Hooray! Another terror attack!

Here it is again!  Terrorists attacking Mumbai!

I am as tired of this nonsense as anyone and I really have a great deal of sympathy for Mumbaikars.  This goes well beyond the grief and sorrow and the sheer weight of madness that descends upon us each time something like this happens.  Of course we have no real way of knowing what it means to be there, and be directly affected, but it is within us to imagine how bad it can be and we must extend all help and "support" however weak that sounds, to all people affected by this.

Truth is, nobody is terrorized.  Not even a school kid missed school because a few bombs went off.  There have been no outrageous reactions, no overt blame games, no show of panic, and no untoward chain reactions.  Thank God Ram Gopal Varma didn't show up like the punk he is at the attack sites either.

Perhaps it is not so sexy this time.  No white skinned foreigners dead.  No helicopters dropping commandos on buildings.  No high profile buildings burning, no live TV during the "action", and no drama.

But interestingly, Mumbaikars have said one thing that is remarkable both for its timing now, and the absence of it earlier - that they are sick of hearing about the "resilience" and "spirit of Mumbai" etc.  In other words, they are telling the world, "Don't bloody romanticize this nonsense.  We're just doing the one thing we can - move on." 

If the media had an iota of self respect, it would pull out of the things it would normally do - start useless debates, interview hordes of people, find "stories" that it can capsule, and throw in a good deal of its own bullshit to sum it all up, and even field a Disney cute question or two at the end of it, like the rest of us don't already have enough questions.  Usually, this "profound" question would wriggle out something like, "Are we a soft target by choice?".  It would stop, and think about the uselessness of all of this.

Mumbaikars have spelt it out this time - "Don't shag on our misery just because you don't have anything else to do".  But the media, in its rank ineptness but immense opportunism, has now taken up this very sentence - "We don't want to hear anything about resilience and the spirit of Mumbai", and started shagging with it.  This in itself is the new fuel for the next debate!  The question now is, "Are we becoming numb?".  How much lower can this descend?  Where is basic human decency?

Don't we have a right to not be examined all the time by incompetent nincompoops?  Why the heck is Anupam Kher on TV, giving his opinion on what is going on?  Is he in any way competent to either represent Indian civil society or is he a terrorism expert?  Why isn't our media not even capable of going beyond convenience and the regular exercises of trying to get viewership?

What is even more appalling is the assumption that we can't see through how shallow this nonsense is.  Yes indeed, we can switch off our TVs!  But when we give Padma Shris like cinema tickets, we should at the very least wonder why these recipient clowns cannot get their act together.  It has been far too long, and far too exhausting, but the cracks are finally showing.  This is not a test of resilience against terror attacks.  It is a test of our resilience against mediocrity.

Mediocrity in every sphere.  Apathy in every aspect.

Nearly three years after the big attacks of 2008, we do not have closed circuit cameras in all busy areas of our metros.  We do not have any greatly enhanced intelligence gathering apparatus in place, and we do not have information sharing that is immediate and comprehensive between various government agencies.  Our cops do not even have little computers that can dig up ownership information of vehicles on the spot. 

To assuage our feverish yells, the government tamely did what all our governments are good at doing - started another government body, called the National Investigation Agency.  http://www.nia.gov.in/.  Guess what?  Try visiting this site and you will get this message - This site is under maintenance. Sorry for inconvenience.

What freaking maintenance can keep the website of the National Investigation Agency offline?  What if I have key information I want to pass on anonymously and I want to do it through the internet?

Are we even serious about this kind of blunder?  Whoever is in charge of this should be shot dead.  Because s/he is an anti-national criminal.  If s/he is in charge of keeping this window of information open that might lead to great intelligence gathering and prevent terrorist attacks, this fool has failed.  S/he ought to lose his or her job at the very least, and tortured to find what links s/he has with our enemies.  Sadly, that job rests with the NIA itself, perhaps!  How comical does this get?

Try visiting the CIA website and it will never be down.  www.cia.gov.  It is NEVER down. We are an IT power?  Who are we kidding?  How can the NIA website be down at all?  It is the simplest part of the NIA's infrastructure to keep up and running.  So, how can we expect these clowns to take any efficient action during terror attacks, pirates hijacking our ships, espionage, smuggling, human trafficking, and other crimes of great import?  Truth is, we can't.

What is the alternative then?  Surely we can let terrorists know that there isn't much for them to bring down here!  We can't possibly be a threat to anyone!

