Can the Lokpal cure us of our apathy?

Anna Hazare has made some great noises and started a great process.  The government has buckled under the pressure to offer us the passage of the Lokpal Bill, which, when it comes into law, will allow us to prosecute the corrupt, rather quickly, and effectively, depending upon the final draft that comes into force.

This doesn't mean we will suddenly see corruption go away.  It means, if we want, we can prosecute without the usual hindrances.  It will still take considerable effort to use the Lokpal to put away corrupt individuals.

The urban middle class of India is the most politically inactive but fashionably righteousness conscious demographic of this country.  It is a mindset, indeed, and we are mad about a lot of things, but unwilling to unleash that anger on anything that will get something done.  We are candle vigilantes and nothing more.

So, how about including a small clause in the Lokpal bill that makes it a crime to notice a crime and not report it?  After all, corruption, as we call it is a bloody crime.  It is thievery, blackmail, denial of rights to people coming through the fair competition route, and anti-national to the core.  So, let's bring in a healthy dose of the words "crime" and "criminal" into this revolution!  In other words, if you pay a bribe, you're a bloody criminal as much as the pig who takes bribe - for whatever reason!

Unless we, the people of India are under threat of being prosecuted for a criminal offence, we will not report crime like we should.  So, how about making this Lokpal Bill include us and our brothers and sisters across the expanse of this nation of India not just responsible but actually culpable to the crime of corruption?  Should it not be our duty to report crime?  How about enforcing this duty as well?

Blackmail is a crime, and bribery more often than not, is blackmail, when demanded for a legal procedure.  If the procedure is illegal - well, that is already a crime!  We seem to treat corruption as some kind of common cold, while murder, rape and other more spectacular deeds are more like heart attacks!  This must change.  If it is illegal, it is a crime against the nation's rightful progress, and a bloody crime against the nation.

Why do we suddenly want more laws?  The Lokpal Bill is just another law coming into effect, isn't it?  We already have plenty of mechanisms that we have eroded, ignored, or abused, like the Vigilance Commission.  Why is the Lokpal going to be any different?  Legislation is not going to solve any problem we face in India.  Enforcement can.  We are not good at this.  The first step to enforcing any law or prevent the escape of those breaking the law is reporting.  We need at the very minimum, a robust reporting mechanism, that should not be reserved for spectacular crimes.

Can we please let the Lokpal drafting committee know that it should be legally incumbent and binding upon the citizenry to report crime?  After all we are, by virtue of half the members of this committee being from civil society, absolutely responsible for making it work, whether the government does its part or not!  Also, when the government would love to prosecute its citizens for not reporting, it would have to acknowledge the crime as having taken place, and will have to prosecute the other side as well!  What a beautifully binding marriage this!

The most spectacular crime, by the sheer scale of practice, that most Indians participate in, is apathy.  If we support the Lokpal Bill's passage, we should have no problem accepting an anti-apathy clause as well.  What do you say, flag wavers?  Ready to do some real work?

- BSK.

The value of shit.

I watched the runaway Tamizh movie hit Mankatha in a theatre today.

This is what I got - drunk guy, promiscuity, ugly male friends, getting drunk, feeble attempts at humour, the beginning of a plot that came out of a drunk guy's mouth, mentions of a betting mafia, one nice girl and her dad, mention of a huge amount of cash, a hardly believable heist in which half a physical truck was replaced by an identical half when all the victims had to do in broad daylight was turn around to look but did not, girl teasing boy, cars, boy teasing girl, beeps to cut out bad language, a little bit of anger, mention of cricket, profile shots, staring fat guys, flying fat guys, landing fat guys, shooting, more feeble attempts at humour, a shitload of shooting, death, gyrating hips, all the twists you could predict, none you couldn't, loud unmelodious music, small relief at the intermission and a big headache at the end.

It is not hard to see the director's point of view - fun and indulgence can only be booze, smoking and women - for Indian men that is.  It is not hard to see this shit called a movie in some circles is a runaway success.  Can't argue against success, can we?  After all, we live in a nation that measures everything.  So how can we possibly complain?

