Shoot him again, if you please. He was dead long ago.

"His [Gandhi's] activities for public awakening were phenomenal in there in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence, which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to those slogans."

- Nathuram Vinayak Godse, in his deposition in court

I’m not exhibiting the journalistic, manipulative, smartness of quoting only a part of the assassin’s statement that would support my views. I’m only bringing forth the point, from which Godse, and most others, got diverted after Gandhi had become obsolete, and even obstructive, for their personal goals.

Gandhi had a dream that no one has ever dare to dream of. Before, or after his time. And his convictions were stronger than anyone who had walked upon earth. Buddha started off by quitting. Jesus had given up after three years. Gandhi didn’t dream of a land that would one day be able to answer back in the face of the opponent with nuclear warheads, like the former poet-prime minister had dreamt of. He didn’t dream of a land, whose sons will walk on the moon, like the current poet-president is dreaming of. He dreamt of a land where women can walk safely in the streets, at midnight, that too even without any clothes! Not a formidable dream, in the eyes of the other practical dreamers.

Many times I have thought about this. What if, Godse had shot Gandhi 10 years before? In 1938, when Subhash Chandra Bose was elected as the president of Indian National Congress. Gandhi opposed Bose mainly for the latter’s lack of commitment to democracy and lack of faith in non-violence. The idea Gandhi had in his mind was obviously beyond the comprehensive levels of many others like Godse. Gandhi believed democracy is for the people, not the other way around – as practiced elsewhere. Today, the textbooks portray Shivaji, and Tipu Sultan as valiant, proud patriots. They were fighting to secure their thrones, and nothing else. It was very similar thrones Bose, Nehru, Patel and Jinnah fought for, while Gandhi was fighting to destroy the throne. Bose didn’t win the throne, nor did Gandhi succeed in destroying the throne.

Gandhi wanted to convert the viceroy’s residence to a General Hospital, instead of keeping it for an Indian mimicking the viceroy. He wanted the ashram he started with 25 inmates grow to fill the land and house one fifth of the human population. He wanted every one else to become a Gandhi. And no one ever wanted to.

He never dreamt of an India that’s as prosperous as the British Empire. He never wanted India to become and international power to have the power to oppress other populations. His ideas were not progressive, as the word progressive is understood today.

Gandhi was needed for a while, and became unnecessary too soon. Gandhi was the only solution in the two decisive decades of 20s and 30s. By 40s, there were more than enough people who wanted to replace the British, and have the seats for themselves. I have read, and heard from many, that it was the British Raj that made a country out of several hundreds of kingdoms fighting with each other. I have read, and heard from many, that it was the hardworking administrative and judicial machinery implemented by the British that created the idea of India as a nation. I have also read, and heard from many, that the decision of granting independence was inevitable, because the British empire was too exhausted after the WW II, and was in no mind to deal with the disruptions in the armed forces, which were sparked off by INA. But none of them told me, why Gandhi, and over a lakh of his supporters were kept imprisoned during WW II.

Gandhi had become obsolete, long before he was shot to death. But if it weren’t for his efforts of the initial 20-25 years, the 600 odd princely states that were given independence at the midnight of August 15, 1947 wouldn’t have come together under the tricolour. No other human being has influenced so many fellow beings in the history of human kind. May be it’s a little difficult to believe for the news channels in the country, and its regular viewers, that Gandhi was more popular than Amitab Bachan, or Sachin Tendulkar. The genius of Albert Einstein had foreseen it.

And if Gandhi had won! Obviously, I wouldn’t have been writing this piece, or you reading. I feel ashamed to be born in the same country as Gandhi. I wish, he were born as an African or South American, or Russian or even an American. Then I would have been seeing my fellow countrymen talking in reverence of him more often. And Bush’s sniffer dogs wouldn’t have been allowed to mistake his samadhi for another lamppost.

And here's the full statement that Nathuram Vinayak Godse gave in the court, during his trial. It might still sound heroic to an adolescent mind. If you have one, please take my warning.
Click here to read it.

