The empire of the Indian Rupee!

Wow!

India has finally joined the "elite", "exclusive" club of currencies that have their own symbols.  Surely, our lives will change infinitely for the better now.

Let's see how.  We can now freely take Indian Rupees to all the countries of the world, like NEPAL! BHUTAN! ... and... and... and... @#$(*^&!

Well we've atleast got a new symbol that stands for our independence, our separation from other rupees like those of our neighbours, so that people will not get confused, and this is an "exclusive" club, isn't it?  Yes, indeed!  Surely, anybody would get very confused without a symbol if they were to wonder if they are in Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka or Indonesia after getting out of an airport and exchanging their money for local money.  In fact, it might be hard for some people notice in which of these great countries they just landed, so this symbol, (which will NOT be printed on any currency notes!) will indeed help absolve us of any guilt of confusion.

Now that we have this major problem averted, let's see what we can buy with the new Indian Rupee (without the symbol or with it), which will no doubt continue to be hugely accepted in Nepal and Bhutan.  Um! those rocks on the bank of the Kali Ghantaki were pretty attractive, I must say.  And Bhutan does sell some handicrafts, yak cheese and jewellery.  Pretty neat huh?

Let's not worry about oil, arms and ammunitions, ships, planes, nuclear fuel, computer chips, medical equipment, or foodgrains which we now seem to have developed a chronic shortage for.  For all of this, we might still need those pesky dollars, which we have 279 billion of.  And none of them, shame on them, have the $ symbol either!  But, according to Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni: "It's a big statement on the Indian currency. The symbol would lend a distinctive character and identity to the currency and further highlight the strength and global face of the Indian economy."  The global face that can grin while lapping up all the handicrafts, yak cheese and jewellery and rocks from the banks of the Kali Ghantaki.

Further - It would be included in the 'Unicode Standard' and major scripts of the world so as to ensure that it is easily displayed and printed in the electronic and print media, apparently.  Now, it would be impossible for the world's media to print "Indian Rupees" wouldn't it?  So, we give them this new symbol.  To proudly add a key on their keyboards, through a mysteriously long cumbersome sequence of keystrokes a little harder than those that result in the symbols for the Euro, the Yen, or the Zambian Kwacha.  Phew!  Thank God we recognize how important this is going to be.

But what are we going to do about "Crore"s and "Lakh"s?  The rest of the world has no idea what these words mean, and nor do I always catch some North Indian saying "Karod" either!  Are we going to switch to millions and billions?  Or are we going to request others start using karods and laakh?  How about convincing the Americans go switch to Ek, do, teen, too?  That might make our lives easier too!

In a world that doesn't care for the Indian Rupee, even our Indian Premier League, our shiny showcase of international sports power, uses American dollars to evaluate the worth of their franchises and players.  Fact is, we don't make anything the world would want to pay in rupees for.  Heck, we wouldn't want them to pay in rupees for anything, because we don't want anybody else's rupees either!  We want their Dollars, Euros, Pounds, and anything else that can be freely converted to Dollars, Euros or Pounds.

So, why is Delhi embarking upon this phallic ritual?  Because we recognize that in order to feel good about being "Indian" we can hit only symbolic milestones, come up with icons and gestures in the absence of true global leverage for any of our resources.  NOBODY travelling to India from anywhere other than Nepal and Bhutan can actually get Indian Rupees to bring to India.  Nobody has any and nobody wants to have any.  Because we are absolutely loving it, exactly the way the McPoliticians in Delhi have designed this system donkey's years ago.  We don't have the confidence to make our currency fully convertible.  And we dare not come up with any adventurism there.  Heck, we have even come up with this symbol, approved by Union Cabinet on Thursday "to distinguish the currency of our over $ 1-trillion economy" -  not the 45 trillion rupee economy!  (How the fuck we have a trillion "dollar" economy when we have only 279 billion dollars in reserve beats me!)

But, according to these dummies who have come up with the need for this - it is good enough!  We're getting our bloody symbol!

BSK.

The Next Gen Indian Brain!

Who else but an Indian company can do this, and who else but Indians would be proud of something as dreadful as this?

My brain is....

My brain is.....

Hidden by my tummy!  Okay....

Of course...

Please.  Does it really take so many of our retards to put this industry together?  How about taking an incredible device like the human brain and downgrading it to the level of a dumb chip?  Seriously, how insulting on years of amazing evolution, that we should be proud of finally achieving the greatness of a microchip?  Isn't the human brain behind the making of these chips anyway?

If I remember right, this company is also the one that puts out ads. like, "Oh, see that cow?  It gives milk because its teats were designed by our engineers!"  "See that kid walk like a frog?  Our computers designed the sponge of his shoes!", yap all over the world about how great India and Indians are, but aren't proud enough to proclaim themselves as a "Rupees" 22,000 crore company.  It is always a "$" 5 billion company.  Talk about pride!!!

