Enough already!

I'm over the moon with our cricketing boys winning the World Cup.  Finally it is done and dusted - the elusive World Cup is now here, with us!  We are on the top of the world, both in Tests and ODIs and looking every bit like it, after beating many worthy opponents on the way.  I am thrilled to bits.

We have heard a lot about doing it for the nation, for Sachin, for various other reasons, from various players.  We have heard a lot about "the team".  And somehow, by yelling for "India!" (what else can we yell for?), a lot of us have somehow taken ownership of this Cup as if we all deserve it.  This bit is hilarious.

As far as I can see, nobody did a damn thing for the team.  That is not to say they were being selfish.  Hardly so!  They were being thoroughly professional and pooling in their resources in order to secure the win.  This is one very special fifteen member team, not because they can put aside their peeves and egos, as many fools have waxed eloquent about, but because they understood what it takes to win - it is that simple.  Why does the rest of India not understand how to get shit done?  We should not need patriotism to come to our aid each time we should do something to make India work.  Work - that is what this Indian cricket team knows how to do - to make their plans work.  They know how to work on their game till it is good enough to take out the opposition.

Dhoni deserves praise not for doing all this for his nation, which he unwittingly has done, but for listening to his own intuition whenever it mattered most.  It is his single minded trust on his own ability and on his own judgment that won us the cup.  Salute a man that creates his own destiny.  Let's not forget how he stands out as an individual that can galvanize a group into a trusting unit, and let's understand that first and foremost he is a fiercely competitive professional, not to be fooled by anything including patriotism.

Sachin Tendulkar is a lot more given to this patriotism nonsense, but from Dhoni, as from Abhinav Bhindra, it is professionalism first.  No wonder both are world beaters, while Sachin needed Dhoni to get him there.  Australia have done this, what, four times?  And did we hear any of their captains ever say they did it for their kangaroos and the beer drinking morons waving flags?  Heck, they did not even do it for their flag.  They did it purely because they were fierce competitors who loved to win.

I am all for a bit of fun, but to put "nation" onto our young men playing a game is quite retarded.  So, if they are such patriots to win this for us, would they be traitors if they lost?  In our cricket team, I see one quality that is absent in most spheres in India - the want to be better.  These kids are special, and most are from ordinary families who have grabbed their opportunity with both hands.  It is their dharma and they understand it.  For the kind of money they make, they do not even need to be this good!  So, let's appreciate a bunch of fiercely competitive kids who are enjoying doing this for their own joy!  Let's celebrate them for the brash rascals they should be but somehow hold themselves back from being that.  Perhaps being brash is just a waste of energy and their coach has told them to harness that as well?

We should remember they play for the BCCI, not the nation of India.  The BCCI is a club registered in Tamilnadu.  Its affairs are private, and so are its moneys.  It is VERY fortunate for them that this patriotic nonsense pushes up ticket sales and the cost of TV rights, so each time one of you idiots runs with a flag, you're helping them make a buck or two!  They are a fantastic club, in that they take care of their fraternity very well.  But that has nothing to do with the nation of India!

For sure, this team represents India, but unlike our skeet shooters and track athletes, this bunch is tightly controlled by the BCCI.  Imagine having to take permission from the BCCI to put that little Indian flag on the helmet!  There you go, just in case you didn't know where!

It is one thing to take inspiration from a great performance, but to allow one performance to overshadow all our other failings and achievements is to say the least, dangerous.  The whole nation does not come to a standstill when Saina Nehwal is playing an important game, or when Mahesh Bhupati and Leander Paes have quietly climbed back to the #1 spot in the world, the latter actually happening today.  The whole nation does not mourn when we find that we have been cheated to the tune of 176,000 crore rupees by a minister and his cohorts.  The whole nation does not hold candle light vigils for showing up at #146 on the Human Development Index released by the UN.  It is a much sadder matter than a lot of other events that evoke reactions from our media soaked people.

We have so many examples of individual brilliance, but each of them is despite the nation being what it is, not because of it.  If anything, there are millions who will actually achieve great things if this nation stays the fuck out of the way.  The more we buy into this patriotic bullshit, the more we are supporting a dysfunctional, mediocre, backward system that encourages being mediocre and begging for freebies in exchange for votes.  Surely, our cricketers are not playing for this mass of lethargic lard.

What's all the yelling all about anyway?  The rest of India has so much unused energy, because we are not worn down to exhaustion with anything we do.  We don't need to do much to fill our stomachs, that's the truth.  We don't need to be excellent at anything to make a very good living in India.  We can even fake certificates and become pilots.  We can bribe and move anything in our favour.  We can take cover under the umbrella of slow justice even after committing murder.  We can get away with A LOT in this very tolerant junkyard called India.