Timepass

Timepass is the name of a bourgeois bar in the holy town of Palani in Tamilnadu. Bourgeois, the adjective, was coined by the fellow-alcohol-aficionado with whom I was travelling. In his observation, there are not many places for a bourgeoisie drunkard in Tamilnadu. You have the wine shops that sell everything except wine all over the state. These shops owned and run by the State, and very much a proletariat’s place. For a bar to be bourgeois needs swing door, cushioned chairs, and inevitably, yellowish grim lighting. These places serve alcoholic drinks at 2 to 4 times higher price, depending on the quality of the swinging front door, than in the wine shops. These doors, by default, work as push-to-open from both sides, as there won’t be many who want to go out in the evening, or any who can go in at the closing time.

This particular bar, Timepass, has got a curious thing on the wall near the counter. A regular size wall clock with its hands moving anti-clockwise. More than confusing the time that has passed, it provides to the purpose of the badly needed excuse to a customer. When the waiter comes to tell you it’s the closing time, you can stare at the clock for two minutes and tell him, there still are two more hours to 11. I don’t think not many customers see this opportunity and try to exploit it to their benefit, as the clock is still there, and was there two years back. But then, bourgeoisies never had much trust in rebellion.

And while the clock was steadily tock-ticking, we were chewing on the snacks and masticating memories of encounters with policemen we met on the road. The subject was on the top of our minds, because that day afternoon too we were stopped at a border check-post. The policemen at border check-posts never wear caps. The cap sits on the table all day, looking over the procedures, and listening to the noises of the wireless equipment stands next to it.

The bag tied on to the luggage rack of the bike, is full of explosives, the one who stopped us was almost sure. I am still wondering how he would have reacted if he had found anything that he expected. He looked a lot relieved seeing only spare clothes, some clean and some dirty, and a couple books in the bag. Clutching at straws, he was hanging on to the elastic strap we use to tie the rain jackets over the bag when it’s not raining. He wanted to know whether we strangle people on the road with that elastic band, and pull out their eyes with the hooks. Though, all he could ask was why we are carrying around a suspicious elastic string with deadly metal hooks. At the end, he consoled us saying that we just look like thugs, but are actually not. He warned us against the danger too. That every single policeman who spots us will trouble us. He was a good pastime, and cut short our time in Timepass by half an hour.

We took his warning lightly. But he was right about this brothers and sisters,-in-arms. Two days later, we were stopped and checked five times. Longtime back, a bunch of policemen had warned us not to walk to the peninsular tip at Dhanushkodi, because the naval guards might shoot us down. We did walk to the tip and came walking back without any extra holes on our bodies. May be, we were lucky. Or they were. They might have had enough quails (read crows or cranes) to shoot down that day. On another occasion, they had warned us for carrying a Swiss Army Knife. They had said, highway petrol officers would put us behind the bars and charge us as highway robbers. That too didn’t happen after travelling with the same knife for thousands of kilometres.

Policemen are the most brilliant pessimists I have ever met in my life. Still once in a while they get unpleasant surprises. Like when they see that you actually carry all the required documents. But this guy’s intentions were noble. This committed officer at the border check-post, all alone almost hundred kilometres away from any support staff, was not risking his life, armed only with a cane baton and an unloaded 303 back in his cabin, not in an effort to squeeze out a 50 rupees note out of our wallets, but to ensure the safety of millions. Unfortunately we were not villainous enough to make him a hero.

It’s cinema that spoils our policemen, observed my companion. In reel life policemen look like policemen, and thugs and terrorists look like thugs and terrorists. Sadly for us, in real life only policemen look like policemen. You can never argue with a person who wears a uniform, whether it is a nurse, a waiter, or a policeman. The most sensible thing is to listen to them, and tell them what they like to hear. And never try to tell them anything that they already don’t know.

Two days after the drinks at Timepass was a day that commemorates the death of a freedom fighter belongs to the region, and we were travelling from Madurai to Tanjavur. Police barricades were made at every junction anticipating some trouble from the admirers of the local hero. It’s a tricky situation. The observant of the day has to shout patriotic slogans, but has no idea against or in favour of whom. When this patriotic spirit is spiced up with local spirits, police barricades at the places where the procession pass through are a necessary backdrop for this ironic comedy. And it was our third involuntary stoppage at one such junction.