BSK.

Blaming Dhoni are we?

It is one thing to have expectations, and it is very human to be disappointed.

But it takes a very mean person to unload blame on an individual when a team's performance is involved.  It takes a very stupid person to do that when the team is playing a sport, in a tournament in which 11 teams won't win.  Clearly, we Indians are in no short supply for mean or stupid people, when 48%, according to a poll on Cricinfo, think Dhoni's errors cost us the World T20, in response to Dhoni's measured reference to IPL after match parties taking a toll on players and resulting fatigue.

Less than two weeks ago, the same MS Dhoni was at the top of his tactical game, when he won the IPL for Chennai Super Kings.  It would take some imagination to think he would have drained his acumen on the flight to the Caribbean.  Ravi Shastri called India's performance "pathetic", and Madan Lal has accused Dhoni of making "lame excuses".  In his young career, MS Dhoni has won more for India than these two clowns could ever dream of.  And he's still playing, and playing great, dominant, world beating cricket.  Let's not forget it wasn't until Dhoni took over as captain that India reached the #1 spot in Tests and we're almost there in ODIs.  I bet some of these bastards will scramble to say Dhoni has the best team India has ever produced!  Bless the team when we win and blame the captain when we lose?  Some consistency this!

To be capable of scathing criticism, one must be a top performer.  Ravi Shastri and Madan Lal were never top performers.  Madan Lal used to bowl a little quicker than Anil Kumble, and field like a rabbit with three paws missing.  The only reason he didn't look as "pathetic" as he was, was because a certain stalwart by the name of Kapil Dev would be bowling beautifully from the other end.  Ravi Shastri was a hopeless grafter who managed to gather fifties and win an Audi in the World Series Cup only because Srikkanth was blazing away at the other end.  For these bloodsucking leeches to come out of the woodwork and opportunistically attack MS Dhoni is a new low, but it is very Indian.

South Africa, perhaps the most "professional" outfit in the world, also exited the World T20, in the same stage as India.  No fuss.  So did the West Indies, and New Zealand, who have hammered India on a few occasions in this format.  No fuss.  India lose, the country wants to burn Dhoni and his team.  The callous way in which our news media makes this look like the team needs some sort of punishment for losing should tell us a lot about our national character.  Nobody, including the Padma Shri decorated journalists have an ounce of character that MS Dhoni has.  It is time to show him some respect.  Win some, lose some, even the mighty Aussies were humbled on a day that belonged to England.

If Dhoni has enough gravity to not blame any individual players, if he has the guts to back young Ravindra Jadeja, and if he stands by his decisions, he can just as easily point to the not too distant past of his captaincy and remind us of the first World T20, beating Australia in Australia, beating South Africa, the West Indies, and the quiet ascendancy to the top of the world rankings and tell everyone to shut up.  But he has cautiously and politely got us to examine the excesses of the IPL, that have left players with insufficient rest, and given a gentlemanly wake up call to those running on the assumption that carrying no injury equals fitness and those ignorant of the truth that fitness in competitive sport is having enough in the tank to pull out something extra when needed.

None of our players had anything extra when needed, except the kilos of weight Yuvraj has put on.  Dhoni still kept faith in him, for one simple reason - he is a proven match winner.  He is the 6-sixer hitter, remember?  Our players did their best under the circumstances.  Let's not forget that for a moment.  The circumstances were however, inclusive of an obligation to party through the night, thanks to that asshole Lalit Modi selling the video rights for those parties for a whopping fifty million dollars!  Can he be blamed for this debacle?  No!  Because he is there precisely to be the super commercial minded asshole missionary that can make the IPL richer!  No trouble understanding that, have we?

Now, let's look at this rubbish notion that players are keener on playing in the IPL than for the country?  Didn't we all take pride that India's IPL is the richest league in the world?  Didn't we all glow in glee with the meteoric rise of the IPL?  How un-Indian is the IPL?  It is also a part of our cricketing folklore isn't it?  How many of us know that the BCCI is a Trust that doesn't pay taxes?  That is who our players are playing for, not India, get it?  If the trust pays less than an IPL franchise, what's wrong in playing better for the franchise?  It is clearly the sensible thing to do, is it not?  Even though it may be too much for our pea brains to wrap around, facts are facts.

We want our players to be professionals, so that they get better at what they do.  Being professional is about making rational choices, not emotionally clouded ones.  Our cricket team is the best 15 we have in this country.  We cannot "infuse it with new blood" as Ravi Shastri suggests, since the second tier in quality has some catching up to do.  This lot is not old, and is a supremely fit unit, given enough rest.  There is enough and more firepower and quality to take us to many more highs.  It would be absurd to imagine this lot would suddenly become as mediocre as our older generation of cricketers or our media.

