Times are a changing

My email; SMS; whatsapp; BBM and all form of messaging boxes have been inundated with hundreds of messages carrying best wishes and good tidings for Diwali and New Year. Honestly; apart from the few I really care about - the rest - mostly from marketing e-bots fed with big data about me will go directly to my trash box as they don't need any reply or acknowledgement.

It's only now that I have noticed that I haven't received a single card via the postal or courier service. Thankful I am, for a couple of reasons; - first, I don't have to open them physically to see who they are from; second, no waste of precious paper and printing ink; and third no guilt of responding back in kind. It always felt cheap to respond back to a physical card sender with some form of e-greetings or e-acknowledgement. From a thriving money making industry, conveying of greetings through creative, time consuming and expensive cards has become a virtually free and relatively effortless task. In this age of CCP (Cut Copy Paste) one does not even spend time looking for a great original creative piece of work - just take something cool received - edit it to make it look personal (if possible) and forward to your own mailing list or respond back with a template reply.

I cannot decide if it's good or bad. Thanks to technology I have mapped my friends' birthdays, anniversaries, and such important dates - even if they are incorrect based on data entered by the source. It's good to remember people even for a split second - but does that really translate to care? At times wishing someone on a social network results in acute irritation from the alerts when others too have greeted that person. Does it give us a high to receive greetings from tons of people - many who we don't even know?

I still hold on to a few physical greeting cards that touched me emotionally; but I don't recall holding on to or printing a single e-card sent to me. We now click and share more pictures and probably leave them forgotten on social sites. There are those days when I go through my physical picture albums, scrap books and cards - hardly ever through my cherished memories on any e-platform. Its either there in my mind or somewhere out there. Times are changing - but I do hope in this age of e-junk we are able to sift through and recognise the messages of real care and respond accordingly. May be even call for a conversation rather than send back words with one of the few billion emoticons.

Happy Diwali and Indian New Year

The elections in Maharashtra has given a cracker of a result freezing the BJP a few inches behind the finish line and the rest way behind. To form the Government and claim the Chief Minister's chair; the BJP has to kind of decide between the Devil and the deep Blue Sea - namely the NCP - a party it labeled as the "Naturally Corrupt Party" and the Shiv Sena - its former ally whose leadership has been washing dirty laundry in the public even after the results were declared. In a case of warring siblings, both are waiting for the other to blink. The NCP of course; irrespective of the final equation must be laughing itself silly. By offering outside support to the BJP; it has killed two birds with one stone - first; if BJP accepts - then BJP too is susceptible to tainting itself for good as an opportunist that will do anything for power; and second - it has ruined Shiv Sena's bargaining power to near zero making sure that the leadership ego is ground to dust.

There are two more improbable scenarios - one where the 20 independents help BJP cross the finish line - at a cost that would probably be more expensive than making up with the Sena; two - BJP decides to wait it out and hope for re-election - at a cost to the exchequer and the people at large.

A re-election will in all probability deliver BJP well past the finish line but having come this far - no party would have the guts to seek a fresh mandate - even if it is on the strength of a high moral ground. With its victory in Haryana; Delhi is all but certain to fall in BJP hands should elections be called for. Such a possibility is true in Maharashtra as well given that it won more seats on its own than it would have fighting alongside Shiv Sena. The Congress looks all but washed out but not finished. Maybe it will reinvent itself with or without the Gandhi family leading it. It's more of a family political party now and would probably be better off with a non-Gandhi leader that is not a puppet to the family. There are quite a few good men in there and it would be good for an alternative to be in place just in case Mr. Modi falls in love with his own story and self.

Politics is a willy game and not improbable for scenarios five - six - seven and more to emerge including all independents joining the BJP or the Sena seeing a third of its MLAs splitting and forming a Sena B (that supports the BJP). A solution will emerge - however strange it may be. In the mean time the financial markets are celebrating that the Modi magic is more or less intact and he will now get down to doing the business he was elected for; that is make the India Story a sexy story globally once again.

So; on the eve of Diwali and the Hindu New Year - India may once again be the toast of the G-20 summit. I have moved to a new office and hopefully I will be fired creatively to write down more than just my political views. Wishing all my readers the best for the festive season. Pray that Indian festival of light and New year ushers in a new world order where Good is Good and not Breaking Bad.

War Peace and Haider

While the Indian and Pakistani troops were shelling each other's borders in the Kashmir region last evening (9th Oct); I was busy watching "Haider" - a film by one of my favourite movie makers Vishal Bharadwaj. It's a screen adaptation of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" that's been very well melded into the strife of the Kashmiri disturbance in the 90's, to set up the Indianized plot and characters. I am not about to write this film's critique barring that each actor played his or her role to near perfection - with the moral of the story coming out quite clear that revenge begets revenge and not a closure to anyone's pain. I think the leaders on both sides of the border should pay heed to this as the only people getting brutally affected by the events on the border are innocent citizens.


