From ILU to IPL

The IPL-Tharoor-Sunanda triangle is worthy of a good filmmaker’s creative attention. Shashi Tharoor, former UN official and current MoS, who brings a rare intellectual and personal polish to our political scene, is entangled in such a typical third-class, local-neta-esque imbroglio that I’m compelled to believe that things are not what they seem. In a bout of romance-induced blindness, it is possible Tharoor may have done something dumb, which is definitely disappointing; but I don’t believe he can have done something corrupt or tried to bend the law.

The issue-hungry Opposition is simply aiming for the low-hanging fruit, they know that this issue has all the necessary keywords – big money, ‘partner’, free equity, surreptitious phone-calls – what more do you need to create a good solid ruckus in the Lok Sabha? To make things even easier, Tharoor has already created a fertile background of so-called controversies with his un-neta-like but entirely logical comments on various occasions. They may not understand his English, but they know a good issue when they see one!

It is ironical that Tharoor should have to present his clarification to a two-member committee of whom one is Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, who himself cannot boast of the cleanest track record. However, it does look like the Congress is doing all it can for Tharoor without losing political points. But our system of media-influenced, issue-based politics makes the task a lot tougher than it should be.

In any case, the story is at an interesting stage at this point – the hero is fighting to save his job as MoS, the heroine can help matters greatly by surrendering the free equity that is at the root of all of the hero’s problems. Can he, can’t he? Will she, won’t she? Scriptwriters, get cracking!

Shahid Azmi and the Fallacy of Blind Secularism

While it is obvious that the murder of Shahid Azmi was a crime, I do not understand the rush to confer instant martyrdom on him, and the insistence on labelling him a hero. Everyone is anxious to express pious shock at the murder of a ‘man who was just doing his job’, but have these people really tried to understand his agenda?

Azmi’s murder brings to the surface several curious and dangerous issues. The reports I have read in the newspapers and on the Web indicate to me plainly that Azmi was not a believer in the ‘secularism’ that his mourners seem to be bleeding for. Here’s an interview, where the lawyer makes some unlawyerlike statements accusing government agencies such as the IB of actually perpetrating blasts! A Supreme Court lawyer making such an outrageous statement to the media and getting away with it is blasphemy!

Azmi makes very vague statements throughout the interview, as if he were trying to subdue some very strong sentiments, sentiments that may not exactly have been democratic or nationalistic. He even attempts to make a case for educated Muslims taking to violence. If that were justified, minority communities the world over would either have forcibly taken control of their parent nations or be eliminated as potential threats.

And here’s what I have gleaned about Azmi’s background : He was jailed as a 14-year-old for harbouring terrorists from the Hizbul Mujahideen, J&K’s largest terror outfit . At Tihar jail, he shared his cell with such dangerous people as Maulana Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, for whose release the Indian plane IC814 was hijacked and held at Kandahar in 1999. He was apparently a favourite of these two gents – Zargar even shed tears when he was released, at being separated from young Azmi!

It is anyone’s guess what effect these two fanatic masterminds would have had on the impressionable youngster through 4 long years of cohabitation; how deeply they would have indoctrinated him in their own extremist and anti-India beliefs. In this light, many of the statements that Azmi makes in his interview seem to have an ominous anti-nationalistic ring.

Azmi does not seem to appreciate the fact that despite being accused of terrorist activity several times in his life, this land gave him the opportunity to obtain quality education (he studied law at Mumbai’s KC College) and argue before the nation’s highest seat of justice, the Supreme Court. How many majority-community Indians would manage to achieve that much in such circumstances? Azmi managed to obtain stay orders in several blast cases, which are still hanging in status quo. Is this justice? Ask the victims of those blasts.

To me, Azmi is a symptom of an alarming disease spreading fast in India, of minority fanatics wanting to seize complete power rather than be content with ‘mere’ equality and opportunity, of a ‘minority complex’ that causes people to cry foul at everything.