The Chennai Super Kings is a success story.  It is a success story because it has plenty of good brains behind it.  Great ethics, good display of everything needed to be a winning item.  The BCCI is not such a good show.  It has been around far too long in mediocrity to be suddenly rid of its problems, but it is taking some steps right.  The Chennai Super Kings didn't party through the night.  Many other teams did.  The results are there to show.  MS Dhoni, the superb athlete that he is, said the right thing about taking care of the body.  He has taken care of his, while the others aren't such shining examples.

The media, rightly admonished by Amitabh Bachchan, should apologize to Dhoni for going overboard with criticism, most of it unwarranted.  Our media is full of unprofessional goof ups!  From calling Hindi the National Language, to unquestioningly accept that Barack Obama is indeed the USA's first black president, there has been ignorance, apathy, incompetence and sheer stupidity from many of the idiots who fill the idiot box.  Compared to this, and our country's 134th position in the Human Development Index, Dhoni and his boys are way, way ahead.

The consummate gentleman that he is, and the intelligent person that he is, MS Dhoni has remained aloof, and even said how quickly things can change from love to hatred with the Indian public.  The media is definitely to blame in adding fuel to any flame, whether it is positive or negative, all in the name of getting ratings.  But actually, it is more than that.  It is a cheap catering to the Indian Mob Mentality, which is there to bash anyone into the ground if that person is not in a position to hit back.  We do not attack corrupt politicians that actually affect our lives do we?  But we have no problem stoning cricketers' houses, burning effigies and going overboard with our boys who are not even 30 years old!

By the way, the most anti-national act I have ever seen from any cricketer is from Sunil Gavaskar.  I respect him for many other things, but there is no way I will forgive him for carrying his bat for 60 overs and scoring 36 not out, in a game in which we were chasing over 300.  THAT is the generation that produced the unheroes who tried not to lose too embarrassingly, who paid more attention to their attire than diving for a catch, and that is the lot that led a pampered life, neither setting great expectations nor reaching for great heights, playing less than half the time today's boys do, and losing ten times as many games.

The Indian cricket team of today deserves all the accolades they get.  I have no problems with them making millions of any kind of money.  I have no problems if they party late into any night, and I have no problem if they get sex from waitresses and adoring female fans at parties.  They play great cricket, and that is their dharma, and they know they are good.  It isn't easy being #1 or #2 in the world in any sport.

Let's see what we can do to bring our country upto the #1 and #2 spots in ANY other damn field!  Till then, shut up about MS Dhoni.  He and his boys have already done great for us.

BSK

IPLease ask the right questions!

The Indian Premier League has been in the news like a rabid dog peeing all over the neighbourhood for the last few days.  It hasn't spared one tree, pole, gate, wall, shrub or blade of grass.  It is the same stench everywhere.

First and foremost, this is a test of integrity, and Lalit Modi, who was arrested in the USA for illegal possession of cocaine, isn't a shining beacon of hope on this front.  So, let the shady bugger burn - who cares?  Let's get this straight - he is no hero.  He stole Kapil Dev's business model of the ICL, which was already successful, used the BCCI's lousy officialdom to shut the ICL down, took pride in being "ruthless", and blew up the IPL to where the ICL was rightfully headed.  Now, in Karma's lovely way, he's getting it rammed up his lisping arse, and I couldn't be more gleeful.  But this is all small snack.

The IT department has been busy "surveying" all the offices of the IPL franchises, as if the fools will find anything in two days that they didn't find in the last three years!  We have heard of tax havens and overseas accounts and shady money being laundered through the system and a thousand different people coming under the scanner.  For heavens sake, wouldn't the people smart enough to use tax havens in the first place be smart enough to answer all questions?  For most part, the structures will be totally legal, just wait and watch.  Nothing is going to shake the palace down, for it was already fortified to withstand tremors much bigger than this!

Where are the real questions?  Where is the incisive analysis that can get us to the bottom of this veiled chaos?

We are asking questions on why there is so much "foreign money" coming into the IPL.  Well, DUH!  The auctions were all held in US Dollars, remember, dumbos?  Surely, it won't be Sakthi Sugarcane Juice and Mouli's Fancy Shop investing millions of US Dollars!  Ask the real question - this is the bloody INDIAN Premier League, and is supposed to be for Indian cricketers and Indian cricket lovers primarily, using OUR players, OUR infrastructure and OUR TV audiences to make money out of.  So, why the fuck are the bids in US Dollars and not in Indian Rupees?  Is our country's money not good enough for our own league?  Where is the national pride in evaluating our worth in US Dollars?