I remember the Bajaj Chetak was a big hit once upon a time.  The choices were between this lousy three legged horse of a scooter and another remnant of a nostalgic era, called the Lambretta.  The waiting period on this stupid beast was 6 years!  It was in DEMAND!  For some reason, after the choices opened up for Indian auto customers, this damn thing vanished.  As did Yezdi motorcycles and petromax lamps.

In the absence of decent choices, the least rotten shit sells like food.  In fact, it sells AS food.  The most telling symptom of bankruptcy is when shit gets hyped as great food.  But this shit isn't even the least rotten of all the shit available in the theatres today.  It is just the best dressed shit.  Something has to fill the void, sate the hunger.  So why not dress up the first shit that comes down the tube at the right moment?

Ajith has a role in which he enjoys himself.  After torturing himself and us in other roles, this one must be a relief.  So, he's part of the dressing.  Arjun kicked some serious butt as soon as he showed up.  That was cool.  But he's done it already a thousand times before.  If he was the more watchable nonsense, how many grades of shit do we have to have for this load to qualify as a meal?

And yet, people lapped it up, apparently.  I didn't see anybody other than two out of a group of three boys that hollered and hooted on a couple of occasions.  The rest were pretty much numb.  Like in most movies coming on Indian screens today, nobody laughs at comedy, nobody cries at tragedy, nobody claps at thrills and spills, and seriously, if a wheelie got these two boys all kicked, I really have to wonder if they got into a time machine in 1982 and landed right in the middle of our twenty first century Indian shit.  The stoppie was not bad, but check out the kids on Marina Beach doing that regularly.

I wonder why our leading women regularly subject themselves to play out male fantasies.  It is not as if they regularly get to play strong female roles, but do they have to demean themselves all the time?  Aren't we done already with pouting, rubbing, and acting coy?  Would it be so hard for them to rise up?  But if they struggled too much to stand on a pile of shit, I suppose they'd get buried in it pretty easily.

Shit has its value.  It can be used as manure.  Movies like this shouldn't dare compare themselves to such levels of usefulness.

- BSK.

An Exaggerated Reverence for Fake Notions.

Is it just me, or is this a specialist Indian trait - giving respect where none is due?

I was just criticized for being brash and rash, by a senior Indian friend of mine, and I have no problem accepting I am rash and brash.  But the reason this criticism came baffles me.  He sent me a long list of "Winners vs Losers" sayings, topped up with "the blessings of ABC priest" and a picture of this saffron man.  All I did was place my bet that this priest had nothing to do with these sayings.  That's it.

I was not only criticized for doing that, but a suggestion even followed - perhaps it is because I am unmarried that I am like this!

Seriously, if I got a whole bunch of sayings, "With the blessings of XYZ person", is it not normal to assume that those sayings were being attributed to that person?  Is it wrong to question that?  I wasn't even taking a stance here of any sort, just placing a bet that this priest did not say those things about winners and losers.  I get chastised for that?  Well maybe I should have asked the real question - "Why do you have to put this priest over these sayings if you don't intend some sort of association?  Are the sayings so irrelevant that I would take them seriously if this saffron guy blessed me?  Or is the dude so at a loss for words that he had to tag on to these sayings in case he appears dumb otherwise?

It is no secret that I hate these fucking do-gooders who don't do shit except spread the "good" word.  I am one of those bastards that has no respect for age, and I make no secret of it.  I have no respect for a priest or saint just because that person chose that life.  I do have a lot of respect for an ordinary person who pats a stray dog, feeds some needy person, or waters a sapling diligently.  Enough already with the fake notions about ourselves.

There is an India that is holy beyond question, self righteous, blind as a bat with confidence, but useless in abilities of perception.  The people who come from this India want Indian culture imposed on every damn thing, even if it is practically hopeless.  They love all the "good news" about India that they hear, and ignore all the truth that doesn't sound or look so good.  These are the fools that believe an Indian company can make an "iPad killer" even when they have not done anything but talk about a stupid tablet they are coming out with as their first product, and these are the people that imagine the USA's space program is on its feet because of the Indians working at NASA!

Why is it that these people assume India has the patent on intelligence and culture, even while India's own engineers have not been called upon to clean up the Ganges, and India's youth no longer subscribe to the social values their parents agreed to abide by to their parents?  The harsh truth is, India is a bloody fake nation.  It had some great things going for it in the last few thousands of years, but India the nation was yet to be born!  Since 1947, India the nation has been at the mercy of dogma, assumptions, exaggerated reverence for the wrong things, and this belief system that keeps Indian people individually holy but collectively corrupt and inefficient.