They want to know where we are coming from and where we are going. We always start from a place, and hope to reach the same place. But that answer is not something the protectors of the people like to hear. So, we told them the place we started in the morning and the place we wished to reach by evening. The lady officer in charge of the battalion at the junction gets suspicious. She wants to know if our intention is touring the locations, why are we not doing it in DVD coaches; preferably in the ones those have window curtains.

Now, the basic rule for any uniform-wearing personnel is the blind following of the hierarchy. If your boss is suspicious, you too are suspicious, by default. This is generally referred as discipline, and causes chaos, or aggravates, most of the time. The low ranked actors re-enters the scene. And about twenty five policemen, and women, gathers around in anticipation. The job of the outer circle of these curious things in khakis is to chase away the inquisitive public. And all wanted to know what’s in the bag. The bag opens, once again, to reveal its unglamorous contents, including a couple of books wrapped in polyethylene bags.

Books, of course, are meant for the curious. They wanted to know whether they are ‘crime’ novels. No, they aren’t, the one you are flipping through is about the author’s misadventures as a petty criminal, when he was a narcotic addict, and drug pusher. The latter part of the answer was a just thought that was dead before born. Yes, there’s a camera that’s been double wrapped in the bag! “What is this? A camera! Call Mariyappa! He knows everything about cameras!” Orders the queen bee. Constable Mariyappa pushes his way through his less-privileged colleagues, with a hand held camera in his hand, and starts shooting the procedures with the fervour of a greenhorn journalist. He inspects our camera, and turns to his boss helplessly. “It’s not a digital camera. I know to check pictures stored only in a digital camera.”

Now they are utterly disappointed, but still as clueless, after seeing the unexciting contents of the bag, and a camera that doesn’t have digital image preview. What they want to know now is why are we taking this bad road, when there’s a very good NH connecting our starting point and destination. There are no bad roads, and we were looking for the longest possible route; I wanted to tell them, but didn’t. Instead, I told them we thought this route is shorter. No, this one is longer, and in a worse condition compared to the NH; the officer is not convinced, as he is not supposed to. The roads in Tamilnadu are almost as good as national highways, I said in an attempt of justification. No, not as good as an NH, the state policeman replied modestly, as if he’s been flattered.

We are ready to continue our ride after 30 minutes of interrogation and scrutiny. But the lady officer in charge still can’t make a decision. With her short, thin frame, and what-do-I-do-now look on her face, she resembled a high school kid with a big fake moustache, playing the part of a tough guy who forgot the lines during an emotionally intense scene in a play he was acting at the school competitions. It could be the moment of my life, she must have been thinking, feeling the weight of the situation on her tiny shoulders. The two stars weigh a tonne now. The hearts of every single man in uniform, and the two on the other side of the fence, filled with compassion and genuine helplessness. One of the senior constables suggested that we could be allowed to leave. And the lady, gave her consent with a silent glance.

You would be going through the same drama for another twenty times, said one among them as we started off again. One is good pastime. Twenty are real waste of time. If you have walked on the roads of Bangalore after midnight, you will understand what we were feeling right then. In that place, and time, you will find a pack of street dogs at every 300 meters or so. And they are not there to respect the rights of a pedestrian. They will stare at you, and if your eyes meet theirs, they will bark! Seldom, they bite too. The trick is not looking at them in their eyes, and walk past as composed as you possibly can, while feeling their stares right at the back of your head. They still might bark, or bite. But seldom. The same might work with policemen, I suggested to my companion. And it worked with a pretty good success rate. We were stopped only in two more instances. Now, I didn’t suggest this analogy with any intentions of insult. I respect dogs a lot.

And time passes, without making any major changes, and repeating same mistakes.

Of a reason why I can’t afford a marriage

When it comes to economics, I’m more at lost than Ms. Sawant is in elegance. What I know about the subject are some simple facts. Like it’s stupid to pay a bottle’s price for an ounce of drink in a pub. Or, that you can’t buy something when you can’t afford it. Complex things like why a credit card is being offered only when you have more than enough debit, flies fast over my head. And I am very well amused when I hear or read about funny amateur theories of economics.

