THE UNENDING STORY OF THE INDIAN CHILD

When the media down-poured to our drawing rooms with inebriating information on the decision of the Scottish government to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds, the lone convict in the killing of more than 250 air-passengers in the British flight, the British society and Uncle Sam called it a 'childish'decision. Closer in India, we were made to sweat out by the unending verbal extravaganza in the visual media by arm-chair experts on the 'none-other-issue-in India-worthier' than the-Jaswant Singh's latest love for Jinnah. some called his views a kind of check on the BJP's political chess board and others termed them as 'childish'. But a truely child-related news emanated last week from Mumbai which caused so much anguish in the people, evaporated with the same speed with which it shot our blood pressure : Thanks to the protective cover a member from the legal fratenity sought to gain for the alleged accused and the issue has been relegated to the cold burner.

Wealth of literature on the rights a child is entitled to against abuse and violence and much of our debates have focussed on the problems of the child in the Indian context from the view point of legal perspectives, with all inherent shortcomings. Globalization with market-cenric forces in its sway is converting human content in man into cashable commodities. The concept of achieving economic well being alone is considered the be all end end all of our existence in this mother planet. In the process, we are endlessly caught in the spiral of competitive environment, thereby loosing balance in the family institution. Finer sensibilities and pleasures of living together as a family unit with available resources, are giving way to perpetual struggle for achieving technology-driven sensuous happiness through gadgets-filled homes.

There is marked metamorphosis in our attitude and ethos evenwhile making a living in contemporary India. Middle class India, which constitute a major chunk of the nation's demography and influencing the living ways of people, is so obsessed with achiving economic prosperity and in the process of racing against competition, has been loosing foot-hold in the family institutiion. Men in middle class families are becoming islands of seperate entities - an indicator mostly prevailing in affluent families. There is a consistent tendency in making children into marks-churning out machines to take on their stride multifarious challenges globalization has thrown open. Children's pleasures as children are considered unnecessary and evil even to the extent of containing ingredients stunting their future. Finer sensibilties of children commensurate with their age are considered as matters not worthy enough to be given importance.Even before crossing the child age, parents want their children to be "matured" and even become wizardies.

If we come out of the cocoon bristling with legal perspectives alone of the meaning of violence against a child, we may observe many kinds of violence perpetrated day in and day out. Take for instance the life of a child in a middle class background in the Indian context. Invariably, middle class families will have office-going parents and those engage in small businesses - a legacy inherited to us from the 'kumastha' education drilled out to us by Mecauly. In the rush for not missing the first available mode of travel to their work palce, children in the house are thrown food into their gullet to be downed to their belly without scope for chewing. To make the child join the desert of uniformity, the child's neck will be be put into the strangle hold of a neck-tie even in the hottest of the seasons. A huge bag load of books is mounted on the tiny vertabrae of the child to be securely attached till the child reaches the school and the exercise is to be resumed back home in the evening. (R.K.Laxman, that incomparable cartoon genious unabetedly carried forward in his life time a crusade against the crucification of our children by making them securely attached to a load of books perenially through their childhood). An auto-rikshawallah waiting in the door would not miss even one minute precious time to throw the child into the already crowded vehicle to conduct his yatra in the circutous way to the school, doing in the proces, the balacing act of a circus pantaloon to negotiate traffic jam. Finally, the children are jettisioned from over-board the autho-rikshaw ship. And then tons of soiled information is injected into that son of the toil, without leaving scope for learning value eduction and wisdom. As if these things are not enough, the child is put into gruelling test of undergoing a course of tution in every subject till late evening - a symbol myopically considered as middle class status. If these are not violence, what else is violence against children ? The story does not stop here. In the name of securing a perceptible identity, the child is made to undergo a course either in choregraphy or a yoga-yoked commoditised programme to be show-cased in the local TV channels. In the process, the 'child in the child'is lost and the 'man in the child' is heading for clear frustration. An understanding of the children's rights will be incomplete if we approach the problem only from the view point of segregation of chilren into 'poor children', 'working children', 'marginalised children' and so on. violence against children happen in middle class home as well as in the elite houses.The degree of vulnerability alone may vary in different situations. Children constitute 25 percentage of the Indian population. The Mumbai incident of incarceration alleged to have been meted out to a poor child is not an isolated incident. It is the symbolic representative sample of the unmindful violence continuously being unleashed against our children everywhere in the country and day in and day out. The Child Rights (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, was though enacted as a comprehensive legal code, has failed miserably in its implementation. Its definition of violence revolved only around physical violence and mental torture meted out to a child in different situations is not within the realm of its scope. When are we waking upto the realities. ?

SENSE AND SENSIBILITIES : WHAT IS THE CHOICE FOR MAN ?