This is not to belittle the success of the Indian postal department's PIN code system, or the various strides Indians have made in various fields.  It is to question our right to imagine other nations have not made similar progress in the corresponding period.  We're going ahead, for sure, but that just means we caught the same evolution bus as everyone else from monkey to human.  Nothing more.  This truth doesn't sit well with this arrogant India.

As ridiculous as it may seem - let's take the first few boasts from this website http://www.nagpurdarpan.com/main/indian.htm  for instance. 

There are 3.22 Million Indians in America.
38% of Doctors in America are Indians.
12% of Scientists in America are Indians.
36% of NASA employees are Indians.
34% of MICROSOFT employees are Indians.
28% of IBM employees are Indians.
17% of INTEL employees are Indians.
13% of XEROX employees are Indians.

First of all, why is America (presumably the USA) the gold standard for "Indians"?  Why not see how NASA, MICROSOFT, IBM, INTEL, and XEROX are ALL American companies, not Indian!

Let's take the 3.22 Million Indians in America.  Okay, so they made it great.  What about the 1.2 billion who are still in India?  The Indian doctors in America are probably very good.  What about those in India?  How many doctors do we have here, and why is our healthcare system so screwed up that most government hospitals are just concentration camps?

12% of scientists in America are Indians?  Great!  The community of scientists in the USA are responsible for the USA holding 90% of the patents since the invention of the aeroplane.  We are using pilots with fake licenses to fly our people in them!

36% of NASA employees are Indians.  Great!  100% of ISRO employees are Indians.  What exactly are we proud about here?  ISRO is the best of the best of government organizations in India.  But the mention here is still NASA!  The gold standard is still the USA in this patriotic message about India!!

If you go down the list of things Indians should be proud of, almost all the great things took place in ancient India, zilch in the nation of India we have today.

We still have too much reverence, exaggerated reverence, for ancient things, and that is why perhaps we don't trumpet the bride burning custom of "Sati" which was also part of India's culture not so long ago.  Now, for heavens sake, stop telling me about how we respect our elders.  I don't, okay?  Those of our elders that are respectable, get my respect.  Those that run with bullshit "do good" notions while hiding behind their own inefficiency and inarticulate, archaic notions of culture, I couldn't give a shit about.  I will never respect anyone just for their age.  It might change if they start acting their age.

Google "proud to be an Indian" and you will see the same old rants about how high the Himalayas are, how beautiful our rivers are, (like there are no other nations which have mountains and rivers that are more beautiful!), and this regular trumpet about "How great our culture is"!.  What the fuck is this culture I hear about?  People shoving each other in all public transportation?  Spitting in all public places?  Human excrement in the open?  Getting killed in stampedes in religious places?  Bribery?  Corruption?  Getting away with murder?  Cops raping rape victims who went to police stations for lodging a complaint?  The list of incredibly uncultured, criminal behaviour is endless in India.  What the fuck is there to be proud of?

But I'm sure we will get some blessings from ABC priest and this country will be great again.  Till then, we don't have to do SHIT.  Especially, THINK.

- BSK.

Independence Day - a Nightmare.

Happy Independence Day!

On this auspicious, incredible 65th Independence Day celebrations, here is a special gift:

A Special Police Officer and a Territorial Army jawan staged a killing for "benefits".  That's right!  These two produced a dead body for personal gain.  Gain FROM the government.  Moral of the story - Indian Government rewards killing.  Thank you Mahatma Gandhi.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/poonch-encounter-for-rewards-spo-jawan/831726/

>>>"We had engineered this encounter, in which one civilian was killed, for post, rewards and money," arrested Special Police Officer (SPO) of the Special Operations Group (SOG) of J and K Police Noor Hussain told a press conference in Surankote area here.<<<

What is chilling about this is the use of the word "engineered".  This is premeditated murder, a planned execution.  We have put people in uniform that have taken it upon themselves to use unarmed civilians, not as target practice, but as bounty! 

How low do these pigs have to be for this to even begin to run as a thought?  How low do these vermin have to stoop and which other nation could have produced such low thinking?  Thinking so low, that makes genocide look like a noble venture.

