see.. all they saw him in was combat gear

  even in family photos

  thats hypocrisy

3:20 PM i wonder if his underpants were also of camouflage material

3:21 PM me: maybe he wanted to be seen and known as a guerilla fighter 24X7 .. even saddam hid his fortune from his own people .. power breeds corruption .. not everybody can be Che

 Red: u are a che fan eh

 me: who isn't?

3:22 PM Red: prabhakaran had turned into a complete dictator later.. i don't sympathise with him and his sympathisers

  i am not

  I do not follow the Left ideology

  I do not even understand how they can go about claiming it to be right

 me: of course i hate him too .. but i hate the way the SL govt has gone after him .. its like glorifying his crimes

3:23 PM Red: oh ya

  u have a point there

  they came to their senses later, and started releasing pix of soldiers rescuing trapped civilians

  that was good PR

3:24 PM me: yeah .. something to show their so-called humane side for the international media

 Red: u r being idealistic

 me: the local media was allowed to travel to the affected areas until everything had been sanitised by the SL army

 Red: no govt is humane

  look at wat india is doing in kashmir

3:25 PM me: yes .. but if u say prabhakaran is hypocrite .. what is the SL govt? the SL army?

 Red: of course they are not clean

  i am not taking sides..

3:26 PM me: the only thing i didnt understand is the China angle .. how does their helping the SL govt harm us?

 Red: that means we are surrounded from all sides by china wat

  they are in Pak

  they are in tibet

3:27 PM they are near arunachal, myanmar

  they are in the himalayas and now also in the south

  when business interests come in.. govt usually listen to where the money comes from

  if money comes from china then india is out

 me: aahh.. ok .. i thought they wanted it only so that better access to the Palk strait .. for their business interests

3:28 PM Red: china cannot be stopped now

  we just have to catch up with them

 me: really .. is that even possible?

 Red: but look at wat our politicians are doing instead

  wen will karunanidhi die

3:29 PM he suddenly thiinks congress won 206 seats becuz of him

  he wants portfolios for his entire family in the cabinet

  can u believe that

 me: lol .. he's hallucinating of course

3:30 PM all these Tamil ministers supported the Eelam during elections

 Red: yeah he went on a hunger dharna and wat not

 me: for like 4 hrs apparently

 

Why I Did Not Vote

I went to the booth and came back. The following is my tryst with voting.

Today was voting day in my constituency. Along with the elderly, who were still yearning for a good debate between capitalism and Marxism between themselves at the booth, a significant chunk of people at the booth were people in the 25-30 age group.

The election euphoria has been sustained for a long time before it reaches its end (in my city at least!) today. The first major sign of this was with the Lead India campaign last year. I was working with Times of India at this point and extensively covered the shoot of the series from the Film city sets. At that point too, there was no real sense of urgency to tackle the political scene with individuals and qualified people. The contestants were more interested in garnering votes from the public like true politicians with a hint of rhetoric and self righteous indignation on various topics which did not affect their lives directly—from Emergency, to Bangladesh, to defence budgets to Medha Patkar. That show showed me how even qualified and professional people would also stoop to the level of a politician to win, when in fact the show was all about changing the way the country looked at politicians. Everyone, however, agreed that the show was a great concept was very much needed in today’s times.

The real bombardment began in earnest with the Jaago Re campaign. The average normal Indian was progressively cajoled, exhorted and finally threatened to vote for the current general elections happening across the country.  The media, in the aftermath of 26/11 also picked up on the Vote India campaign. But seriously, is voting worth it?

The way I see it, voting can only change if the voting list itself is up to the standard. Now, I set my standard for my politician to be quite high. I want him/ her to be known (like Milind Deora), to be seen doing some work (like Priya Dutt), to be relatively corruption free, be a true secularist, be accessible, be sensible and someone who comes across as a person with a plan (no names comes to mind).

Let me illustrate with my experience. At the polling booth, a friend came out and showed me the finger, with the election mark. I asked him whom he voted for, and he said Congress. Why? “Because I want Rahul Gandhi to be PM.” This first-time voter did not even know the candidate he was voting for. He simply clicked the name next to the Congress hand and came back happy, as if he’d braved an Arctic storm.