Modi is the kind of rascal that will wag his tail as much as he is allowed to.  Cut it, and he will whimper into a corner.  Does his tail deserve to be cut?  IF he has procured stakes in three franchisees on his behalf through his relatives, then there is a clear case of him owning a stake in the outcome of the matches those franchises play and therefore one can ask why he as IPL commissioner is so freaking happy when Rajasthan wins, or why he should cheer with SRK for Kolkata.  Well, now we know.  If the outcome of the games played by a few sides can actually bring benefits to Modi, that is a clear conflict of interest.  In the absence of precise laws, however, this is something that won't send him to jail straightaway.  The part that can make him look worse is how he never mentioned to anyone, even in the BCCI, that he would like to disclose that some friends and relatives of his would own shares in 3 franchises.  Simple enough, and would have put him above suspicion, since he declared this potential prickly point.

It was Modi who negotiated the TV rights of the after game parties of the IPL for US$50million.  That's a whopping amount of money and Kapil would not have done this.  So, is this pure genius?  Yes, but it is the genius of the hustler, not the caring entrepreneur.  The difference is that the caring entrepreneur will wonder where to draw the line, and whether having all night parties is a good thing for the players and the game and the image that so many role models will project to the world.  More than that, he will concern himself with the more fundamental question - if the parties are a wind down routine, then let the boys have a good time, and let's leave them alone. 

The hustler will wonder what can happen at the party that can increase the sale price of the voyeuristic rights to this "behind the scenes" record of events.  It isn't that creative in any case to get some music going, some women on the floor, and get some booze to flow.  Any middle class city kid in India knows to put this sort of party together.  This prick is a hustler, period.  Let's not shy away from fact.  So, here's the second question - how was a hustler chosen to lead the IPL in the first place?  The reason could be that he can get a lot of people to believe in his hustle!  But the real reason is, and give it to the fox here - hustlers are quick, and someone who can move at Modi's speed is needed to supercharge something like the IPL.  That's a plus, especially in India.  But the hustler will continue to hustle.  You can hire him to build a temple, but please let him not perform the pujas.  Lesson to be learnt.

A lot of Indians will be disappointed with the turn of events but not with Modi.  Why not?  Because Modi is secretly what a lot of Indians wish to be like - dynamic, unstoppable, "ruthless" in his own words, and super successful.  India is just starting to see this kind of animal, not because it is new to this land, but now, because of the numbers, we are comparable to the hustlers in other countries, and hence the media attention.  Despite all admissions to the contrary, the media loves Lalit Modi.  Who else can provide them with so much material to fill the voids of their own existences?  Notice how our media always asks questions in reaction to what the guy says, never forcing him to think up something new in response?  That is sheer incompetence, and Modi fits right into the scheme.

The BIG escape for the IPL is, and one that is still very much available - it can move outside India.  It can take all its franchises and its offices and move to the Cayman Islands.  That is just the movement of an office!  For some reason, our government doesn't seem to be able to wrap its head around this idea!  In this time and age, where your office is registered has very little to do with where you do business.  The IPL can exist as a separate entity, merely conducting matches in India, by paying the BCCI, and do ALL its business from Cayman Islands.  And it would be thoroughly legal, and in fact, much more efficient.  No taxes, no questions asked.  Money comes, money goes, everybody is happy.  The players get paid, the franchises all see money, TV happens, ads happen, the event happens, and absolutely nothing on the ground needs to change!

This is all about television.  Set Max has paid upward of a billion US dollars (what else?) to get the rights for 10 years.  What difference does it make to them?  The audiences have been beautifully recruited.  They are going to watch Set Max no matter where the games are played.  Do you think any of them gives a shit where the IPL's office is located?  The only problem is, the IPL is under the BCCI, and the BCCI has a few stuck pigeons in it.  They will not let the IPL become a separate body.  This is what Modi didn't bargain for.  Most hustlers have a breaking point and the 26th of April is Modi's breaking point.  On that day, all the "offiicialdom" that he used to destroy the ICL will be thrown at him, and he doesn't stand a fucking chance.  Poor little rich bitch.

Modi isn't so successful because he is the ultimate hustler.  He knows how much competence it will take to catch up with his shenanigans.  All this taxman raiding or surveying business is going to wear thin fairly quickly.  All it takes is competent Chartered Accountants and the franchises would all have hired great people.  Now, the one thing that can blow in his face is this, literally - the explosions in Bangalore that moved the semi finals to Navi Mumbai.  The explosions themselves aren't great, but the fact that the Karnataka Police have said that the "betting mafia" was behind the blasts!  So, there exists a betting mafia that the Karnataka Police knew about?  Of course that begs the next question - what the fuck were you doing if they were not able to just conduct business, but also able to place bombs in the stadium?  Fundamental, right?