A living person was turned into a dead body so that promotions, rewards and money could be obtained.  Which other nation would put a human life below promotions, rewards and money?

The responsibility placed upon this Special Police Officer was to protect civilians from militancy, but he and his Territorial Army cohort have taken it upon themselves to kill civilians themselves!  I'm not scared of terrorists.  I'm petrified of government authorized assassins, thugs and murderers.

>>>The other accused and TA jawan Abdul Majeed said: "There was no involvement of any officer or official of Army and police in the encounter."<<<

Oh, thanks a lot.  I'm happy with the Army officials being busy with cornering shady land deals and denying war widows homes that were meant for them.  As for the police, I'm happy if they stick to petty crimes like demanding bribes from traffic non offenders.  Seriously, we should believe a murdering thug's words on this?  Insult to injury?  I think not.  Just a laugh to top off the apathy we have accrued over the years with mercenary ambition.

We are celebrating independence from what?  I have long since stopped saying things like "proud to be an Indian", but now I wonder how much more I have to suffer for unwittingly and involuntarily being born in this rotten, corrupt, spineless and outright evil nation called India.  I am sick, and turning more toxic with each passing day and the unearthing of every new low India has sunk to.

Every bloody day, there is at the very least, one news item, that doesn't just report a crime, but one that tears out one more thread from the already flimsy fabric of India's national character.

A study that came out a few weeks ago found India to be the most depressed country.
http://www.indianexpress.com/comments/study-says-india-most-depressed-country/822950/  So, we're not just really screwed up, we're depressed too?   Superstitious people, please tell me - was it a good idea to become independent at midnight?  Surely, some forces of darkness took hold of us since that fateful day in 1947.

A friend sent me this news item recently, telling us that India TOPS Academic fraud!  http://www.deccanherald.com/content/183621/india-tops-academic-fraud.html

Is there ANY field of endeavour where India is not compromised and trying to get lower in some way?  We cannot build a bridge without some contractor pocketing some money illegally.  We cannot lay a road without a lot of money being siphoned away from the quality of the road.  We have pilots with fake licences, sportspersons taking illegal drugs, undeserving people getting driving licences and driving like lunatics, our coast guard unable to spot terrorists coming in from the sea, and we have people DYING because of all the above.  DYING!  Nothing less.  Isn't life called the "ultimate price" for some reason?  What more do we have to pay with, before our rotten nation can wake the fuck up?

We make tall claims but never deliver, except for our cricket team, which has been bashed mercilessly now for losing one series!  Even though the rest of the nation ranks 119 on the Human Development Index, we still want to bash the World Champions we have miraculously produced.  We have fraud in the Public Distribution System, widows of jawans have to pay bribe to get their measly pensions, educational institutions charge illegal donations, our public hospitals are nothing but deplorable concentration camps, and we have people shitting in the open, SIXTY FOUR fucking years after we became independent.  But we have no problem "discussing" what to do with pigs who looted the nation to the tune of lakhs of crores of rupees.  What the hell is there to discuss?

I don't see a difference between the thieves involved in the 2G spectrum scam, and these low level thugs in uniform that went on a rampage to kill some poor unconnected soul to manufacture this dead body the government rewards.  With more such murders, some of these bastards would be receiving medals on Independence Day and Republic Day, and our little children will hero worship them!  Scary thought?

I want these two bastards impaled by spears and paraded on a special "war on crime" float at Red Fort when Manmohan Singh delivers his limp and lame, often repeated address to the nation.  Then I want that float to reach Janpath

We can segue to the fasting by Anna Hazare in Jantar Mantar.  Then I want these two burnt carcasses hung from India Gate, where all the tourists can see we are serious about our national character.

Then this will be my Happy Independence Day.  Until then this will be my nightmare.

- BSK.

Ambiguity - an Indian's best friend

In a debate about actors, point out to an Indian that Rajinikanth is a pretty ordinary actor and for some reason, the conversation will invariably veer towards, "Oh, but he is the biggest star", or even worse, "But he's a very humble chap".  What the *#@&$ does him being humble have to do with him being a lousy actor?  We're not talking about his qualities as a human being, but Indians have a hard time sticking to topics where a subjective viewpoint is welcomed, but an objective argument is necessary.