On my way back another acquaintance told me he was going to vote — for the BJP. Why, I asked, mildly curious. “Ram Naik was so much better than Govinda,” he said. This fellow has not even heard of demilitation and did not even know the candidate who were standing for election from my constituency. In essence, my area has been clubbed with an area which mainly comprises of tribal area. The candidates were all new faces and new names, people I knew nothing about. It did not make sense to vote for them.

On my visit to Vidarbha in March, I was at Lonar (the one with the famous crater) on the day of the election. The state transport bus was unusually full with voters going about casting their vote and I began small talk. I found an entire family of 14 who were returning without casting their vote because someone had already done their job for them. The family did not seem surprised or outraged. It is a story repeated in villages across the country. I know this is how the Left managed to stay in office for over 25 years in West Bengal. So, paradoxically, the electors elect themselves and the role of people is left to doing nothing. This is not an election formed by democratic consent, but more of pseudo autocrats created by power-hungry marauders.

As I see it then, this election is hardly different than any other. The trains were empty, the media was present in full force near ISKCON temple at Juhu, waiting for a celebrity to come down and cast their vote than talk to the people who had braved the heat to cast their vote, the same set of politicians are contesting the polls (none of whom would have been sensitized to the needs of people they seek to represent) and finally, the outcome will be decided by a set of murderers and looters who will find more ways of pillage and plunder. I, for one, do not wish to be associated with a government as this.

You may call it impractical and cynical, but I believe an informed, aware and better set of politicians is still at least a decade away (and I’m trying to be very optimistic here). Until then, it’s better to sleep in slight discomfort caused by others than stay awake in mayhem created by your own doing.

 

What does money mean to you?

The New York Times has come out with an interesting weekend competition. It requires people to define 'money'. Money, that generic dirty word that like friction, we cannot do without and which is the cause of so many squabbles the world over. My definition? A form of barter that leaves the rich richer and the poor poorer after every transaction. Do you have any definition? Post it here or apply on NYT here.

It wasn’t just about the Fab Four

Hoardings put up by opportunistic political parties across Mumbai carry messages of solidarity along with pictures of Hemant Karkare, Vijay Salaskar, Ashok Kamte and Sandeep Unnikrishnan. They have now become part of legend, brave heroes of 26/11; in a grotesquely macabre and ironical way; the face of the attack; apart from pictures of captured terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab of course.
In the meanwhile, policemen who tried to defend the Taj with their World War 2 rifles, a 54-year-old policeman with a family who took bullets from Kasab so he could be captured alive at Girgaum Chowpatty, the Bihari policeman who risked life (and limb) to foil Kasab and his associate’s plan of taking over CST terminus have largely been forgotten. Everybody who fought the terror attack and lost their life, died for a cause. It would to foolish to call it martyrdom. This was a attack and our fallen heroes were all serving to defend the country and its terrified people from the idea of democracy and right to life. That the democracy had given them ill-equipped resources to defend itself is the greatest travesty and their ultimate deaths, a victim of circumstance.
I however feel that we have become obsessed of finding heroes to reassure ourselves that good people exist out there. This is partly because no political leadership was forthcoming during and after the attacks but we are being vainglorious if we believe that it is only the efforts of these Fab Four that saved Mumbai.
On my rounds to various hospitals across the city in the immediate aftermath of the attack, I found so many stories of bravery and heroism that I somehow felt these stories were getting dwarfed because the heroes themselves never thought about their selfless acts of saving lives.
Let me give you a few examples. A headwaiter took most of the guests from Tiffin restaurant at Oberoi to safely putting himself in the line of fire. Small time people like chaiwalas and clothiers were busy providing water and biscuits to the MARCOS and NSG commandos near Taj and Nariman House with grenades and bullets ricocheting a few feet from them.
I only wish we acknowledge the contributions of the entire city and salute this spirit of humanity that survived the 60-hour ordeal the city bore so tortuously. Saving a life is the most supreme act of compassion human beings can display. Does it bother you then that we give all the success only to four men on duty rather than all the others who took it upon themselves to perform this act of compassion purely as duty to humanity?