The unspooling of these thoughts are intended not for projecting yet another dimension of the on going recession in the world economy. They are meant not for suggesting remedies to the sinking economy, either. The inspiration behind these stray thoughts lies in the reading of two novels recently by this Blogger. Though both the novels have been authored by Indian writers, their form, content, narrative style and treatment of the novel are exclusively mutual and independent. One is an epistolary novel, the narration of which has been done in the form of a letter written by its protagonist . The other one is the story of the protagonist told from the mouth of his close friend.

Despite distinctive variance in these areas, the common theme around which the fulcrum of beehive of characters move around, is one and the same – that of modern civilization whose shaky structure has been built on the foundation of the concept of materialism, thereby burying the spiritual quest as relics of the past.

Let me let the cat out of the bag to break the suspense. The first novel is “The White Tiger” authored by Aravind Adiga, an Indian writer in English. The book is his debut venture, however to be honored with the prestigious ‘Man Booker’ award for the year 2008. The other novel is “The Strange case of Billy Biswas” by Arun Joshi, a brilliant scholar of rare sensibilities and intellectual capabilities like his protagonist, Billy, in the novel. The whole novel of Joshi is like a philosophical treatise on modern civilization and man’s inability and incapacity to rise from the embers of sufferings fuelled by his total leaning towards materialistic interests, thereby burying the spiritual quest as an unwanted baggage of the past.

Since these two novels have dealt with the strengths or otherwise of the modern civilization and materialistic interests in their common theme and since the globalized economy of the present day has capital-centric boulders of foundation to hold the super structure of commodity-making machine, devoid of spiritual interests, we shall stray a little and try to understand the basic causes underlying the on going crisis in the world economy.

Economic pundits are still pulling their sleeves up. An understanding of the anatomy of the under belly of the deep economic slump, is still elusive. Bail-outs may help see through safe passage of tottering business corporations to safer shores for probable rebuilding but we have no idea who is going to bail out man from the abyss of his greed for materialistic-oriented life, devoid of happiness to his soul. The greed of man has gone to such unfathomable level that it seems to have left deep scars on the Mother Earth by his continued exploitation of the planet, without abatement. We have emission-ed and blackened the world with enough carbon to hurt our hearts, globalized poverty from scattered confines, have subjugated humanity under the weight of disposable commodities to the infinitive number.

No doubt, capital-centric economic model has come into being in the conducting of world economic affairs. With the advancement of technology, reversal to labour-centric economic concept has become the most despised idea in the sweep of globalized economy. All economic endeavors that deserved to be directed towards the achieving of maximum good to maximum number of people, seem to be failing. Human interest is considered to be ultimate goal of all human endeavors – be it innovation in economics or science or technology. But human interests themselves have been destined to recede to the level of acquiring all the garbage of gadgets being churned out by technology without leaving scope even for simple happiness, which otherwise would be possible even without such heaps of gadgets. Did not Henry Thoreau prove that he was able to experience maximum happiness by being one with Nature and his Walden Pond ?

Wealth creation objectives, steeped of materialistic interests and greed, have pushed man’s quest for spiritual wealth to the deep abyss of non-recovery. In the endless urge to make wealth and more money, man appears to be steering his endeavor wagon on the over-inflated wheels of greed to be ruptured any moment. That is why we have witnessed bursting of housing bubbles, bankruptcies of banks and falling grandeur of financial institutions.

Aravind Adiga’s protagonist Balram Halwai in his novel ‘The White Tiger’ is the embodiment of modern man. In his dictionary, the word “crime’ has a definite place but not the word “punishment”. He is conscious of his subservient position in the class strata but he does not want his crime to prick his conscience. He slits his master’s throat with a broken piece of glass from an empty but costly whisky bottle – a symbol of vagaries of the moneyed society. He grabs from his master’s car a bag full money in currencies of higher denominations and throws his master’s blood stained body in the road side bushes. He then goes to Bangalore with the stolen money to be become an entrepreneur and owner of a fleet of Qualis, transporting in them employees of call-centers working under different time zones and at odd hours at night. His bribing of police officials to hide his identity as a killer, he feels, is part of his entrepreneurial duty and he does not feel shy of his action. Though the novel tries to portray the protagonist as a product of class struggle prevailing in India, in a larger sense, he is also a victim of modern civilization which revolves around “a peg of money” (quoted from Arun Joshi’s novel, ‘The strange case of Billy Biswas’).