Let's not stop our cricket team from getting far away from this nonsense, though!  They have already bolted far ahead!  Let them go!  Let's not weigh them down with "India!".

- BSK

Our latest fashion - interference!

Very predictably, India has backed the UN Security Council sanctions on Libya.

So, we're the good guys here, and Gaddafi, is a despot and dictator, holding on to the reins of power since 1969?  We want to see the anarchy end, and peace on the streets of Libyan cities, towns and villages.

The Council on Saturday last week, voted 15 for and 0 against, to adopt Resolution 1970 - imposing a comprehensive arms embargo and a travel ban to the country of Libya, and to freeze the assets of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, who has ruled Libya since 1969.

This is the first time a country has been unanimously referred to the International Criminal Court by the Security Council.  We backed that resolution!

And yet, according to SM Krishna, we don't want to interfere in the affairs of another sovereign nation!

What is wrong with this picture?

Since when have we become so delusional as to think our actions and our inactions don't have any consequences?  Since when did we officially decide to back the UN, when even years after the genocide in Iraq by Bush and his military, no action has been brought against that idiot?  Bush deserves to be tried in the International Criminal Court for his enormous wrongs that have left no less than 600,000 Iraqis dead.  But somehow, that wrong goes unquestioned?

India has a diplomatic mission in Libya, a fully functional one, does it not?  So, if we were completely at ease with everything that has been going on in that country for so many years, what is suddenly irking us now?  All the Indians who have been there for years have been able to do that precisely - make a living - under Gaddafi.  Now what?  All of a sudden, we realized he is the devil?

What harm has Libya done to India, now that we have decided to back sanctions against a sovereign nation that our External Affairs minister says we don't want to interfere with?  We're not interfering with them you idiot!  We're totally fucking with them.

Truth is, we, the people of India, don't know the truth on the ground in Libya.  There hasn't been terrorism and bloodshed since 1969 to fuel any nonsensical claim that Gaddafi has been clinging to power that long through brutal repression.  Libya has been a fairly free country and has been quietly going about its normal life and business.  All of a sudden, there has been a wave of anti-government protests, which the world media has been quick to pounce on and declare as the winds of change sweeping through the Middle East and Northern Africa.

In the wake of Bush's illegal and nakedly belligerent attack and invasion of Iraq, there were many, many protests in the USA.  Did we back sanctions against Bush then?  Those protests were also quashed by the US government, and Bush has also famously stolen two elections, with rigged voting machines and untold amount of corruption like no-bid contracts to Haliburton, the company in which the vice president that Dick Cheney had stakes in.  Did India openly state even once that the USA's invasion of Iraq was totally illegal?  Or that democracy was being raped in the name of fighting terror?  We ignored Dubya but are obsessed with Libya?  Why?

What is our bloody official stance in world affairs?  We haven't done a rat's ass about using our "blue water" Navy to rescue our citizens from paltry Somali pirates.  We have not done anything about one of our IIT graduates being in jail in the USA for showering his anger on Bush, and we sure as hell did not do anything about our students getting beaten regularly in Australia, except of course Krishna making this stupid statement about how he did not know our students were going there to study fashion and catering!  Like they would not have been beaten up in rough neighbourhoods if the attackers knew they were all studying to be rocket scientists!

We are indeed happy to supply soldiers to the UN, to serve in other countries on peacekeeping missions, and our soldiers do lose their lives on those jobs.  What the heck do we do this for?  Why should Kartar Singh from a village in Madhya Pradesh lose his life in a mortar attack by rebel forces in Rwanda?  How come we are happy to interfere as long as the UN is the one telling us where to interfere?

Whose line are we toeing here?  And to what end?  It is all very nice of us to pull Indian citizens out, sending planes and ships for this, and it is all very nice to see some of them expressing gratitude and pride in being Indian.  But what exactly are we accomplishing by backing sanctions against a country that has not interfered with us in any way?  On what grounds are we accepting the standpoint of the rest of the UN Security Council that Libya under Gaddafi is in some way considerably larger as a threat to world peace than the USA was under Bush?  Don't we have any objective thought processes here?  What the hell are our diplomats there for?

We as a nation do not have a standpoint.  We do not have a collective position on anything any more.  We are without a moral compass, without an objective, without a stated position on who we are and what we stand for as a people.  What can be more dangerous to the second most populous collective in the world?

We have a legitimate interest in Afghanistan's well being and we are big donors to that country.  Nothing wrong with that, whatever our strategic objectives may be, considering Pakistan lies between us and Afghanistan.  We do not send our soldiers into Afghanistan, even though the USA would love that.  The reason is more political than principle.  Our opposition would never allow this weak kneed government at the centre to send our soldiers into battles that have nothing to do with us.