Some people will get caught, not because the cops are that good, but because the bastards can smell money.  Now they have the leverage to extort some big money from the betting mafia.  But they will also have to come up with some facts, just to look good, in case the politicians who are no doubt involved, are made to look bad before this cloud blows over.

If the betting mafia spills a few beans, they will necessarily mention Modi by name.  Why?  Because Modi the hustler trusts only himself at the centre of the dealmaking!  So, IF any deal was struck, he struck it, not a lesser clown.  It is this style that has led to the allegation that he offered the Kochi franchisees US$50 million to walk away from a deal they won!  Imagine offering 50 million to walk away from a deal they pledged to pay 333 millon for!  Keep the change, Lisper boy!  No wonder they refused.  But what is Modi's gall in making that offer?  The veiled threat is that the outcome of the Kochi franchise's future would be in Modi's hand, and he could make life miserable for them.  So, this is like doing business with the devil, and the devil himself wants to give you money so he can do business with someone else instead.  Luckily, the Gaikwads were no pushover, and they stuck to their deal.

Shashi Tharoor remains an enigma in this story.  It's completely believable that the interest he took in Kerala cricket prompted him to make the phone calls asking why there was a delay with the Kochi franchise, and it is completely believable that his friend Sunanda Pushkar was merely introduced by him to help them out.  If Tharoor has anything to do with the unleashing of the taxmen on all IPL affairs, then, good for him!  That won't accomplish anything if everybody has been paying taxes properly, but it shows he won't hesitate to see how you look under a cloud of suspicion.  After all, that's what Modi did to him - put him under a cloud of suspicion and made him resign!  What Modi doesn't have the sense to think about is that a resigned man has a lot of time on his hands - and we know whose workshop an idle mind is.

Our media needs to learn to ask the right questions, the incisive ones, the uncomfortable ones that will bring something new to light and make us think about everything in a new way.  Instead, fools, even the assholes with Padma Shris, ask dumb questions like "Is the image of cricket tarnished?".  Well, fuck, duh!  Who doesn't know the answer to this one?  Like we're a philosophical society given to discussing the impact of religiousness without a proportionate influx of agnostic spiritualism!  We're passive aggressive, gossip loving dumb jerks who love to see people go down.  But let's know why someone went down and how we contributed to the system that put him up in the first place!  Let's learn to take some responsibility.  Let's learn to freaking wake the fuck up and ask the right questions.

BSK.

Who the hell are we, Indians?

Years ago, in 1947, we bought into this idea of a democratic India.  Democracy was still an experiment then, of course, and it still is, and one that has yielded varying results across various countries.  So, it cannot be the "system" that is good or bad, it comes down to us, We, the people of India.

We bought into this experimental idea because not many of us had a say in what we buy into, and a few intelligent people who were in the right place at the right time said it was a good idea to build a nation that was based on democratic values - fairness, equality, equitable distribution of resources, freedom of movement, a right to speak, congregate, express ourselves, protest, show dissent, and find representation in the political process that would run this country.  We didn't agree, but we didn't disagree either.  And somehow, by default, we got shoved into this experiment called democracy.

The great gift we got was the spirit of secularism.  Again, just an idea, but one that has somehow grown upon us.  It would be too confusing to have discrimination amongst us based on religion, caste or any other separator, so we ran with this too.  This part has worked out well, despite all the religious fanatics that still don't get it, and the myriad ways in which dogma still affects our thinking.  No political party is completely agnostic to faith, and we remain in the stone ages when it comes to pure spiritualism.  Even the Indian tourism industry somehow thinks "spiritual" means "religious"!  Stupid, but for most part, not without hope.

The other gifts we got as part of the new idea of India are the wide usage of the English language, a legal framework that roughly resembles that of the UK, a mechanism called "government", a free press, and a military that doesn't interfere with everyday life.  These are gifts, because without any of these, we'd have sunk even further into anarchy.

What we didn't bargain for, however, is the need for us to constantly work to keep the above working.  For that, it takes effort, above and outside of our personal jobs and duties, and it takes involvement and awareness.  In other words, to make India work, we cannot be sitting on our asses and expect the "others" to do their jobs.  It is our job to make the country work.  This part, we don't get.  We are an essentially selfish people, and those amongst us who have some civic sense are likely to appear like activists.

Life in India today is about screwing and not getting screwed.  The country be damned, as long as we can make a few bucks and get the life we want.  Money can buy us anything, but alas, it cannot buy us a quality country.  For that, we need to make some sacrifices and recognize what we need to do.  We never took into account the essential nature of the Indian person, while we decided what system we wanted.  The essential Indian is corrupt, or corruptible, or accepting of corruption as a way of life.  Why would so many millions amongst us pay bribes to get things done that we are legally entitled to?  Because we are sheep, and sheep get fleeced.