The Hindi film industry is already making plans to cash in on this event. One Mr. Hansal Mehta  is planning a movie that “tells the story of the slain lawyer Azmi”. Does anyone remember a certain police officer called Mohan Chand Sharma? He was killed in 2008 in the encounter at Batla House. Despite the police force losing one of their best officers, they were accused of having staged this ‘fake’ encounter. Why doesn’t anyone want to tell the story of this officer, and of others like him, who were also just doing their job?

********Updated to add:**********

Today, I came across news snippets about some intelligent and insightful questions that Shahid Azmi raised during his examination of witnesses in the Kasab trial.  It does seem that there is more here than meets the eye, and I would be grateful for any detail on the work done by this lawyer and what he was all about.

While I agree that the murder of Shahid Azmi was undemocratic, I do not understand the rush to

confer instant martyrdom on him, and the insistence on labelling him a hero. Everyone is anxious to

express pious shock at the murder of a ‘man who was just doing his job’, but have these people really

tried to understand his agenda?
I do not claim to understand it fully either, but the reports I have read in the newspapers and on the

Web indicate to me plainly that he was not a believer in the ‘secularism’ that his mourners seem to be

bleeding for. Here’s an interview, wherein the lawyer makes some unlawyerlike statements accusing

government agencies such as the IB of actually perpetrating blasts! A Supreme Court lawyer making

such an outrageous statement to the media and getting away with it is blasphemy!
Azmi makes very vague statements throughout the interview, as if he were trying to subdue some very

strong sentiments, sentiments that were not exactly democratic or nationalistic. He even attempts to

make a case for educated Muslims taking to violence. If that were justified, minority communities the

world over would either have forcibly taken control of their parent nations or be eliminated as potential

threats.
And here’s what I have gleaned about Azmi’s background : He was jailed as a 14-year-old for

harbouring terrorists from the Hizbul Mujahideen, J&K’s largest terror outfit . At Tihar jail, he shared his

cell with such eminent minds as Maulana Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar for whose

release the Indian plane IC814 was hijacked and held at Kandahar in 1999. He was apparently a

favourite of these two gents – Zargar apparently even shed tears when he was released, at being

separated from young Azmi!
It is anyone’s guess what effect these two fanatic masterminds would have had on the impressionable

youngster through 4 long years of cohabitation; how deeply they would have indoctrinated him in their

own extremist and anti-India beliefs. In this light, many of the statements that Azmi makes in his

interview seem to have an ominous anti-nationalistic ring.
Azmi does not seem to appreciate the fact that despite being accused of terrorist activity several times

in his life, this land gave him the opportunity to obtain quality education (he studied law at Mumbai’s

famous KC College) and argue in the nation’s highest seat of justice, the Supreme Court. What’s

more, he even managed to obtain stay orders in several blast cases, which are still hanging in status

quo. Is this justice? Ask the victims of those blasts.
To me, Azmi is a symptom of an alarming disease spreading fast in India, of minority fanatics wanting

to seize complete power rather than be content with ‘mere’ equality and opportunity, of a ‘minority

complex’ that causes people to cry foul at everything.
The Hindi film industry is already making plans to cash in on this event. One Mr. Hansal Mehta

is planning a movie that “tells the story of the slain lawyer Azmi”. Does anyone remember a certain

police officer called Mohan Chand Sharma? He was killed in 2008 in the encounter at Batla House.

Despite the police force losing one of its best officers, they were accused of having staged this

encounter. Why doesn’t anyone want to tell the story of this officer, and of others like him, who were

also just doing their job?

The name is Strategy Khan

And I thought Aamir Khan was the master of movie promotion!

With the release of MNIK (of course you know what that stands for!), Shahrukh Khan has proved beyond doubt his consummate grasp of the business and the factors that influence it. Whereas in normal circumstances, his movie would have been subject to public opinion based on its content, he has played the game such that merely watching the movie has become an easy way of making a political, even ethical, statement.

In a country where college degrees can be bought for money and national awards are sold, is it surprising that dimwit urbanites should find an easy platform for activisty bravado in something as facile as watching a movie?