Before selecting a course for study, Indian youngsters often end up asking elders for advice.  A few advanced souls have no problem asking the youngsters what s/he is interested in or has an aptitude or liking for.  The rest have no problem dishing out a bewildering array of opinions based on nothing but prejudice, but cloaking it with the invariable ambiguous twenty paisa wisdom that seems to come with age.  These idiots have no problem dishing out nonsense like  "Engineering will always have good scope".  God forbid if the kid asks "So why are you not an engineer?".  It will be considered rude.  The deeper question that begs to be asked is, "If you're not an engineer, how do you know so much about engineering?".  The answer that will likely soak up this challenge will be, "Listen to your elders.  Take some guidance!".  As if good intent always translates to good advice!

Only in India can we see traffic lights AND traffic police working in the same place at the same time.  What are we supposed to pay attention to?  On many ridiculous occasions, I have seen the traffic cop waving traffic onwards, even when the light has not changed!  This really is like us having to trust his judgment on the danger involved, over the unambiguous message from the red light.  No wonder our people use their own judgment when there is no traffic cop to create our much needed drug - confusion!  There has been an occasion when I went ahead and one speeding car trying to get through its green light right of way almost ran into me.  Ambiguity can kill.

In this connected world, we get all sorts of messages, and we Indians have not spared the airwaves with our propensity for rumours either.  We have no problem forwarding SMS messages and e mail messages that contain a lot of untruth, but are cloaked with that overwhelming aura of "doing good".  Case in point - the messages that came out warning people not to go out in the rain, for fear of getting irradiated in India from the leakage in Sendai, Japan!  Not even Tokyo had that sort of an alert, and it is a whole lot closer to Sendai than Chennai.  So, I turned around in an attempt to quell that rumour and questioned the sender where the information had come from.  "It is coming on BBC" was the reply.  I checked the BBC.  Nothing.  So I persisted, checked the internet for various news sources.  Nothing of this sort had ever been even mentioned.  Time to confront.  I asked this rumour artist where the heck this crap had come from.  Instead of an apology, I got, "Better to be careful, no?  What is wrong with that?"

The problem is we seek refuge in ambiguity that is often manufactured, but will take the victim a fair bit of stamina to question an expanding cosmos of confusion.  The Indian bets against your will to fight ambiguity.  This is a crime if it goes unchecked.  Look at the way our government evades questions about terrorism and why we were attacked recently again - "This is not an intelligence failure.  We are plugging all holes in the system, and we will soon get to the bottom of this."  This is the Indian way of saying, "We don't know", but making it sound like, "We will know soon".  But, we know how to make it benign enough by putting things in that sound like sincerity, good intent, competence, while in reality it stinks of incompetence, foolishness, and inability to comprehend.  End result - forgiven!

Assuming you're male here - ask an Indian who has occupied your seat in a train to vacate, and there is a very good chance s/he will try a few social contract loopholes to continue to occupy your seat because it is convenient.  First, the stupid question, "This is your seat, eh?".  Then the shameless, uncouth offering of an alternative usually follows.  (If you were willing to sit in any vacant seat, you'd travel unreserved, would you not?)  If you insist, you better do it nicely, so that the dignity of the crook is not violated.  You are entitled to say, "This is my seat, so get your ass out of it", of course!  But anything even remotely aggressive, like, "No thank you.  Could I have the seat I reserved for myself please?", will invite, especially if you're trying to kick out a fat female, some response, not even from her, but from one of her companions like "Sir, ladies".  This is supposed to mean a whole lot of things starting from, "She is a lady, so be nice to her" and extending to mean - "You're a male, and can travel tough.  She needs to sit comfortably in a seat of her choice".  What is ambiguous about a "reserved" ticket with a coach number and a seat number?  What is so hard to understand here?  OF course I'm entitled to my seat!

The biggest of all playgrounds for this is during a vehicle accident, where a clear mistake has been committed by a rather respectable looking Indian.  The invariable "mob" will almost always take the side of the "respectable looking" fool, rather than the less respectable and rightfully angry person who demands the fool first acknowledge his mistake.  The "mob" represents India accurately - taking the convenience of ambiguity, of assumption that the angry person is more likely to have caused the accident by impatience or speeding, even when all evidence is to the contrary.  What is even worse, the "respectable Indian" who drove like a fool won't make a single attempt to clear the air and accept that it was indeed his fault.  In many cases, the fool will not even know, because there is a great deal of ambiguity already in people's minds on how to drive!  The issue is no longer about who broke the rules, but about who seems more reasonable to "solve the problem".