For some reason, most Indians are really annoyed when I tell them that "Indianness" is about being corrupt, inefficient, dogmatic, AND having a sense of righteousness that the devil himself would be afraid of.  Our relationship with God is the one we respect, and hence, if a puja routine is prescribed to an Indian family, they will carry it out religiously, perfectly.  If they are told not to dump plastic waste, they might do it to some extent.  If they are told to file a case against that official who demanded a bribe to okay their water connection, they won't.  They will actually pay the bribe to maintain "the good energy" of their lives - smooth and easy.

This fear of questioning, the fear of reprisals, the fear of showing dissent itself rules over us.  And then, for every damn thing, there is God.  Somehow, our God is most fierce in folklore and mythology, but very benign when it comes to inciting us to question and fight  for what is right.  Our righteousness flies directly in the face of our religiousness.  Somehow, there is never a discourse on this - on the essential lie of being an Indian in spirit.

The most corrupt rascals in this country dump much money in temples like Tirupathi.  Somehow, we cunningly shift the onus of accountability for such ill gotten wealth onto the Lord!  Look God, I gave you a crap load of money, now all you need to do is protect me!  The Lord has already protected you by making you Indian - not just unlikely to be caught in your act of thievery, but even more likely to make you feel good about stealing and donating to a temple!

For some reason, we frown upon Godmen who have been found having sex with a multitude of women or in the throes of drug induced ecstasy, but we're perfectly all right with elected officials stealing from our coffers to build their personal wealth.  I'm not sure what can be more askew!  But, this is what is happening - We are angered by being made fools out of - that is the problem here!  We fully expect elected officials to steal, but Godmen had to be holy!  That's why we get mad at them for having a romp!

Heck, we could also be jealous.  Having a sexual romp isn't that available to most of us Indians because we're not that enterprising.  That is why we have moral boundaries defined by the boundaries of what we dare to do.  It is the exact same reason for the BJP to get mad at Shashi Tharoor - he is not only smooth and articulate, but - hold your breath - has an attractive female friend who is not his wife!  That is why the BJP spokesperson, the cunning hypocritical bastard, said "who his girlfriend is, who he is married to, who he divorces, is not our business".  Then why mention all that?  It is the power of allusion, that most Indians fall flat for.  We can raise a scandal on mere speculation and allusion, and without a single fact, splash around so much that muddy water hits everyone!

For some reason, we forget that we are supposed to bow only to the truth.  Sathyameva Jayathe, not God.  Even God has to be truthful to win.  Lord Krishna may be the delightful exception, but then, he is a super being anyway, who is not cluttered in any way.  He must be exasperated, because India is cluttered in every way.  We don't have a clue how to do anything with elegance, no matter how many resources we have.  We need to seriously examine our "Indianness", if we are to get a clue on where we belong, if at all.

If India vanished from the face of the earth today, the rest of the world would not be that adversely impacted.  Isn't that such a stunning revelation for the 2nd largest population in the world?  The rest of the world might actually heave a sigh of relief.  Strangely, the USA, with the much greater wear and tear it imparts to the world, would terrify the world if it pulled a vanishing act!  Where would all the computers come from, where would all the Boeing planes come from, and the spares for so many of them flying all over the world, where would arms and ammunition come from, where would the best porn come from, and where would all the great movies come from!???  Who would we sell billions of dollars worth of stuff to?  There is no substituting the USA, but India can be forgotten in a jiffy or two at the most.  Guess what?  They're a democracy too!

So, before we trumpet becoming a superpower, before we get pompous about our incredible place in the world and the role we are here to play, let's look at ourselves and get our basic shit together.  Let's give as much importance to rational thinking as we do to moral and religious nonsense.  There is no God concept in our Constitution!  We aren't fundamentally subscribed to a religious idea of a country.  God is a very personal thing, even though we do a puja before launching our spacecraft.  For some reason our latest GSLV plunged into the sea.  Could it be the wrong brand of incense sticks?  No serious investigation into the failure of our first cryogenic engine is likely to result in a finding that blames the pujari.

So, let's learn to blame ourselves first, whenever things go wrong.  It is a very good habit to get into.  If I call 139 and get wrong information about my train's arrival time, it is upto me to fill out in triplicate, the complaint form at the railway station, and make my grievance known.  It is upto us to bitch, and moan, and complain, and sue - till the garbage gets cleared on time, till the road gets relaid, till the sewers stop dumping into our rivers, and till we get every single thing we need to feel like humans again.  Indianness cannot be the answer to the questions we are afraid to ask.