- BSK.

Here we fall again!

I really didn't want to do it again. 

But since when did Osama Bin Laden become the "world's most wanted terrorist"?  How is it even possible?

Spitting on India's media whores is one of my most annoying and irritating reactions, but if we don't watch what they are saying, they really will bullshit us.

I have no idea why North Indian English language media outlets have to parrot US media outlets, no matter what garbage those idiots spew out.  There has been plenty of terror by so many organizations, including the US military, well before Sept 11th, 2001.  Now that we have broadly concluded that only terror conducted by Muslims is popularly acceptable as terror, let's take another look at this pompous rank of "most wanted" given to Osama Bin Laden.

Seriously, as an Indian, I couldn't wait to get my hands on Dawood Ibrahim.  I couldn't really give a rat's ass about Osama Bin Laden.  I'd like to lynch those bastards we spinelessly released when IC 814 was hijacked and we allowed ourselves to be blackmailed.  That was the Taliban, and the scum released were Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Maulana Masood Azhar.  The last of these scum is our most wanted terrorist, for he has done much damage since.  Between him and Dawood Ibrahim, it's stiff competition.  OBL is nowhere in this race.

India is 18% of the world's population.  The USA is 4%.  Our most wanted terrorist is the world's most wanted terrorist, unless the Chinese are chasing one of these dicks.  Fuck the 4%.  There ends the argument.

OBL the most wanted in the world?  What the heck are you talking about?  This is the sort of absolute fiction our media vomits on us every time there is an event of any significance that tickles the USA.  I have said time and again that our journalists, particularly the English speaking bitches are not just self absorbed megalomaniacs, they are plain stupid.  Their incompetence is monumental in most situations.

Today, the woman on NDTV, said at 6:55 PM, "That was Osama Bin Laden's speech to the American people", just after President Obama finished his speech to his people.  Indeed, the world's most wanted terrorist being on the news must have scared them into blabbering shit like this.  I often wonder if they even think about what they are saying.  Clearly, it is not hard to see how bad these fools are.

Now, we're busy listening to Hameed Gul, the ex chief of the ISI, and that fox Pervez Musharraf, who is always happy to talk to our North Indian English news channels.  Gul has headed one of the shadiest outfits in the world, that actively arms and supports terror groups in the name of national interest, and is particularly inimical to India.  We don't need to show the prick any respect.  Period.  Now, he is on TV, trying to convince us very nicely indeed that a fortress that American forces had been keeping an eye on for months, only 800 metres from the Pakistan Military Academy, not far from Islamabad, could not really have been Osama Bin Laden's hiding place.  But he must have come there for treatment or something!!!   Treatment?  Well shit!  I thought he was the world's most wanted terrorist!!!??   And we're listening to this bullshit?  Well, let me try one here!  Please.  "Osama Bin Laden was a bird lover and at this time of the year, the blue necked mynah is famous for singing its mating tune, and so Bin Laden must have come to watch it in these peaceful neck of the woods."

Back to Pervez.  That son of a bitch that was part of that whole Kargil war in which they got their bums kicked, even though we lost 400 lives before deciding to use fighter jets.  Mushy cannot even come to his own country for fear of being thrown in jail.  So, he's in asylum in the UK.  But today he is the expert telling us that there is no way this operation could have been carried out without the active assistance of the Pakistani intelligence agencies.  This comes AFTER the US has officially stated that they went and did this alone!  Now let me get this straight - this is the country which claims they didn't even know where Osama Bin Laden was.  This is the country that has regularly attacked NATO convoys, supplied terrorists with weapons, money and training, and even officially claimed that this is nothing wrong when done in national interest, and now we're listening to an exiled general from that country telling us that Pakistan co-operated and co-ordinated an attack on one of their guests?  Do we really look that stupid?

Of course our North Indian English language media will never embarrass its guests, but it has no problem choosing monkeys to come as guests.  Let's get one thing straight, for heaven's sake!  Pakistan, the state, is the ENEMY of the nation of India.  Pakistan is lawless and will remain so!  We will never get any story straight from the Pakistani state.  Shahid Afridi may be the innocent buffoon they send to genuinely repair this image, and we love that buffoon and the cricket his team plays, but even there, freaking match fixing!  Dirty.  This is one filthy neighbour we have.  Let's not measure them with our scale of decency, even though we ourselves are pretty dirty.