On the other hand, Arun Joshi’s protagonist Billy Biswas, unlike Adiga’s protagonist Balram Halwai who is a thick-skinned fellow bothering nothing other than becoming rich, is an intellectual individual. Billy is the son a Supreme Court Judge and is sent to America to pursue a course in Engineering but Billy comes out with doctorate in Anthropology. He is traumatized by the modern civilization and its all round vagaries. He comes back to India not to pursue a profession commensurate with his education qualification. His relationship with his wife is one of misunderstanding and unpalatable. Though his relationship with a Swedish psychiatrist in America is one of intellectual relationship, he is unable to cope with the surrounding situations. To him, his friend Romy, his wife and his girl friend in Bombay are all products of modern civilization. His heart and soul are running backwards to join the world of primitiveness. He runs to Mykala forests in central India to be identified one with a tribal group. His relationship with the tribal girl Bilasia is one of supreme mingling with the almighty. He finds the right place for inquiring into his soul’s purpose. Though, ultimately gets killed by the police in their attempts to capture him, he is considered as god reincarnation of the tribal group amidst whom he made a real living and understands the meaning of his life.

If Adiga’s protagonist is symbol of sensuousness, Joshi’s protagonist is an embodiment of finer sensibilities and intellectual superiority. There is an under current of the philosophy of existentialism running through the whole novel of Joshi. Ideas of Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus find subtle references then and there. Beyond everything, there is an under current of Indian philosophy running through the whole novel. For Joshi, the concept of ‘East is east; the west is west and never the twain shall meet’ is true and complete.

In these troubled times, will man, like Joshi’s protagonist Billy, take time to see inwards into his soul to identify what went wrong with him and the world than committing himself to become Balram Halwais of Aravind Adiga with all the attendant superficial richness and happiness?

It is now Bye from Chandru till next blogging.

WHERE DOES 'TERROR-DEBATE' TAKE US ?

Just now, when striking of terror on the fragile-looking peace of the civil society of Mumbai by the Jeans-clad, gun-totting and evil-indoctrinated gang of thugs, was said to be over, war of semantics along with proclaimed war on terror has taken centre stage in the Indian sub-continent. Intellectuals (?) to illiterates are under the spell of new found love for choicest vocabularies to some how express their views on the terror issue and patriotism in any available medium of expression.
Even before the soil in the grave yard where the slain were laid to rest dried, endless and unimaginative ideas are being spewed by anyone and every one to add to the already stinking debris of ideas, as if to show that these so called ideas are the ultimate and final voice of the people of India. War of words is being waged in every available print and visual media. In driving home their ideas, people like to take rigid and extreme postures. Though free speech is the hall mark of the concept of democracy, such freedom, one hopes, shall not go to the extent of shaking its very foundation. No doubt, civilization itself has evolved based on ideas. But constructive ideas are different from ideas of retardation. In the war of words, People tend to become intolerant to the extent of spitting vomit-springing bile on the opponents, thereby digging their own grave yard; Coffins are cut to lay bare those thoughts that have at least the semblance of ideas.

This Blogger had the occasion to browse in the last one week through certain leading blogs emanating from India. Writings emanating from intellectuals occupying the status of ‘God of Big Things’ to prattling of plagiarists seem to suck the search engine oil in steering home their views. The moment an article appears in a noted blog, comrades of commentators wield their pen scythes to tear apart the views of the writer. Comments from the level of moderation through comments of vituperation and carping to meaningless verbal diarrhoea are vomited to lay siege on the writer(s).

Intellectuals and opinion-makers seem to be more interested in recording their views in indelible ink and blow their own trumpets about their existence more than suggesting solution for the on going problems the country faces. In the process, they seem to be adding bundles of chaff as fodder to the gossip mill than to find the kernel to help heal the deep wounds of those laid their life, be it Commandos or Commissioners of Police to the commoners who were gullible to become prey in the cruel hands of terrorism.

All the sound and fury that enrage and follow ceaselessly and seamlessly, seem to be not interested in knowing the voice of the lay men of the country who form the very basis of the fabric of the country, that is India. This Blogger upon an informal chat with a number of ordinary people in the past one week, has been made to reach logical inference that they are very up set over what had happened in Mumbai. Visual-media whipped-up anger still linger in them. No doubt, visual media trigged heightened sense of patriotism in them. At the same time, with all the sundry and news volleys being injected into their heads by media, common laymen in India seem to be unaware of the basic problems haunting the country. For instance, a few questions posed on issues like Kashmir, probable reasons they think for the causes of terrorism in the country, plausible and probable solutions they think fit to be tested, Pakistan’s interest in Kashmir and such other related issues did not evoke simple answers from them. In matters of suggesting solutions for the problems besetting the country, intellectuals are none better than the illiterates. They fall on the same line.