BSK.

Foolproof Indianness.

26th November 2008.  Mumbai.  A few of our policemen died in a hail of terrorist bullets.  The bulletproof jackets they were wearing didn't save them.  In another case, a famous cop was not wearing a bulletproof vest, and was killed, and now the Maharashtra government has submitted its affidavit to the courts investigating the incidents.

According to that affidavit - "The bullet-proof jackets had been ordered by the Maharashtra government way back in 2001 and could withstand bullets fired only from 9 mm pistols and carbines."

These shocking admissions were made in an affidavit filed by Deputy Commissioner of Police Vijaysingh Jadhav on behalf of the Maharashtra government in the Bombay High Court on Wednesday, the day when a special court concluded hearing arguments in that 26th November terror attacks.

Similar jackets, which are not meant to withstand fire from AK47 or and SLR, are used even by the "military forces", the affidavit said.  Great!  So, what are they supposed to withstand?  Water guns?  Pea shooters?  Firecrackers?

The state government told the High Court in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) that the jackets used during 26/11 were ordered in a time when the "threat perception" for the metropolis had "not taken into account an attack that would include simultaneous strikes and civilians held as hostages."  Let's put that a little more honestly - "We never thought we'd get attacked, so we didn't give a fuck what we wore".  What do civilians held as hostages have to do with bulletproof vests not being bulletproof?  Also, simultaneous strikes.  How many cops do we have?  Just one?  Don't we have simultaneous traffic lights?

To the question whether the jackets were of standard or not, the answer was that it could not have saved Karkare because the officer sustained injuries to his shoulder and neck, which were not covered by the jacket of standard design, the affidavit pointed out.  Oh, great.  So let's forget the bulletproof jackets for now, and let's focus on the foolproof bullets that aimed away from the areas the jacket covered.  Brilliant.

Way back in 2008, we had police officers coming forward and telling us about jackets procured by the police through which "every single bullet went through"!  Yes, even when shot from a long distance.
http://www.mid-day.com/news/2008/dec/011208-Mumbai-bullet-encounter-specialist-Vijay-Salaskar-Mumbai-terror-blast-bullet-proof-jacket.htm.  In other words, these fools never really had any bulletproof jackets!

Let's take a step aside and ask ourselves how much of a deep rooted incompetence this has exposed.  First of all, "carbines" were probably last used in World War 1.  These are the long barreled guns with smooth insides, that don't even put revolutions on the bullets going out.  Who needs protection from these antiques?  This is not some museum coming alive every night.  Even local gangs have more powerful guns these days!  So, what kind of morons are sitting around taking these purchase decisions that are clearly completely useless?  What kind of a brainless system do we have to be endorsing in order to spend money on things that have absolutely no meaning in buying?

Terrorists are efficient because they have to be.  They need to cause maximum damage with minimum investment.  So they get the best weapons, choose the fittest and mentally sickest amongst themselves, prepare to die, and go in all guns blazing, pun intended.  To oppose them, we don't need any of their madness, but simply a mechanism that works.  We need people that can shoot back, a chain of command that knows what commands to issue to whom and when, trained people who can pull the trigger when their guns are pointing at the targets, and machines that work.  Period.

While under attack is not the time for chaos and confusion in the ranks, miscommunication amongst various government organizations, and missed opportunities.  It is never a good time for any of this, but if we test any of our government controlled "systems" we will find them not working.

We gave our government offices computers a long time ago.  For sure, at the very least, ten years ago.  The Regional Transport Offices are amongst these.  The police departments of various states even have claims on their websites that they are proud to be part of many new e-government initiatives. (Example: http://tnpolice.gov.in/chiefmsg.html).  Ask a traffic policeman if he can pull out his walkie talkie, bark a number, and get the name and address of the owner of any vehicle he just saw running over ten people.  The answer is NO!  As incredulous as it may seem, there is no access to that simple bit of information!  There is a whole official procedure to follow before this gap is bridged!  That is where our government monkeys are, with or without computers.  Fuckers just don't know what to do, except blackmail the public into paying bribes for the simplest tasks, and maintain total bankruptcy of functional ideas.

Of course this points to corruption, incompetence, and a host of other endemic problems, like apathy, non-action, and finally, to sum up - Indianness.  It is time we defined this for ourselves, since we seem to have a hard time acknowledging that "Indianness" is indeed all the above rolled into one.  This is a word that deserves to be in every dictionary.  Only we Indians can fuck up something of importance so badly, that even after lives are lost, we're grappling not with the gravity of the situation, but with the process of concluding a "matter".