Since the day my country got a crush on global economic development and started embracing so-called progressive liberal economic policies; amateur economic experts have been spawning up here and there. Almost every one who has more money than enough to make the ends to meet became a self-proclaimed authority in economics. Just like almost every literate belongs to proletariat assume of being a profound communist thinker in Kerala.

It was one report about a assembly discussion happened in Kerala, and a self-proclaimed freakenomist’s comment on it that provoked me to think of my ignorance in economics now. I was entertained by the same economist’s observation that increasing prices actually helps to fight and to a certain extend eliminate individual greed, on one earlier occasion, and had mentioned it in my last post.

The Kerala Assembly recently had got together to condemn ostentatious weddings in the state and came out with suggestions to curb wedding expenses. The leftist state government believes it should intervene to curb extravagance in marriages, wants to come out with a law to limit marriage expenses. The opposition is too in favour of this, but not the above-mentioned economist. This very funny economist states that the motivation for such a move is pure jealousy than sensible economics. Sensible, arguably, is the funniest adjective that I know of, and it can make almost every noun look oxymoronic.

The theory presented is not new, but the same ghost of the ugly liberalisation fairy. If the state promotes lavish weddings instead, it will pump more money into the economy, and will provide employment to related industries. It sure does pump money into the economy, but pumps from where? And why does this economist call it stupid populism when it actually cuts down employment of economically lower classes? Just another accidental paradox? Or the legendary lack of human insight natural to people who are too comfortable in their chairs?

A middle class wedding in Kerala is not as extravagant as the adjective suggests. It doesn’t last for a week, but only a few hours; and it costs only about Rs. 1-5 lakhs. And this amount is only a part of the expenses for the bride’s family, irrespective of cast or religion. In Hindu communities, the bride’s family organises the wedding; in other communities, the dowry is handed over in advance. And the expenses for the marriage ceremony is a percentage proportional to the dowry offered.

There of course are laws against dowry; and it has been surpassed by the legitimate will of the parent to ‘gift’. If the government comes up with another law to put restrictions on wedding expenses, that too might be surpassed with some other logic. But that doesn’t mean the government should encourage it, if it can’t eliminate it. And if the law is enforced, it’ll be easier for the parents to ‘marry off’ their daughters, but could be bad on banks and in turn, the thriving economy.

Now it triggers the freakenomist hormones in me. If the government brings up a law to make it mandatory that every wedding should be lavish for the noble purpose of pumping more money into the economy, there would be lesser marriages arranged and excecuted by parents in the state. That may not help the economy much, but might force people think a little more sensibly, and humanly, when it comes to a marriage. But then that is not populism or sensible economics. And therefore won’t be having any takers.

I stopped laughing, to take a breath

A lot of funny things happened last week, but I was busy laughing for different reasons. Those reasons suddenly stopped being around, and I’m reading old newspapers for a good laugh that I badly need. You can always trust newspapers, more than the people. News seldom disappoints you.

One highly ambitious, yet very socially responsible, organisation decided to protest against harassment of women. It’s not a new thing, and they knew no stupid old ways of protest could solve the issue. Innovation is the only way that appeals the ambitious these days. And brains must have been racked a lot to bring up this one. Wear what you wish you could, but you wouldn’t – was that idea to protest. An idea that almost stands equal to that of Gandhi’s non-cooperation. For some reason beyond mankind’s understanding, women almost always had the belief that they are imprisoned in their clothes. I can’t think of any other rational hidden under the thought of burning underclothes on their way to freedom.

Men turn to invertebrates when they come before women. And they find pleasure in almost every ill-meant insult directed to them. I know of one person who sincerely expressed his gratitude when was insulted with a ‘you!’ preceded by the beautiful f-word. The particular protest, staged after midnight on the streets of Delhi, too was one such occasion. There were only fifteen delhities to take that daring challenge to wear what they wish they could, but wouldn’t. And they turned up wearing what they could, but wish wouldn’t. As per the newspaper report, they marched past the ogling men on both sides of the road armed with slogans written on placards. They didn’t know, men don’t even read the slogan’s on their t-shirts, but just pretend to.