The following questions were posed to these ordinary people:

1. Why do our brethren in Kashmir endlessly engage in fighting with India ?
2. What business Pakistan has got do with Kashmir, which is an integral part of India ?
3. Why does India have to enter into dialogue with Pakistan about a problem concerning a state (read Kashmir) of India
4. Why the laws of India generally do not apply to Kashmir, even though Kashmir is an integral part of India ?
5. Are they aware that lakhs of Hindus have been displaced from Kashmir and are living away from their places of birth and nativity ?
6. Has the accession of Kashmir to India at the advent of Independence gone in accordance with the standards of international law?
7. Despite Kashmir being an integral part of India, the reason for giving special status to it under the Indian Constitution ?
8. Do they know what exactly ‘secularism’ ?
9 . Do they know that there is no common civil code for the whole country

10. What is their opinion about according freedom struggle status by some to the fight by the Sri Lankan Tamil militants against the Sri Lankan government and not giving the same status to the militants in Kashmir ?

Other than bursting with anger over the terrorists acts, none was interested in the intricacies and plausible answer to the above questions. This is how our rulers have kept the country in ignorance, more specifically the common man. On second thought, why alone common man ? A big chunk of the population in the country has been wrapped in ignorance and is highly confused over many national issues. Either the successive rulers were inclined to keep the mass in perennial and perpetual ignorance or that the intellectuals are living in ivory towers, bothering nothing about the common man’s ignorance. Eventually, healthy discussion becomes the first casualty on national issues. Will the intellectuals come out of their cocoons and help enlighten the common man about the problems laying siege in the country, instead of taking perverse pleasures in word play and in showing off their understandably most un-understandable pseudo intellectual culture. The day is not far that the anger being displayed by the gullible mass against the politicians will also turn against the intellectuals in the country.

MUMBAI BLEEDS : AN OPEN LETTER TO UNCLE SAM

Uncle Sam dear,
When the seize of Mumbai is said to be over, the seizure of a wish for securing selective amnesia supremely reins high in us – not because our collective national conscience has lost its balance; neither our anger has caused cultural atrophy leading us to lose our senses to acquire the disease of decay of memories; nor have we become shameless creatures to keep quiet after ‘living’ those carnage and killings by those senseless animals. No. Comparing animals to these blood hounds would be highly injustice to the animal genre and the law of comparative study. Leaches, perhaps could be plausible comparison to these terror strikers; nay, even leaches would rankle us for insulting them for dirty comparison with terrorists – after all, leaches also do service to humanity in the filed of medicine for sucking bad blood from wounds of patients.

When we gather ourselves like phoenix from the ashes of the dying ambers of our brethren in Bombay (Bombay sounds well too, instead !), we are exorcised and haunted by the ‘original sin’ behind the emergence of cult of violence and atrocities against humanity, a sin, which, we as a nation state definitely did not commit. India, never in the history of its existence, aspired for the forbidden fruit of territorial expansion and imperialism. In the four thousand years of its human history, India had only bled in the hands of vultures of intruders from many parts of the world. But, a ceaseless civilization built on tolerance, kindness and the philosophy of concern for all living beings, made the spirit of India to train itself to imbibe plurality of cultures, multitudes of languages and in the rearing and retention of religions.

Just now, after making much noise, preceded by the parading of armchair terror experts, our media people are planning to get back to their studio cocoons. In between their war on terror, they repeated visuals of the other side of the post-terror ‘sanitized opulence’. Collective anger sprang high, whose splintering arsenal had the sting of leaving a permanent scar mostly on the breed called politicians and lesser wounds on bureaucrats. Terror-struck, even our attempts to drive home a point compel us draw terms like arsenal and blood. English speaking seemingly urban upper class people turned to be more in numbers in the venues in such visual media-sponsored debate as the vox populi representing the country. Anger of the people made heads rolling. High command of ruling party was compelled to draw into secret alleys of party offices to plan for axing individuals as scape-goats. “High command” are epithets antithetical to democratic ideas. One is at loss to comprehend as to how terms like “high command” crept into the vocabulary of Congress, despite the words carrying meaning of military or authoritarian authority ! Be that as it may, in the thick and spell of these horrifying acts, no introspection was immediately possible for the Indian mind to engage in inquiry into the original ‘sin’.

Three information in the Mumbai terror attack demand serious introspection. In the first place, 49 of the nearly two hundred people who lost their lives in the terror strike, are Muslims. Secondly, when the Mumbai police wanted to hand over the bodies of the nine terrorists to the Muslim clerics for burial, they refused to do receive the body on the ground that the terrorists had committed the gravest of crimes against humanity and Islam. Thirdly, in a flight 9W – 114 of Jet Airways ( between Aurangabad to Mumbai on 3oth Nov.2008, post terror attack, a passenger on board the plane asked a lady crew member of what her name was, despite her wearing her name plate on the chest. She was further asked by the passenger to tell her religion. On her having told that she is a Muslim, the passenger is said to have literally started abusing with his lung power thus: “Why, you Muslim people do all these harm to India ?” The lady, without losing balance, told the passenger that she is an Indian and that the Muslim religion has nothing to with the terrorist attacks. But the passenger is said to be bent on continuing the verbal assault and the lady was all in tears. She was whisked away by a colleague after she underwent all these trauma.