More and more, under Sonia Gandhi, India is leaning towards a blind pro-West stance that is morally well below unquestionable, and clearly driven more by perception than by reality.  There is this "perception" that the UN is actually right on all issues.  This is simply not true.  Just because Barkha Dutt takes her mug and plants it in Libya, cuddling rebel forces who want "change" does not mean we should sympathize with the anti-government rebels who have no idea what that change really might mean.

What exactly do we know about Libyan people?  What do we know about how hard it must be to bring about change in that country, whether it is the form of government or the type of leader?  It is just freaking fashionable to support the West's notion that all change is good change?  Why can't we leave it to the Libyans to decide what they want?  Who are we to cuddle up to the opposition and take this notional stance that Gaddafi must go?

Our Maoists want the same kind of change in our country.  Do we tolerate them?  Imagine if China supported a travel ban and sanctions against India, and sent its reporters to cover our Maoists demanding that our government be sent home and a new India be born with Kishenji as the leader of our nation.  How preposterous it already sounds to us.  So, why can't we extend a serious ear to what Gaddafi is saying?  Why are we so presumptuously in agreement with Libya's condition as stated by the USA and the rest of the UN coterie?

Libyan opposition forces captured British secret agents who came to "help" them!  http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article1514543.ece  This is hilarious, because it clearly sends out the signal - "Don't show up, outsiders!".  In fact, it screams a Libyan will to block all interference from outside.  The opposition is furious, for this kind of intervention will make it look like this revolution is fuelled from the outside!  Brilliant!  So, why are we showing up there?  And why the heck are our news channels so proud about trumpeting who got there first?  The first to be super stupid?  Heck, that's something I'd try to hide!  India, clueless and directionless as always.

Many Indians who lived in Iraq swear to this day that Saddam Hussein's rule was the best in its history.  Iraq was a progressive country, flourishing in education, commerce, and even the arts.  Indians were treated well, and the country was doing fine.  Then came its darkest period - becoming the USA's enemy.  Many of us Indians do not even know what sparked Iraq's attack on Kuwait.

Kuwait was illegally pumping more oil than it was allowed to, thereby unfairly pushing Iraq's oil price down.  Kuwait had been allowed a 5 year period when it could pump above its quota of oil output in order to build its economy after a collapse.  Well beyond this time, Kuwait continued to pump in excess of its quota.  American and British companies were the beneficiaries and despite Saddam Hussein's several warnings, and pleas, the "world" ignored him.  He even said he would attack Kuwait's oil installations if this continued, and it did.  That is how the first Gulf War came about.

The world's largest media outlets are either owned by or controlled by people and organizations that are vested in the Western point of view.  Rupert Murdoch cannot be beaten as the most blatant symbol of media backing vital political interests.  Suffice to say, the biggest noise in the Indian media today, certainly in TV, is being made by interests that lean well towards the USA and its embarrassingly simplistic view of the world.  Barkha Dutt is the shrill parrot that exemplifies this attitude.  Sheer incompetence shamelessly cloaked in self righteousness.  Both should be unacceptable to any country aiming for true progress.

We Indians have become far too convenience trained.  We do not have a culture of critical thinking anymore.  We would rather put our minds on something enjoyable rather than being curious about what is going on in the world around us.  Libya is also standing up in our attention because we have been told to pay attention to it.  There is nothing more "happening" right now, apart from the thousands of crores of our wealth being stashed by crooks supported by the government without any prosecutions so far.  Libya is replacing our attention that should also be on a major slip involving the selection of the Chief Vigilance Commissioner.  Libya is playing the role of a classical decoy, but this role has been assigned by our media.

Nobody in the Indian media is even questioning the absence of the counterpoint on this Libya issue.  Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's president, is a shining example of standing by principle.  He has come out in support of Gaddafi, called him a friend, and condemned the design to invade Libya as "madness".  He has also called for international mediation.  "Mediation" not "sanctions".  Who is being dictatorial here?  The UN or Chavez?  Where is this counterpoint in this so called FREE DEMOCRACY called India?  Are we so blinded by our perceived loyalty to the USA and its allies that we don't even feel the necessity to balance our viewpoint?

Most of all, why are we buying into this crap that democracy is the solution to the future of the world?  Taking our own country as an example, democracy is not working.  Our country is being looted, and social programs to not reach the needy.  Our kings, ALL of them dictators, did a much better job of delivering justice and maintaining peace and fostering prosperity.  A benevolent dictatorship is a much better, more proven and reliable form of government.  Why does democracy deserve such a vulgar level of promotion when its record is dismal?

If the USA were to have its way, we'd have another war soon.  The USA is talking about striking and taking out Libya's air capabilities.  Who the fuck is the USA to talk about a "no fly zone" over Libya?  And why are we not vehemently opposing it?  If we want to play a "global" role of some sort, we should start by defining what we stand for.  We can't be showing up fully decked in our pomp at parties we are not invited to.  We look silly enough already.