There was one occasion when I was a youngster and had a bank account with a rather respectable Indian bank.  One day, I found an extra three hundred rupees in my account, and I was delighted that perhaps my father had put in some more money!  I withdrew it and spent some of it, immensely happy.  The next time I went into the bank, I was called in by the manager, and accused of overdrawing my account.  I showed him my passbook, which clearly had a credit entry of three hundred rupees and as far as all evidence went, I only withdrew the money I had in my account.  I was not even eligible for overdraft, so how could I have withdrawn anything extra?  This was my question.  I was a teenager then, and the manager was a robust fifty something I think.  He asked me how I could not tell my account had been accidentally credited.  I had no problem asking him how I would know the difference between an accidental credit and a real one, based on the entry THEY had made in my passbook.  He had no qualms about threatening me with some action he was going to take, instead of apologizing for their mistake and requesting me to help them out.  All of a sudden, I was guilty of something?  I told him he could take whatever action he wanted, but I knew he could do nothing.  End result - I hated how he was dragging me into his cesspool of inefficiency and ambiguously drawing me into "the mess" I had not created.  I never went to that bank again.  Screw ambiguity and screw the bums who use it to hide their inefficient asses behind.

For some reason, the biggest Indian crooks, the shenanigans who accept bribes, the pigs who pay them even to get perfectly legal work done, the bastards who evade taxes, all have no problem worshipping God.  Many even have pictures of gods in their workplace!  Could this be because they have an ambiguous relationship with God?  Could it be because they're guilty enough about the lives they lead in order to "invest" themselves in some sort of "good"?  Unfortunately, in India, we do not take religious symbols for exactly that!  We get them all mixed up with piety, cleanliness, devotion, humility and even purity!  Any surprise we catch godmen in pretty ungodly activities all the time?  Could it be because of our inability to get out of this morass of ambiguity?  Any surprise we would do our level best not to remove a completely illegal religious structure?  How come the religion has no problem violating our laws, but our laws have a real fear of violating religion by merely removing a structure?  Did I just hear "sentiments"?

Most "sentiments" are nothing but unwanted importance attached to a lot of ambiguous concepts like auspicious time, religion, superstitions, blind beliefs, and indeed India is a fertile breeding ground for stupid sentiments.  Ask Indians how numerology works only in English, and we will begin to kick down this wall of asinine ambiguity.

We Indians love nothing more than character assassination.  We do it with celebrities, public figures, politicians, sportspersons - virtually anybody that is well known or getting there, that we do not "like" or is getting a bit too famous!  It's a good thing we do not dig up too much dirt from our politicians' personal lives in election campaigns, and this is amazing indeed.  But it is not hard to find conversations revolving around which actor is having an affair with whom.  Pure gossip for fun?  Possible.  But confront one of these gossip mongers with "How do you know?", and out comes, what else - ambiguity!  "Come on!  All these movie guys are like that, okay?".  A sweeping ambiguous statement that cannot be conclusively argued against.

Push for something more serious, and go ahead, state that most gossip mongers map their own fantasies to other people they think have the opportunity to live them out, and a defence is bound to come out, "No, I don't want that life, thank you".  As if we're supposed to concede some ground to the rumour in order to not offend the rumour monger because we have now attacked the rumour monger's character!  Now, decency has to be quickly established beyond doubt.  And it will be, because there is no way we can prove anybody's fantasy!  Ambiguity has served its purpose - spreading the rumour is no longer the original crime!  Oh, in conclusion you may even hear the ambiguous, "Who cares about celebrities and their affairs anyway?"!!!

Indians are experts at opening up and increasing the scope for ambiguity in any exchange.  We expect to be forgiven and even appreciated for being of "good moral character", even when we have the lowest levels of social consciousness.  We fully expect to do a mediocre job and not be yelled at because we are willing to be perfectly soft spoken and unthreatening if indeed that is what it takes to get out of a tough situation that might define us as "guilty".