Uncle Sam, what do all these bring home to your mind. Kashmir imbroglio, Palestine-Israel conflict, Iraq Shia-Sunni scuffles and others are all local struggles confined to the respective territories. If the long arm of terror reaches nook and corner of the world, what does that mean ? America, Algiers, Afghanistan, Bangkok, Britain, Indonesia, Mumbai, Islamabad and even Singapore were battle ground for bleeding blood and the list seems to be not abating. Like capital centric global business, terrorism is also being exported. In other words, global terrorism has come into being and the latest incident in Mumbai is yet another edition. Post 9/11, they could not do anything with America, Briton, Europe and Australia and therefore they have shifted their operation to soft states reeling under their own problems.
Terrorism knows know religion; it has grown to breach national boundaries. It has two-fold ambitions. The globalized capital-centric-consuming to carbon manufacturing-human content less-industrial culture is an anathema and therefore its first target is democratic structures practicing globalization. The second is to register terror’s signature for creating a world of fundamental ideas without giving scope and space for free interplay of cultures and plurality of religions.

It all started with throwing shit on the back yard of Russia (read Afghanistan) by your country in the name of neutralizing the influence of Russia. Now the toilet is over-flowing to India. You have produced Mujahedeen and left them in lurch. Captured Russian tanks and Kalashnikovs are getting corroded. These need oiling and blood for their survival. In the name of democracy and professing to destroy WMD, you have falsely cheated the world and continue to detonate Iraq. Again, in the name of giving a check to Iran, you produced the Frankenstein in Saddam Hussain. When the job was over, you threw him into the right place - dust-bin. While on the one hand, America never failed to boast that whatever it does (in the world) it is to protect freedom and democracies. But your country’s hypocrisy finds no bounds when it is bent upon promoting dynastic rulers in the West Asia and Pol-pot like dictators world over. Seymore Hersh, the investigative journalist of New York Times marshals his findings that a West Asian dynasty backed government finances fundamentalist groups with millions of dollars as “protection money” for avoiding over throw of their government for being corrupt, alienated from the clerics and monks and for displaying lavish life-styles with petro-dollars. Your country’s strategic interests for oil have made truths myopic. What is the fate of Resolution 1373 and 1566 of the UNO which clearly ban the financing of terrorist acts by sovereign member states and consider such financing, as crime. Your country, for obvious reasons of guaranteed oil, continues to close its eyes to these crimes.

Terrorists have one agenda. They graze on intolerant societies and terrorize and kill their own brethren. Their intention is to create Islam phobia so that the world hates them. Ultimately hated communities get radicalized and they would be compelled to fall in the band-wagon of terrorists – an ideal way of clamping and expanding the philosophy of terrorism.

Uncle Sam, will you stand up and say “enough is enough" for YOUR country’s continued hypocrisy and help bring a world order from the pestering menace of terrorism.

THREE CHEERS TO MUMBAI :INDIA IS NOT FREE IN FREEDOM

I fell on the thorns of life. It is bleeding. If winter comes, can spring be far behind ? - Shelley

The trauma of undergoing the ordeal of terror and unparalelled blood shed in the hands of a bunch of terrorists in Mumbai was stated to be over in Mumbai around 8.30 Am(IST). The Indian Security forces, have completed their mission with text book precision, without lending scope for the loss of too many lives. In the process, two officers of the elitist National Security Guard commando force, fondly called Black Cats, did the supreme sacrifice of laying their life for the cause. The Indian nation as a whole salute these brave-hearts and those Police officers died doing their national duty.

No other city in the entire world than Mumbai has witnessed so much blood shed and catastrophe repeatedly and in quick succession in a span of the last one and half decades in the history of terrorist movements.

Why India, again and again, is becoming the testing ground of terrorist laboratories ? Thousands of theories and concepts from Security experts, terrorism analysts, scholars and psychologists studying the phenomenon of terrorism, have come and gone. Each had his/her own way of analysing the phenomenon. But defying all their theories and conceptualizations, the curse and bane of terrorism is becoming a walking shadow in the lives of Indians, more specifically, the Mumbai residents. The city has collectively become a neurotic patient caught in perpetual fear psychosis.

As I see, there are too many loose ends in not viewing this serious issue in its correct perspective by the successive custodians of governance in India. First of all, those in the corridors of power, have miserably failed in reaching a common and national consensus to deal with terrorism, which has become a national problem. This applies to the present and the past governments. Every time, a cop lays his hands on a person on grounds of suspicion even for the pettiest of crimes of picking-up someone's pocket, invariably one or two so called political leaders would never fail to extend his obstructive hand in the police adminsitration to doubly ensure that the suspect is let off scot free, even without a preliminary inquiry. In other words, the police administration has been made a stooge and pimp in the hands of political masters. To extend this argument to a logical end, the political masters in India have left no stone unturned to ensure that the conducting the art and science of politics is highly criminalised. It is the clear case of criminalization of politics and politicization of criminals. The police force administration in India does not have a face of its own and an independent identity. It wears the ugly masks of dirty politicians whoever is in power.