I'm not entirely unhappy policemen died, because most of them are corrupt bastards.  The majority of them are unfit, insincere, not interested in service of any kind unless it is performed to obtain a bribe, and are just puppets of politicians.  It is just fantastic that their incompetence in Mumbai was exposed by terrorists in such a short period of time, instead of our public interest, the judicial process, the media, and our Indianness combined spending the next fifty years telling us that our cops, their jackets, their guns, and their stupidity is a complete waste for the nation.

Are our policemen dispensable?  Clearly, they are.  Nothing of note has happened now that we have lost a few of them in terrorist and Maoist attacks.  Their deaths haven't made any pockets of civilization more in danger, or lacking protection.  The police forces of almost all states are nothing but drains on the budget, magnified several times by their incompetence and immunity from speedy prosecution.  So, why do we need them, if they are not impeccable in their duties and manners?

Where it most mattered - doing their duty, they were found wanting, and if they are that inefficient, they can die.  For heavens sake, there is nothing heroic about dying in a war you're not even fit enough to fight in, so let's stop making heroes out of unfit, uniformed thugs we hire to do our dirty jobs and look the other way when they take bribes, grow fat, and kill people in fake "encounters".  Police custodial killings in India are rampant.  Now we have them selling dead bodies.  How low can these weasels go?  It's wrong to generalize the entire police force of this country thus, but if they can take collective pride, they can also take collective blame. 

It is absolutely shameful that this country supplies substandard equipment to personnel employed to do critical jobs, but we don't need to take any moral responsibility for the personnel themselves being substandard.  If there are IPS officers facing charges of molestation of minors and abetting suicide, they can bloody well figure out how bulletproof their own jackets need to be and they can shoot the pigs that supplied faulty equipment.  They once again failed to do their jobs - that's all there is to it.  And the same can be said of many, many Indians who're not earning their keep.  It's just part of our Indianness.  When we get bitten because of it, that will simply add to ... what else?  Indianness!

- BSK.

Padma Shris to anti national elements!

Let's ask ourselves what we should do with idiots who have been given Padma Shri awards, who don't have even an iota of respect for the Constitution of India, much less for an Indian citizen who points out a blunder on a contentious, sensitive matter of national importance.

The following e mail and the lack of response it got should tell us what kind of shady, ill-informed, dangerous, incompetent nincompoops work for organizations like CNN IBN - and how the government confers awards upon them for staying that way!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: BSK
Date: Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 12:28 AM
Subject: Wrong mention of "National Language".
To: editor@ibnlive.com


Madam/Sir,

It is really disheartening to see a TV channel of your standing allowing such a poor standard of content editing in your telecast.

I was watching a program titled Y NOT just a short while ago on CNN-IBN, and the host made a singular reference to Hindi as the National Language in her conversation with some Mumbaikars who would like to see more Marathi being used in Maharashtra. I am even more amazed that this was not disputed on the spot! It seems that abject arrogance rules your roost and abject ignorance rules amongst the people who subscribe to your channel. Please listen to the lie you broadcast more than once.

http://www.flyerhigher.com/bsk777/YNOT/rashtrabhashalie.wav

In case you or your staff members have been ignorant, or hoodwinked into believing that India has a "National Language", you should really try and learn the facts - India doesn't have a National Language. Even if you have the opinion that it should, you should certainly not allow it to be mentioned like it is a fact. Even the most brazen embrace of mediocrity shouldn't allow for such blunders to go unchecked.

If your channel assumes the "right" to show such a dangerous level of disrespect towards India's Constitution, you really should be put out of action by a public interest litigation. This is indeed my opinion, but I'd like to know first hand from you, if you would choose to tell me, whether:

1. CNN-IBN has a vested interest in pushing Hindi to be christened a National Language.
2. That is the reason there has been no editorial outrage from your channel when people like Ram Vilas Paswan openly insult the Constitution by mentioning Hindi as the national language.
3. That is the reason you have made no attempt to bring to light the gravity of the linguistic imperialism that is being unleashed by the central government of India and Hindi supporters within its mechanism.
4. You are simply too incompetent to take up the depth of this issue and that the establishment of a "Hindi Diwas" means nothing of importance to you.
5. You simply don't care since advertising revenues can keep your enterprise in profit through mediocrity infested programming.

The debate has indeed shifted, if you notice, from whether we should have a unifying language or not, to whether some of us even understand the sanctity of the Constitution. You have, if you care, a goldmine of a topic to examine a lot of items that are important to India and Indians.

Where does CNN IBN collectively stand on the above?

I would much appreciate your response, and please don't hesitate to surprise me with the quality of the same.

Thank you,

BSK.

(The Padma Shri recipient is no less than the Editor in Chief of CNN IBN!
http://www.medianewsline.com/news/131/ARTICLE/2034/2008-01-27.html)