I watched with concern as youngsters and ‘mature’ people on TV cameras cheered and waved their movie tickets as though they were hard-won prizes, shouting “we are with you, Shahrukh!”. Absolutely. Shahrukh knows that too well.

The Indian public needs heroes (we are programmed that way, it probably has to do with our history of repression) and is attracted to the mere whiff of herogiri, especially if it is the filmi kind. What better way to fan the flames of hero-worship than to transmute a screen Baazigar into real life, however superficially!

And so, effectively, the movie is no longer subject to cinematic critique; it has engineered itself into a semi-cult position merely by ‘working’ the circumstances. It is a strategy that ought to find its way into MBA classrooms as a shockingly shrewd sales & marketing case study. Aamir’s Ghajini campaign, despite its scale and extravagance, looks innocent and straightforward in comparison.

Just back from Pandora

James Cameron’s opus Avatar was, for me, an experience. I am aware that many people liked the visual effects but not the story. In my opinion, the message and the means were completely in sync. I could not mentally separate the one from the other.

The theme of staying tuned into our natural environment and close to our roots (literally!) was effectively articulated throughout the movie; and the director has used some really interesting instruments to achieve this end. The ‘bonding’ between the Na’vi people and their animals and the concept of communication via thought, the people’s worship of God as the all-giving Mother and their literal mental connect with this object of worship, the idea that everything in the forest was connected and part of a network – all this was not only creative and fascinating, but also, for me, very evocative of ancient Indian ethos.

The significance of the panchabhuta (the five elements) in Indian tradition and rituals is similar to the worship of Eywa in the movie. Many of the gods in the Hindu pantheon are associated with their own unique vahanas (vehicles) – Shiva has Nandi the bull, Murugan has his peacock, Ganapati his mouse, Durga her lion and so forth. This belief seems to have been evoked in the concept of the Ikran, which choose their rider and remain loyal to that rider for the rest of their lives. This is an idea that I’m sure most people who’ve tasted rural life can also relate to. Farmers’ attachment to their cattle and other livestock is part of rural culture the world over.

The Na’vi hunter’s prayer of thanksgiving to his prey was a wonderful instance of the tremendous respect that the people accord to their bountiful natural resources, an emotion that pervades the entire movie and literally moved me to tears. The idea of all souls eventually merging with a Supreme Soul (think Paramatma) also underlies this scene.

Then there’s the unmistakable reference to the Indian “Namaste” in the Na’vi people’s greeting of “I see you”, which Jake’s colleague explains to him as meaning “I see the goodness in you”. (The Indian greeting of “Namaste” means, literally, “I bow to you”; an acknowledgement of the universal Self which connects all of us.)

I agree that the good-vs-evil fight at the end was a tad filmy, yet I couldn’t help but anxiously root for the underdogs. In fact, I thought this ending was a masterstroke – the idea of the Turukmakto appearing at “times of great sorrow” to help the saviour of the race achieve his mission of rescuing the people is evocative of the Dashavatar, the ten avatars of the Supreme Being to destroy evil forces and restore justice, marking the cycles of creation and destruction. Sambhavami Yuge Yuge, as conveyed in the Bhagavad Geeta. I was deeply moved.

The movie has its loose ends, but it is very appropriately timed, considering the currently prevailing focus on environmental protection and ‘going green’ (is that why the Na’vi have green eyes? and is their blue skin a reminder of Lord Rama’s?). The director delivers a stinging commentary on human apathy when Jake Sully tells Eywa that the humans are “killing their Mother”, and refers to humans as ‘aliens’ who eventually go back to their “dying world”.

Thought-provoking.

Hello 2010

This New Year’s Day reinforced my belief that enjoyment cannot be planned. I am chronically bored at formal parties of all kinds – weddings, office parties, family get-togethers – which I am sure is not an uncommon disease, but my inability to even enjoy the food at such events is bound to be a less common symptom. I don’t know if it’s some primal panic reaction of my stressed body at encountering large numbers of human beings, but my appetite has consistently abandoned me at every single party I have ever attended.