The way the whole execution, in finnesse, of neutralizing the terrorists by the Indian Security forces was done and the applaud and appreciation whole-heartedly conveyed to the soldiers by the Mumbai residents in thousands and thousands and the country, show that for the first time in the country, post-independence, political leaders have become a pack of pantaloons and jokers in the midst of displayers of impeccable leadership of the service personnel. Three days of serach and neutralizing operations literally saw no face of a politician moving around, against whom the whole nation has an enviable record of contempt for not protecting the lives of the country's citizens. In India, life of common citizens is becoming a sort of disposable commodity. It never dawned upon the powers that be that the people of a country are its assets. But the demands of the Indian politicians are different. At the dawn of freedom, when the symbolical flag of independence was hoisted on the midnight, the colonial masters were shown the door and a new bunch of interanl political suckers having made entry, started sucking into the very vital veins of the country. Barring a few exceptions, they not only leached and ate into the fabric of patriotritism and well being of the people but also plundered the nation literally for six decades. The one breed of citizens that does not command even an iota of respect in India is its politicians and none other than politicians.

And what of civil soeicty ? The so-called self-proclaimed intellectuals declaring themselves as the representatives of civil society behave in such a fashion in times of national crisis that no one is able to understand their real psychology. Whenever and wherever the long arm of the Police force reaches a person genuninely in the execution of its duty, these stray bunches of the so-called intellectuals fail to poke their nose in the name of asserting their names one with human rights. When terrorists take the saddistic pleasure of bombing to cause death, destruction, mayhem even to tender children in so many parts of the country in the last two and half decades or so, these so-called itellectuals skulked behind their impotence. The self-styled intellectual breed of the country is the hypocrisy face of the nation. They would neither allow the honest officers to execute their national duty nor or they potent enough to come forward to take the leadership. They are afflicted with the disease of engaging themselves in aphoristic and antithetical phrases and endless discourse of verbal diahorreah, whose meaning invariably is one of utter confusion and confusion confounded. Common man in India is not able to understand the language of these intellectuals. In other words, they do not touch the pulse of the country in times of crises. They are in the habit of converging in star-status hotels every time a national crisis occurs and come out with some statements in some national news papes, which invariably be boasting that they are the embodiment, soul and crusaders of human rights and thus putting spokes in every act of the officers engaging in national duty.

And what of the Indian citizen ? He is so gullible and vulnerable to the frequent and unabted terrorist acts that his rulers could be seen only in obsequies of the gullible citizen after the latter's succumbing to injuries in such terrorist acts. The ruler (read, politician) would in such occasions, would not miss one single opportunity in wagging his tongue in eloquent and hyperbolic language praising the gullible citizen. It is the big gulf in the relationship between the Ruler and the ruled that makes the Indian citizen vulnerable to all the terrorist acts in the country. The executive class thinks it is a special breed, born straight away from the heaven and is totally berefet of human touch. As a class, this constitutional governing body has carved a nice niche for itself in becoming embodiment of corruption and greediness overthe last six decades of post-independence ruling.

The leadership qualities and tolerence displayed by the Service personnel, the Police and gullible Mumbai residents in this entire episode should wake the rulers and itellectuals of the country from their deep Rip Van Winkle slumber and should prove an eye-opener that the gullible citizens would not continue to be a silent spectator any further. He will call spade a spade and will bounce back, the consequences of which would render politicians earn a name in the annals of Indian history as the despised breed of crooks, engaged in looting and plundering the country, which will no way be different from the pre-independence colonial rulers.

BIG FACTS AND LIFE'S LITTLE IRONIES......

Part of the title to this stray thoughts blog owed to Thomas Hardy, the all time famous English Novelist. Apology for stealing his title "Life's little ironies" from his book of the same name.