India, please wake up!  Let's mind our own business, please.  There is plenty of it.

- 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!

The Melting Point

In the rich tradition of poor Indian documentary film making, The
Melting Point today came on CNN IBN, presented by Bahar Dutt.

Sure enough, we found ourselves in front of the idiot box, and we must
be taken for idiots, for nobody else would actually watch and be taken
for the same ride again and again. We went to the Himalayas, saw some
ice melting, and a sage who also takes photographs of retreating
glaciers, and spoke to people who spoke of how a gushing stream is now
a trickle, of how one particular glacier is retreating at twenty
metres per year. Oh, we also heard that a billion gazillion square
kilometres of ice is now MELTING!

Everything is MELTING! The world is MELTING! The Clicking Baba says
so, and he thinks this could be the end of the world. What else can
poor Bahar Dutt do, other than sit at his feet and listen in rapt
attention? This is, after all, profoundly important.

Anytime you go to the Himalayas and look at ice in bright sunshine,
you will find water dripping off it. THAT is NOT global warming! It
is simply a regular cycle of ice forming and melting. That is not the
image we should be seeing. But this is lazy, insidious film making,
at its worst when done by a typically clueless Indian documentary film
maker. Okay, okay, we get it, the world is melting. So what? Why
did you have to drive your crew all the way upto the Himalayas and
pollute it some more to tell us what we already know? Why can't you
tell us anything new? Did you find out anything from YOUR trip that
we should absolutely be enlightened by? Of course not, Bahar Dutt.
Because you have not done the basic homework needed to make a
documentary. You have no story!

Why would CNN IBN put out such a poorly formed documentary on air?
That shouldn't surprise us, coming from a channel that sends out
equally dumb reporters on other programs that claim Hindi as the
National language, but let's not lose focus of the issue itself - poor
presentation of a subject already well known. In other words, there
is no film here. There is no story, and this whole Melting Point
episode is nothing but a gaping hole.

She also claimed we're living in denial. That's really pushing it,
unless this documentary is five years too old or we're about five
years old. Sorry, but this is an inconvenient truth. We are in the
middle of a well represented international summit in Copenhagen, for
heavens sake, on climate change, global warming, and all related
issues, and what each country in the world must do. This is
definitely not living in denial, and it looks like this woman is high
on thin Himalayan air and low on IQ.

Why is it so hard to even copy from the best in the business? The
same country that has polluted the earth the most for so long, the
USA, has long since leaped forward and found answers for reversing its
oil dependency, and has developed technologies to run entire cities,
for instance, on solar power. It is already here. A solar powered
aeroplane left the ground years ago and has been flying non stop for
years. Again, not Indian. There is no denial. It is time we ran the
stories that can actually make a difference to us.

A little bit of intelligence will go a long way in judging for
ourselves what we CAN do to fight againt climate change, assuming of
course that we caused it in the first place. India is one of the
lowest energy consumers in the world. Our per capita pollution is a
small fraction of those bums in the USA and now, China. We should be
happy we're concerned, but switching off all lights for an hour in
Mumbai, and all the young fools driving to the beach to join some
arbid human chain is just plain stupidity. Here's why -

83% of the world's atmospheric pollution is caused by power
generation. That 83% is not going to be touched even by a fraction by
any of our cities even having a blackout. If the power coming to your
grid is from a hydro electric or nuclear source, don't even try. The
nuclear fuel has already spent its heat on the heavy water and it has
already transferred its energy to the turbine that is running the
generator, well before you decided to switch off your lights. The
water that gushed through the turbine in your hydel plant is simply
running through it because of gravity. In other words, hydro electric
power is virtually free, and has no consequence on the environment.

Thermal power, on the other hand, is an issue. But still, the power
plant isn't going to run any slower because of you groping in the dark
for an hour and feeling good about it. Not only is India a very small
polluter, our biggest electricity consumption doesn't come from
lighting homes! It goes into heavy industries, running our trains,
and so on. There's no stopping any of that.

What we could do is run our vehicles more efficiently. Get more
mileage out of them, drive the longer route if it promises fewer gear
changes, do some hypermiling if we are expert drivers, and just plain
walk instead of drive when we can. The exercise cannot hurt, and we
can feel good for more than one reason. Public transportation is
miserable so there is no point sacrificing our productivity and having
to take a shower after each trip. A two wheeler instead of a car is a
great idea, but may not be practical. Driving without the A/c on is
simply not an option given how much grime and dust there is in the
air.

Too bad, but you as an individual living in India, don't count for
much when it comes to polluting the earth. But don't get to your
Melting Point, just because Bahar Dutt is so concerned about looking
concerned about it on TV. She doesn't count for much either.