There is a lot of "he said, she said" going on at the moment.  I don't give a rat's ass who said what.  If I was leading India (as opposed to misleading it), I'd look at actions.  I haven't seen any actions in reality that give me confidence in either Pakistan or the USA.  Those two richly deserve each other, because both are opportunistic foxes.  Why do we have to come into any equation with either of them?

Why is this so hard for our media to project?  Why is our society so backward in our thinking that we somehow imagine we are inferior and need to be approved by the USA or "the world"?  We shouldn't give a fuck.  That is a great attitude that has worked very well for Israel, and there is no reason it should not work for us.

Incompetence, they name is India.  We know.  But do we have to constantly look for ways to get worse?

- BSK.

A Nation of Passive Opportunists.

Anna Hazare has re-written history.  In fact, he has ensured the history of India is being written again.  He did the same thing Mahatma Gandhi did to the British - occupy high moral ground and blackmail the powers to succumb to his demand.  This word "blackmail" has a negative ring to it, doesn't it?  That's only because it conjures up images of cheap, witless psychopaths getting something they do not deserve, through devious means.  There's nothing devious about Anna Hazare's means, so clowns like Karan Thapar should stop acting like they are experts of this word "blackmail".  Long live the blackmailer, for the victim is the villain in this case.  Forty two years to pass a bill that gives us the right to prosecute the corrupt?  Enough of this, indeed, Annaji.

The mediocre always has to be pushed, prodded, woken up, beaten, and thrust into action by the extreme to get it to out of its inertial slumber.  India is a nation of massive mediocrity, dying to get worse, but somehow not allowed to by economic pressures.  We are not a non violent nation at all, as some of us would think.  We just choose the safer option because we're afraid of violence when it could turn against us.  What kind of influence do political parties regularly have on the "hapless" masses?  Any local MLA can call upon the services of murderers, thugs and rowdies to beat up any citizen that dares question any move!  This is why we are passive, not non-violent. 

But, we're opportunistic!  Anna Hazare gave us the opportunity, and we pounced on it.  This was our opportunity, not to clean up the nation, but to let our frustrations out.  We might get something out of it, but we might also forget all about it by the time the final draft of the Lokpal Bill comes out around the 30th of June this year.  It is a good thing indeed, but the movement that Hazare talks about is yet to happen.  It takes a fair amount of stamina to fight the system, especially when every moron around us has subscribed to a corrupt system.  Easier to pay the bribe, and get things done smooth and quiet - can this attitude change because of a Bill?  Most definitely not.  It still takes the citizen to approach the Lokpal and complain!  This takes work!  How can we Indians be expected to do work that doesn't pay?

Given the opportunity to get rich through corrupt means, without a major risk of being punished, most Indians would not hesitate for a second to jump into the cesspool.  How is the Lokpal bill going to address this mindset?  It will not, and it is indeed not the aim of the bill.  Given the opportunity to get "ahead" through corrupt means, short circuiting fair competition, most Indians would indeed do exactly this.  How else would we have fake pilots flying our aeroplanes?  We are cowards and we feel sick about it sometimes, but we convince ourselves we are being smart about it.  This is what our intelligence is used for.  Centuries of training in survival have taught us to flourish by staying out of the way, like germs.  Germs don't threaten enough to invite extermination, but are dangerous enough to keep us sick and unproductive - exactly what India is today.

How is the Lokpal Bill going to work, when it becomes the duty of the germs to inform the body of the invading disease?  We love the dis-ease.  We thrive in it, we thrive because of it, and we love the calmness of the sick patient, who has given up all hopes of fighting back.  In other words, this Anna Hazare character is a pest who is making us come out of our slumber and telling us we don't have to be germs anymore, because the patient is willing to let us lead a healthy existence within her body.  God bless Mother India, but how will the sheer masses of incompetence cope with an India that wants to throw out corruption?  Corruption is what keeps our masses lazy, well fed, and uncomplaining.  What can replace this incredible fuel?