It's now 8.30 PM (IST). It had been the most distressing day. I was glued to the Tele Vision the whole of yesterday night and today. Professionaly trained terrorists have literally taken taken hold of Mumbai, that commercial hub of India to ransom, chaos and destruction. The images that have been captured and relayed in the news channels are ghastly. My deep condolences to the victims and the bereaved families. Indian Security forces WILL finish off these terrorist efforts. They are the brave face of India. They keep Nation First before anything else. My salutations.
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An anecdote goes like this: A ship is on the wreck. A cyclone is taking its toll. Passengers are running helter-skelter for their life. The cabin crew is doing everything to save the people on board. Crew members are searching every deck of the ship to find out if any passenger is holed up anywhere and to bring them to safety. All most all the passengers have been brought to safe area to evacuate them in life boats to the shore, except one. In the middle deck of the ship, a small boy of ten years was seen playing marble alone by himself. The cabin crew members asked : " Are you mad, playing marbles here ? The ship is on the wreck. Get out and get lost to the upper most deck. You'll be taken to a place of safety." The boy was not moved. Taken aback, one of the crew members forcibly moved the boy through the narrow steps. The boy said : "I know the ship is sinking. But my father is the captain of this ship. He will save us." What measure of hope and faith reposed by one little boy on his father and his captaincy. The point here is that our Security forces are now in the midst of their NATIONAL DUTY and THEY WILL SAVE Mumbaites and India. Hail our soliders !
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At about 7.45 PM (IST) one of the hostages who is of foreign origin and a guest to India , was shown being brought out by our Security services to safety from the Hotel where the terrorists were holed-up. On his reaching the steps of the front yard of the hotel, news reporters of a number of TV channels and News papers swamped him for some hot news about what went on inside the hotel. The foreign guest was heard telling the news men that he had been advised not to divulge any information and that he had promised to go by the advice of the security forces. On being pestered to divulge some information, he stuck to his guns. Then, a reporter of one of the leading National TV News channels, was seen telling the foreign guest thus: " You can stick to your promise...But....er..... Tell us something.... We won't tell anybody". What an antithetical statement ! What journalistc ethics !! What journalistic responsibility !!!
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The behavioural psychology of people of a nation, in times of crises, seems to be in variance with that of another country. Despite the Security forces cordoned off the whole area of Taj Hotel, Mumbai to enable them to carry out their security operations, thousands of Mumbai-living people converged near the place of operation. Of course, they were anxious about the fate of their near and dear ones. But are they not susceptible to cross-fire in the security operations ?
E.M.Forster, the famous English novelist, while drawing the behavioural aspects of the English people in his essay "Notes on the English Character" in a situation involving tense moments, quotes an anecdote:
A few French people and English people were going on a travel in a coach to a hilly side. Half way through the journey, the coach met with an accident and toppled. Many were injured. There were none to help them other than themselves. The French people, over-awed by the severity of the accident, started engaging in crying, breast-beating and became very emotional. However, the English people in the coach, though were also injured in the accident, did not show any expression of emotion and mental disturbance. They displayed cool attitude throughout and started helping the severly wounded to safer places and gave them enough courage to get over the mental pangs of the accident. On reaching back to the place of the start of their journey, the French people became calm and cool. On the other hand, the English people started showing signs of emotional break downs. This behavioural aspect of the English people, according to Forster, depicts their national character. In times of managing crises, they display cool attitude. They would ensure that their emotional imbalace in times of crises would not affect their resolve to get over the crises. When once they get over the crises, they tend to become emotional belatedly for having been weighed all along by the burden of their surpressed emotions. In other words, according to Forster, the display of practical approach in times of crisis is their national character, which got recorded in so many historic incidents of crises. Now coming back to Mumbai, my Mumbai bretheren are very resilient in such terrific situations of terror attacks. In earlier such similar terror attacks in Mumbai, they displayed such heroic behavioural pattern in perceivable manner. Even before the police force could reach a terrorist attacked spot, they could show exceptional courage to help the wounded to places of safety and hospitals and thus made the job of the security forces easy. The only imbalance in their behaviour in such situations, perhaps, is their failure to guague the seriousness of moving closer to such places where the near-threat security operations are under way. They get sensationalized in watching what is going on around as if they are watching a Mumbai masala movie, thus, leaving scope for security hazards. But their resilence to adopt to the post-terrorist attack life is exceptionally great. Hats off to my Mumbai folks.

WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA..........

In 'The White Tiger', the Man Booker award winning novel of Aravind Adiga, its protogonist Balram Halwai's father prays to Lord Buddha thus : "I have been treated like a donkey. All I want is that one son of mine - at least one - should live like a man."

This piece of writing here is not intended for extolling the charms of the book or for eulogising the novel's popularity it wields among its readers. Perhaps, the novel itself, I think, has been written with a purpose. Beyond the scope of the author's literary pursuit, the clear mapping of the contemporary life in India after the advent of globolization of the economy in the book meticulously stripped naked the deep division caused in the society. Society has been seen distinctively divided between the un-opportuned majority people and the miniscule group of the so called entrepreuners, in matters of economy, education and social status. The novel strives to register that globolization and market driven economy have dredged deep division in the society, the depth of which is increasingly becoming bottomless and unfathomable.

Let us for a moment, stray away from the imaginative pursuit of Adiga in his epistolary novel and ponder over the statement of the learned Finance Minister of India, which he had made during the Economic Editors' conference at Delhi recently.