So every new year’s eve, I try to think of party-free ways of making the day special; but so far, I haven’t had much success. This time, I planned nothing, deciding instead to meet the new year with zero expectations. I simply came home and surrendered myself into the able hands of my family, who whisked me away to a small get-together at a neighbour’s place. Most of us had recently moved into this new residential complex, so it was an opportunity to get to know the neighbours. It was pleasant to see my parents have a good time bonding with their new-found friends. The simple homey atmosphere was relaxing and I made a couple of new friends myself.

It was almost 3 am by the time I went to bed – I value my sleep above most worldly things, so this was a landmark event! But I topped that by proceeding to watch a morning show of 3 Idiots the next day, made more special by the fact that I was accompanied by my brother who’s home for his first break from studies in the USA.

The movie did a lot to keep my spirits up throughout the day. It has its flaws, but Aamir’s presence makes you forgive all and enjoy the spirit of the movie, goofy as that may sound. Most of the gags are old hat, but I have to admit they’re executed well. Take for example the one where Rancho mixes up the answer sheets – you’ve read the joke several times, you can tell the punchline in your sleep, and yet you end up chuckling at Rancho’s impish prank. The fundas that Raju and Farhan imbibe from “Baba Ranchhoddas” stay with you, and this is one area where Rajkumar Hirani has improved on Lage Raho Munnabhai, which I found a tad preachy and tedious.

Another pleasant change was the politically incorrect way in which the movie dealt with the problems of Raju’s family. It was delightfully casual and therefore consistent with the rest of the movie. Not for a second does the director hijack the protagonists’ perspective; so that the audience stays firmly with the trio throughout the movie.

Hey, I seem to have rolled two posts into one. But that’s fine, because I enjoyed writing and the reader has probably saved his time All’s well! (sorry, couldn’t resist that )

How many states do we need?

Had Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel been alive today, he might have wished he weren’t.

The clowns clamouring for separate states of their own and making a mockery of the Indian Republic should be declared enemies of the state and punished for being traitors. Yes, I sound extremist and politically incorrect; but even a democracy requires a degree of firmness and rigidity at the helm in order to safeguard its foundations. The public needs to be protected from its own foolishness.

Taking her cue from the preposterous demand for Telangana, Mayawati has done her me-too and asked for three new states! It is especially ironic for me personally that these unfortunate events should unfold in the same week when I started reading a book on Sardar Patel’s life! I hero-worship the man, a nation-builder in the truest sense of the word, and often wonder what India would have been like if he, instead of Nehru, had been our first PM. He would have moulded the nation’s character in the image of his own strong, principled, assertive personality. The easiest case that comes to mind is that of Kashmir – an assertive stand at the outset would have shown the world who was boss in Kashmir and saved India the humongous amount of money and time (not to mention army troops) that continues to be spent in guarding its fragile border. Our relations with Pakistan would have been different, since Pakistan wouldn’t then have the Kashmiri carpet under which to sweep every other issue!

But destiny had other things in store for this country, and it is India’s misfortune that after witnessing the pains of Partition and the heroic genius of Sardar Patel in uniting the rest of the country, it should now be subjected to further subdivision. Years ago an old man went on a fast in protest against the country’s partition; today another old man goes on a fast demanding for a separate state! We’ve heard of poetic justice; now here’s some poetic irony for you.

All we can hope for is that the government will show some sense and put a stop to all claims for separate states; the need of the hour is internal development and a strong foreign policy, not more states.

Change

Winds of change are blowing. We’re shifting. We’re pitching our tent elsewhere. And as we untie each individual string, there’s a corresponding tug at the heartstrings! Too much of a metaphor, eh? In any case, the point is that it’s a very busy time and although I’ve been itching to write, I don’t think I can manage a cogent, meaningful post until I’m quite settled. Till then, it’s back to packing and moving and shedding nostalgic tears for the house where I spent my childhood.

 ”Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for my heart to conquer it.”