We want opportunities.  Opportunities to further our laziness, opportunities to further our economic goals, and our sense of entitlement and power.  These have always existed.  Now, we also want opportunities to "feel good" about ourselves.  This is a new want, a new addiction in new age India.  We didn't want our boys to win the world cup because they played the best cricket and were truly deserving of the honour.  We wanted them to win so that we as "Indians" could wave the flag and yell at the world.  This is very sophomoric and idiotic of course, but it is also very American.  The USA is the country for us to look up to, for some reason.  No wonder a lot of our idiots have started putting their hands on their unfit chests when OUR national anthem is playing.  This again is nothing but an "opportunity" to showcase our patriotism just like Americans, but it has indeed become the opportunity for us to show how stupid we are, since even the Americans are supposed to do it not for their national anthem but for the Pledge of Allegiance!

There is nothing wrong in wanting to be Number One.  So, the pride we feel in our cricket team is natural.  How about doing something about the #119 we have in the Human Development Index?  See, we do not have the shining, sexy, fashionable opportunity for doing this.  It is not going to be quick, it is not going to be jingoistic, and it is not going to be vocal, so this process is going to be dull, unattractive, grinding, and horrendously time consuming.  We may not even be around when we get within #100 of this pesky index!  So, indeed we are not going to even try!

Anna Hazare didn't just provide the platform.  In this age of media glare, he provided the stage for many of our clowns to show up and perform.  The government yielded, not because it was morally forced to, but because it did not want to look like a failure on this stage!  It is all about perception, and performance on the stage!  No wonder Bollywood is completely in support of Anna Hazare although it produces movies with underworld money, has actors who shoot down wildlife, and even those who buy machine guns from terrorist outfits!  Was India outraged when Sanjay Dutt came on TV feeling bad about the terrorist attacks of 26th November?  Of course not!  We forgot that he had immersed himself in criminal anti-national activity but remembered him for his role in Munna Bhai or whatever crap.

We have become a nation of simplistic, easily manipulated fools.  We are no longer capable of critical thinking.  We go with what we like or dislike.  Anna Hazare is rather hard to dislike.  He is also not in the grey area, where critical thinking becomes immensely necessary.  He is out there in the white area, which is easy to sign up for!  That is why we chose to support him, not because we understood the full import of this Lokpal Bill and his blackmail tactic.  It takes the threat of calamity to force India to act in any haste to do ANY good.  We Indians love the foreboding threat of anything larger than life.  That is why we love our movie heroes to beat up fifty villains.  If he was human, it would require fifty of us to help him, and that won't be so interesting would it?

If we had to vote for a Supremo, a dictator or a king, (called "President" in some countries), we would gladly switch to that system.  We have grown up for centuries with kings as our benevolent dictators.  We even fondly recollect those times as the golden past of India.  The BJP even has a king Ram as their idol, so I wonder why nobody has asked them what the heck they are doing in a democracy while talking about a king all the time!  We do not like democracy really, because it puts responsibility on us.  If we could be slaves, we would.  That is why we make kings out of our elected leaders, and they gladly accept!  That is why they loot, and we applaud.  Look at those statues Mayawati has built of herself, and we know exactly what "opportunity" means for an Indian.

So, how to we function in the collective?  We do not!  We did not choose democracy.  It was chosen for us.  And now it may be too late to switch to a benevolent dictatorship, because too many of us would want to be the dictator.  So, we have this farce of a system where we elect people who don't have to listen to us or serve our interests as soon as they are elected.  Now, we're going to have the means to throw them in jail for corruption.  What about our own apathy, our incompetence, and our complete acceptance, even sympathy, for the crooked?  After all, we're the nation of really passive germs, who totally understand the need for survival.  How do we switch to intolerance?  We should suddenly thrash the peon who wants ten rupees for his "coffee"?  Or refuse to pay a donation that will ensure our unfit kid's a seat in that engineering college?  How are we going to change ourselves?

Our media has played a massive role in popularizing Anna Hazare and his campaign.  But this is not a service it embarked upon performing.  This was a big enough story to carry at the top.  Viewership!  Numbers!  Money!  Opportunity indeed!  From the World Cup to the IPL, the news channels were forced to fight for scraps.  Now Anna Hazare has provided them with phenomenal gravity.  It's a good thing this did not happen during the India-Pakistan match!  Very clever of you, Annaji!  Perfect timing!

Now, whatever happened to our sailors captured by Somali pirates, the Adarsh building scam, the 2G scam, the Commonwealth Games scam, and the thousand of other scams?  None of them are worth our attention now?  Eerily, it is time for something to come crashing down.  People must die for us to pay attention.  That is what Indian lives are worth - to bring viewership to our TV channels.  Aha!  Now, there's an opportunity!