While the economic melt-down, on its spread, swallows and evoporates and sends into posterity and oblivion even the strongest and capital-centric economic structures, even in the farthest corners of the globle, the Finance Minister of India has declared that recession is no where near India. While the compulsions of the FM in rejuvenating the sagging morale of the business community and the industry leaders, is understable, does the FM's statement reflect the correct picture ?

Mr.Finance Minister, if it is not the recessional effect, what then was the recent incident concerning Jet Airways, in which young boys and girls were shown full-throatedly crying and shedding tears in the streets of Mumbai, Delhi and many metropolitan cities of the countries for having been shown the exist door of their hard-earned employment ? Was witnessing such an incident a mere illusion and mirage viewed from the myopic eyes ?

Many IT companies are in the process of silently throwing axe on their probationers. "Pink-slip" showing symbolic culture has started sending shock waves among the young engineers. Lack of clear labour laws governing IT and ITES industry in the country, has led many ITeans and Engineers to silently accept the wounds and scars of hire and fire weapon idealogy.

Sir, for a common man in the country, these economic terms like the melt-down, recession, inflation, Bullish, Bearish, etc. etc. are all bulll-shit. Price rise of commodaties is going in leaps and bounds. Price of tomato in the vegetable market tumbles like cricket ball in the hands of batsman - going from singles to fours and sixes.

Periodical bouts of statistical information on the economy by the Pay commission protected officers will not help stop the shrinking of peoples' bellies for want of food at reasonable rates. Edible oils and pulses have become rare commodities in the life of people in the country. But then, our Ruleers are honourable men. What they is correct and nothing but truth.

Mr.Finance Minister, can any one have the guts to deny that, though de-regulation of economy has opened opportunities for entrepreuners to test their abilities to explore untrodden territories and untested business ventures, market economy and deregulation have opened flood-gates for carving deep division in the society as haves and have-nots .

Banks are vying with each other with killer instincts that IT industry engineers are lured to their credit card net to make them permanent paupers for the rest of their life. Many engineers are trapped in the unreasonable conditions of EMI and interest rates. Melt-down and recession have been sending jitters of losing their jobs and consequently the burden of repaying credit-card loans has been driving many a youngester into psycopaths, leading to suicidal tendencies. Similar is the case with house-owners in America that preceded the Housing bubble.

Despite engaging the country in LPG (Liberalization, Privatization and Globolization) as early as in 1990, the Human Development Index as assessed by the UNDP on India has shown a pulverized negative indicator, even as late as in 2005. India, has been accorded 128th place among 177 countries in terms of HDI value. In terms of Life expectancy at birth, we stand at 125th palce. In adult literacy. India has attained the 'pride of place' at 114.. Gross enrollment ratio in combined primary, secondary and tertiary education is indexed at 122nd place. In per capita income, we stand at 117th palce. Then, what is the point and pleasure of self-boasting about the mightiness of the Indian economy ?

We are an honourable country with a herd of honourable self-styled leaders. Common man is also deemed an honourable man in times of elections, honourably eating and digesting all these statistical commodities as if his insatiable belly has been ducted down with saliva-secreting food.

We, the people of India having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a sovereign, socialistic, secular and democractic republic, give unto ourselves liberty, equality and justice in economic, educational social spheres . But socialism has become a despicable word in the on-slaught of market driven economy. Secularism has multi-faceted meaning depending upon the ruling and opposition political groups in the country.

Sovereign powers vest exclusively with the elected ones and never was with the people. Equality in opportunities has been bartered away long ago. The politics of caste-based reservation has created ripples of reverse discrimination, endlessly leading to spew venom and hate among caste affiliates. Talking of meritocracy would be short of engaging oneself in Kafkaesquen style of imprisonment. Social justice is justifyably confined as edicts in constitutional law books only.

The maximum the way-ward market economy has done, is the creation of a special breed of real estate terrorists, wealth-concentrating maphias and the creation of a contemporary society devoid even iota of humane element. Society has been divided on caste and communal lines and no body seems to be bothering about it.

If it is for John Osborne's protogonist to become angry, in the author's novel 'Look back in anger', for making the contemporary society, in which he was living, into a souless society at the unleashing of mechanization during the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, Aravind Adiga's protogonist, Balram Halwai, the murderer-turned-entrepreuner justifies the killing of his employer-cum-foreign returned-filthy rich son of a land lord, on the logic that killing of his master was the product of class-war fare and therefore, it was right.

Such an attitude, even though fictional, is growing up in the society in real terms and therefore it should touch our national conscience for enagaging ourselves in soul-searching exercise and compell us to take corrective action, so that the Indian economy and its society are moulded and made, bristling with human content to serve even the poorest of the poor in the society.

It's now bye from Chandru.