While this dramatic protest by a few powerless women ended on an unwanted anti-climax in the capital Delhi, things were ready for a cinematic turn of events in the state capital of Thiruvanathapuram down south. There lives this powerful woman, who’s a movie-buff. She’s powerful, not because she’s a movie-buff, but also is a minister in the ruling government. She never misses to watch a movie on its releasing date. The power of separate, shorter queues for women, or the power of power is of no help to this lady. Kerala, still, is a very democratic state. Ministers can’t reserve the whole theatre to watch a movie even if they want to. The only privilege they can have there is getting a ticket without standing in the queue. But that doesn’t solve the problem for the minister. The crowd won’t give way for anyone, even if that one is just happened to be a minister. When the power becomes powerless, it’s intelligence that really can show the power. The not-so-well-armed police force in Kerala is very intelligent lot. A few of them land at the theatre and give a hoax bomb call. The crowd vanishes. The minister enters. The movie starts. End.

It’s not ideology, or political position, or intelligence, but money that has real power, says the author of the most read blog in the country. He describes the story appeared in Reuters about a ruling by one Finnish judge. This guardian of law had ruled that a total of € 25,500 is too high for a women to charge for letting a 74 year old man suffering from dementia to ‘enjoy’ her breasts on10 occasions. This popular blogger used to be one harmless guy who ends each post at the first occurrence of a funny line. May be because of influence by some tricky astrological pattern at the time of writing, he went on writing a huge piece (huge by his own standards), even after warning many blogger greenhorns against the temptation to write long posts. The outcome was an interesting, and silly, theory of economics that states increasing prices help the society to fight individual greed. I can’t resist liking a paradox. The only trouble I was facing was, this theory is only acceptable to people who can afford to be greedy, not the ones who are just needy. But then, it’s only them who read blogs.

If you are a person, who has ever laughed long enough, you know how it feels once the laughter is died down. There comes a moment in which you wonder why you were laughing. You feel a little lost, and awkward at that tiny fraction of time. And in one such moment, I was thinking, since when had sense and nonsense become synonymous.

Sounds that were heard after the blasts

There has been a lot of noise between the short commercial breaks. I hope, the prime time rates would fall back after a couple days, and I will get to see celebrities partying and kissing as nothing has happened. Commercial news services have got more resilience than that they were tattooing on the affected society, which has no other option.

The sounds of explosive blame games are already dying down. The investigating agencies will come up with a few names soon. Then we can forget about the whole affair, till something else of similar nature happens in some place other than J&K. During the past few days we heard how bad is our internal security system, and how unsafe is our country to live in. Journalists from one News Channel carried fake bombs and hidden cameras into Delhi Metro service with its now beefed up security. It can be called alarming, as there is no feasible way to ensure security from the kind of attacks that happened in Mumbai.

Experts, especially the retired officials of our armed forces and intelligence agencies, are of the opinion that there should be stern action against the terror makers. Some wants to declare war against Pakistan, who is the root cause. The only available template for national security is that of the United States of Absurdities. One journalist even called up a Pakistani Minister to ask whether they would allow us to raid their slums too as an act of cooperation to eliminate terrorism. Suggestions were there to make the search operations more intensive, without worrying much on the inconvenience that could bring to thousands. All these were promptly approved by loud applauses from the invited crowd in the studio. They are people, who go to movie houses and travel by trains, hoping to get back home. But they don’t expect a knock on their doors after midnight to be thrown out for the good of the cause. And I feel uncomfortably numb to switch the channel.

Men, and women, in uniform around the world can be generalised almost accurately. This is because they are all trained with the same mission. The only difference between one group of them and another is their skill and the technology available to them. Apart from that they are more or less the same. The defence forces are trained to fight defence forces of another country. And the police are trained to combat criminals. Terrorists, unfortunately for these forces, don’t fall under any of the things they are taught to fight with. And that is what keeps terrorism alive, and what kills more civilians.