I must praise the openness of my own Nation's people for the screening of this movie, as it has shown the excesses of the armed forces in trying to control a situation. Pretty sure that a movie like this would have been banned in Pakistan had a Muslim film director made it showing excesses by the Pakistani army against its own people in the NWFP and Baluchistan. The Indian armed forces too have taken a pragmatic approach in not censoring it, given the artistic license that a filmmaker has to tell his story as he interprets it. There were no demonstrations on the street either in Kashmir or any other State in India protesting on how various Indian communities were portrayed. In fact people have praised the movie on all counts.

Unfortunately, the army (armed forces)  does not receive praise that it deserves unless it fights an external battle. Unlike the police that battles internal elements on a daily basis, the army knows only friend or foe and when it is instructed that it's own are foes - it does not discriminate in its dealing with them. It is this same unidirectional machinery that unquestioningly puts every resource it has at its disposal including lives of its soldiers at stake in dangerous conditions that challenge even the might of nature to rescue and rehabilitate its own people - and many a times even those that throw stones and abuses at it. The army is not known to betray its own - it only follows orders.

But; Haider is a story of betrayal by his own and the exaggerated disgust that he felt by the same - enough for him to take harsh steps of reprisal. I think the trouble on the border is being attributed to the internal problems that the Pakistanis are facing with their own system and rulers and the situation with India has been "created" by the latter to divert attention. But politically, India is not too far behind Pakistan in this sentiment; even though the reasons may be some what different. The way Indian politicians have betrayed the trust of their own people - time is not too far when India may look like the streets of Paris in the French revolution. I hope I am as good in my prediction as Rev. Malthus was in economics.


Ironical as it may be - when the two nations are fighting a quasi WAR; it was fab to hear (this morning 10th Oct.) that the Nobel PEACE Prize 2014 was being shared by a deserving Pakistani and an Indian - Ms. Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi.

http://time.com/3489223/malala-yousafzai-and-kailash-satyarthi-win-nobel-peace-prize/

Jingle Poll Jingle Poll Jingle all the way

15th Oct. 2014; is poll day for the State of Maharashtra. A fortnight back the news was full of fracturing alliances. Parties that had worked together in happy - sad situations for 25 years or more decided to break away from each other and fight it on their own. The obvious reason being seat allocations and each of those parties thinking that it needed a better share than its partner. I could have understood if the tiff came about on ideological differences on how each one wishes to govern the State and make it a better - more progressive - less taxing place for its residents. Sadly, the electorate are of no consequence in such equations. And we claim India is a Democracy where it is rule of the people for the people by the people. This definition has to change or India has to coin a new word for the type of governance we have now become. Dictatorship elected by the people for persecution of the people by the Dictator and his cohorts.

Why do I feel that now? For one; the elected party is only interested in enriching itself at the cost of the subjects. All the major projects are dished out to related companies. the related companies do a bad job as they don't really have the expertise to carry out the works except believing in cheap is best as it delivers maximum profit - which of course is the motive - not to mention periodic price hikes which have an overall impact on inflation. Can I as a citizen complain? Yes of course I can - at the cost of facing the ire of the party leader and its members - who incidentally I help elect in the first place. If there is a process of election - can we have a process of de-election. NO. Because, a) there is no real process and b) all public servants have learnt the art of sucking up to the elected and make life miserable for anyone who dares to speak up about anything that is not a jingle to the ears of the Dictator.

As of now I am suffering from an overdose of poll jingles. It's uncanny how they stick in your mind and keep replaying again and again in silence. I am sure there is some psychology involved in creation of the same to have that effect - a kind of mind hypnosis. Anyway I cannot understand what message each one is trying to communicate. There is one that proclaims that it is time to end Mafia style rule and the severe level of corruption. Cannot figure is the Party hinting at the present State government being ruled by its adversaries or the Mumbai City administration being ruled by it along with its now splintered partner? The ruling administration's ad talks about putting Maharashtra first. Well if one goes by the State's economy (leaving out Mumbai) then it has probably ensured that the State would fall to some abysmal levels. The latest ad by that Party wants us to believe that it has been responsible for ensuring higher safety for women in the State and for implementing iconic projects like the Mumbai sea-link bridge; the metro and bridges to improve traffic conditions.  The jingle fails to say anything about 26/11; the numerous rapes in the State; farmer suicides because of incomplete water distribution projects; the over the top cost ( some Rs 16 billion) of the sea-link project (which was incidentally planned in 1968 from Bandra to Nariman point at a cost of some Rs 160 million back then) that has only reached halfway point; pot holed roads that can give the moon surface a complex; bridges that have collapsed and the list goes on.

Well for both of them; their partners in crime are now washing dirty laundry in public. But who does it help? All that the Jingles have done is pushed me closer to pushing the 49-0 button (which means I waste my vote on nominating no one). This election is probably going to be a waste of money as the votes will be divided 4 ways as each of the 4 major parties have their strongholds. I will be surprised if any party gets absolute majority. In any event - God help the State.  Will the results usher in new and more dangerous post poll alliances? Politics is like a soap opera - anyone can sleep with anyone; and it's not impossible to see sworn enemies share the stage together on the swearing ceremony day. Until the 14th then - it's Jingles all the way.