- BSK.

The Lies of the Year!

As Indians, we were subjected to a lot of lies in 2009. From outrageous claims like kids using a certain soap attending school 40% more than those who didn't, to news channels claiming they had "exclusive" rights to national disaster stories, we had our share of craziness unleashed upon us. Not very different from other years, and no less deserving this time, but here is a list of lies so goddamn spectacular and large scale, they were not just presented as truth, they are still being gobbled up as such.

5. India is going to be a superpower!

Yeah right. 29th position in competitiveness, based on economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency, and infrastructure. Before you start thinking this isn't so bad, consider we are according to the World Bank, at the 122nd place for "Ease of doing business". Even worse, we're slipping. Just in case you'd like to bury your head in supersand and ignore these facts as mere numbers, we have 41% of the world's poor people, our public health system is a joke, and corruption puts us at 88th place in the world. In other words, there are 87 countries that are less corrupt than us, (not that our ranking will suffer much if the order was reversed!). 42% of our children suffer malnutrition, and rape is our fastest growing crime. Most definitely, we need someone with superpowers to save us, but we're by no means going anywhere near becoming a superpower anytime soon! It's a great lie given the facts stacked against it, but for sheer staying power, 5th place on this list!

4. Hindi is India's "National Language".

No matter how much we fight this untruth, there are enough people to propagate it. The print media was a bit careful about it this year, but channels like CNN IBN actually sent out reporters with cameras and microphones on programmes like Y Not, to proactively promote this absolute lie, calling Hindi our "national language", when the simplest of editorial ethics could have nipped this in the bud. Some of our politicians went far enough to trumpet this lie on the floor of the Parliament, and nobody went to jail for this blatant contempt of the Constitution. Example: http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20091109/816/tnl-i-am-proud-of-abu-azmi-for-taking-oa.html Even though you have to be really stupid to believe this one, a lot of people actually subscribe to it, particularly Hindi speakers, so how can we deny them 4th place?

3. People in our government are on an Austerity Drive!

Sure! Just look at how many cars follow a minister to the railway station, never mind the airport, and never mind how many millionaires our political system creates while they all work for the upliftment of the poor and downtrodden. Austerity my left foot toe, could we have a little more efficiency? This joke was so bad, it even wore itself out of mention in the media in less than a month. What a lie to unleash upon even the stupidest amongst us! And now, a New Year Gift for the nation - Parliament approves free air travel for any number of ministers' relatives - http://in.news.yahoo.com/48/20091222/814/tnl-parliament-nod-for-free-air-travel-t.html. The lie itself wasn't all that great, but for silliness, it gets some ridiculously valuable points to stand 3rd here.

2. We are here to show our support for the victims of this horrible terrorist attack!

No shit! What are you willing to do? Offer yourself to terrorists in exchange for some of the hostages? A lot of our monkeys aped people all over the world in propagating this wicked lie and repeating it, particularly after the Mumbai attacks. Some of our celebrities, even rascals who bought guns from the underworld and have gone on trial for terrorist and anti disruptive act crimes, promptly pulled sad faces on TV and parroted this lie. Sure you're showing solidarity with the victims of terror, you bastards. Light a candle or shed a tear if you want to feel good for yourself, but please spare us the lie about showing solidarity with people who're getting killed by terrorists. How sick to lie to dead people, instead of saying to their souls, truthfully, "Tough luck my friends, but thank God that wasn't me stuck there!". Do we have to insult them after we let them die? Enough already with the biggest bullshit of the last two decades, now firmly in fashion in India.

1. Barack Obama becomes the USA's first black president.

Hello? Barack Obama isn't black any more than he is white. His father is black, from Kenya, and his mother Caucasian. He is a person of mixed racial ancestry. The real question to ask is - if he was elected President of Kenya, would he have been considered Independent Kenya's first white president? There is a limit to spread a lie, but how could the media of the USA not take up such a great opportunity? Their whole viewpoint was more like a reaction to the thought - "Wonder when the next nigger would come along for us to celebrate and exorcise our demons of being called a racist country!" A man who looked a little black was good enough for them, and the Indian media was quick enough to endorse him as a full black man, like we give a shit about black people in the first place!

This lie is #1 for the sheer scale of nonsense and the amount of gloss and floss that comes into play each time it is unleashed and for the audacity with which the whole world has gobbled this black horse-shit!

Happy New Year!