Terrorists are not like criminals. They are not like organised criminal outfits, like the mafia. They are not even like the hired mobs political parties bring to the road. A terrorist’s conscience is as clear as it is of a soldier. No good soldier is supposed to feel bad after a successful bombing mission. Neither does a bad terrorist, though he never gets to live or die like a soldier. But then, terrorism is not a career.

Extremism, in all its incarnations, is married to ideology of one kind or other. And what it brings up is of no huge difference. In one place it destroys ancient Buddha statues; a few hundred miles away, it demolishes an ancient Mosque. The terrorism the world has to deal with today is very different from IRA, KLF or LTTE. It has long stopped being a J&K issue for us, and Palestine for the rest of the world. The ideology that drives this particular brand of terrorism has nothing much to do with any geo-political identity. It is just about extremist retaliation to another extremist attack.

The ’93 blasts in Mumbai were provoked by the riots there, which were provoked by the Masjid demolition. The recent one is arguably provoked by the Gujarat riots. And the ways we use to fight these, in effect, are fanning the fire. The human right violations, which are considered inevitable during the operations by state forces around the world, are virile enough to give birth to more mercenaries. We have made it a fight of one wrong against another. That, by any definition, is not a right thing. Once the nations of the world are tired of mindless muscle bulging, probably they can start thinking. I expect a solution only after that day.

Me too have some reservations…

Remember the street plays titled pro-reservation and anti-reservation strikes that used to run full house (and empty classrooms) all over my country? I’m not trying to remember the similar, and much more dramatic one that was staged fifteen years back. I’m asking about the recent one. The Medicos stir. Now you remember.

Me too had forgotten about it. I don’t know any of those protests are still on. It’s media that controls collective public memory. And it is another newspaper report unintentionally brightened up my memory of medical students in their not-so-white housecoats holding candles in an early night protest. This one came up yesterday, about thousands of engineering seats in colleges in Karnataka being left unfilled.

I am not yet able to figure out the present admission procedures in Karnataka. Those are defined and controlled by two or more governing bodies, and few more in the case of institutes controlled by autonomous boards. This particular report gives me the figures about the engineering colleges that have to follow CET procedures for admissions. I had failed almost all my mathematics papers before successfully dropping out the college. But I had cleared my statistics paper. Statistics is fun for people with an average intelligent quotient. Here’s a sample. In the last academic year there were more than 9,000 vacancies in these engineering that remained vacant. This year it is about 3,200. That is after cutting the offered seats by more than 3000. In private unaided colleges, 40% of the seats are ‘reserved’ under management quota, which are duly filled (sold?) every year. 40% are under concessional-fee, and the rest 20% are under higher-fee scheme. The concession fee is Rs. 15,000 and higher-fee is around Rs. 80,000. And these fees are almost half or lesser compared to those for medical studies. The fees for last year’s admissions were higher. Now, you have all the figures, and no way to know the situation is a better one or not! If you score brilliantly in the entrance test, you will rightly be entitled to have the option: pay it, or leave it. I would like to know the number of students who are eligible for admissions, but are not. Statistics sometimes is really mean.

Exactly here is where I want to bring in the flashback: the Medicos Stir. Was it only me who wondered why the anti-reservation agitation was called the Medicos Stir, when the proposed reservations are applicable to all fields of higher education? That was because most of the organised protesters were from medical institutes. The reason is obvious; it is in medical studies the reservations will make the most impact. Is there a ‘healthcare gene’ in uppercast individuals, similar to the American discovery of ‘starvation gene’ in Asians and Africans? It is something only our medical professionals can answer.

The reservation bill is of course motivated by political ambitions. So are the protests against it. The later enabled a panwala to wear a medical professional's attire before burning himself up with it. It looks like a classic example of natural double negation to me. Those who shout for equality surely know some are more equal than others. If one has to worry about the right of learning lost by reservations, he or she has to be that rich. And the reservations are applicable only for the admissions, not the marks one should secure to pass. In our educational system you can pass most of the exams by answering up to 60% questions wrong. To add to that, we have a very healthy unemployment percentage that would ensure only the best can actually use their academic qualifications. Then, what more brain damage reservations could possibly make?