Tell some Indian pig talking on his/her cellphone in the middle of a theatrical movie experience to cut it out, and the pig will continue.  Get rude, say it a second time and there will be a reaction, like, "What's your problem, boss?"  No matter what you say, Mr. Ambiguous will be happy to counter, "Okay, so I've cut my call no?  What is the problem now?".  Like it is my mistake to get angry in the first place and make a bigger noise than the call on the cellphone that the pig made!  The crook just expanded the scope of the problem by including me in it, thus making it ambiguous enough to dissipate anger focus!

We expect to be blessed by the blessings of our ancestors because we show them great reverence, even as we exude nothing but rudeness for our fellow beings who are alive and much more likely to be affected by our obnoxious behaviour in the present.  We have brought about so much ambiguity in defining a "good" person, that it is no longer possible to spit on the dirtbag who behaves "decently", while it is relatively easy to berate the idealistic rebel.  We are ruthless with ambiguity.  It is where we hide all of another incredible Indian trait - hypocrisy.

We have a propensity for manufacturing ambiguity in massive amounts so we may hide all our faults in it, so we may wallow in it, without clarity, accountability, responsibility or humanity.  It is our passive aggressive way of winning - by first denying clarity, then by smearing the other person's clarity with clouds of doubt.  We are incredibly good at this.  We can even claim victory merely by denying the other person success in pointing out our faults.

Strip away ambiguity, and most Indians will actually be corrupt people, with very questionable value systems, and cursed with an inability to separate the objective from the subjective, the personal from the communal.  Terribly sorry, but "We are like this only" doesn't really cut it anymore.  Actually, it never did.  But some of us put up with it.

- BSK.

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.

The advent of SMS in India.

TV9 Live - Indian Andhra Pradesh based television channel covering
live the events following the tragic demise of Chief Minister YSR
Reddy in a helicopter crash in April 2009.  Here are some very profound SMS messages
they flashed live during the coverage.  Extra care has been taken to
reproduce case and spelling accurately.

Ys you are RAKHING a man!

We miss god

I love you.

We miss u YSR. But we never forget u.

We miss d son of soil and a great n dynamic leader

King of AP, YSR

YSR is Andhragandhi

ss you YSR

I miss you Lord

V miss U YSR???

My life is YSR,l miss my life

I cannot believed this situvation

YSR is the king!

YSR u greate person

Farmers miss YSR

YSR greet cm in Andhra tiger.

God is never dead, so? YSR is never dead.

YSR AMARAHE

We miss you YSR we remember you all the time.

I am miss my real God - *** school staff

We r never forget u.

Hope ur sole live in peace.

YSRGRATCM.

Sir my tears are uncontrollable.

YSR did not die. He is in our heart.

YSR is living legend.

God gives yr sole peace

U R D king of D politics

We.miss.only.tiger

I am really very very sorry sorry, ysr

God of farmers went to God.

YSR is not Andhra king he is India king, HERO

State and country will miss great leader

NO ONE CAN DO LIKE YSR

Sir you are a great person you don't died you are ever living

thank u it is my deauty

we miss u the one

YSR we lost you

We are badgluck

YS YS YS YS YS YS

YSR is a dareing dashing diemalick

Please play fresh news

Hes a legend...he will be with us forever ...joy.

YSR IS A POLITICAL PERSON

Real God. YSR

YSR is a great cm.

YSR is a Kaliyuga

YSR wont die

Forallthepeoplegodisthere but for Y.S.

We miss A Great KING

YSR is a great man god always him

God has never end.

V CANT DIGEST YOUR DEATH

Jesus will definitely receive cm

We miss you uncle.  I am so sorry for this

ysr long long ago u r a great man

IS MANE OF THE POWAR Y.S.R

CHIEF MINISTER I MISS YOU. PLEASE COME BACK

Badluck.....

We.born.again.and.we.again.c.

m.

God has cheated....

Hatsup ysr

God is so selfish he taken over our leader

God BLEASE YOU YSR.

This is bad for A.P. people

HANDS UP Y.S.R

YSR JAYHO

I cont believe this only for YSR my heart hole

Sir were are you sir v want to c u

Dynamic leader of A.P is nowhere


- BSK