We are in a democracy. The parliament is called the temple of democracy. We can talk day and night about farmers and soldiers and common man and bharat mata etc. But once the parliament falls, there is no country, no nation, no Hinduism. All that would be left is a wasteland. Whether you are a right winger, left winger, centrist wingless or just scum, this is one line that you must never cross. It’s like the dining table of a family, marital bed of a…Continue Reading “Why the PM must not avoid the parliament”
I don’t remember if I heard it from a friend or read it in a study. Memory being inversely proportional to age. Anyway, the point being how so many children in the west thought milk came from cartons. No concept of a cow. Similarly, if you ask these days, most will say that black money comes from swiss accounts or mattresses or benami properties. The same confusion, you see. Where it is is not where it came from. Black money is generated relentlessly by a…Continue Reading “Why demonetization won’t hurt black money generation”
We, the privileged assholes should stop cribbing. Many have said that. We should only talk about bad service at five stars, no? By that logic, many should stop talking about soldiers, unless they are a soldier or a father, son or husband is a soldier. Crib only about what you have experienced, no ? But today, we should focus on the other soldier. Jai jawan, jai kisan, remember ?? These days, it is all jawan, no kisan. While I agreed to the demonetization in the…Continue Reading “Demonetization: Jai jawan, jai kisan, remember ?”
Writing stories is all about control. About letting go, but also about control. About subjecting yourself to unknown forces, but also about control. In our lives we downplay real threats as imaginary and perceived just to stay alive. On the contrary, in the fictional world of our creation, it would be hard to write if the stresses and didn’t seem real, so a writer has to exaggerate or has to heighten one’s sense of empathy, not shield it. The sense of warm, comforting control comes…Continue Reading “Story writing as a means of control”
The thing about magic, it is not a process, it is not gradual.It is instantaneous.There is no then it was all magical. It was magical or not. You don’t climb a hill and then it slowly becomes magical. It is all beautiful until you reach the peak and then look around. That’s magic. It’s quite heretical to generalise magic or to misunderstand it. If you don’t remember a singular moment when it happened, it is not magic.
Trivialization. We used to use that in school debates when all was lost. The strategy was effective as slapping one’s way out of a fistfight. But face was saved, it gave the semblance of not giving in. We have all seen posts about queues during last few hours, suddenly they are everywhere. Started with the jio sim one, now it’s movie queues, ration and what not. Indians stand in queues. What’s the big deal? 16 dead. Standing in queues and other directly relatable causes. How…Continue Reading “Why Demonetization & Trivialization are bedfellows”
I am going to write something surprising today, especially given the current calamity. A positive post. A positive post is an act of daring, it takes the writer away from the dark brooding image that is so sexy. Who wants to be seen as a garden bunny and not the dark knight! I am told women love the dark brooding types. Anyway, let me put it out. We are all used to abusing our nationality and fellow citizens. Right from the morning when we pull…Continue Reading “Demonetization: The only good thing about it”
In legal system, there is a theory that not one innocent should be punished even if ten guilty get away. In economics, there is a cost benefit analysis. In politics, there is something called gullibility. All fancy folks in office talked about their uber drivers and maids having bank accounts and digital payments. I wonder how in a country like ours there are people who are so detached from reality – it’s the poor people’s fault they are so backward na, ab kuch bada karoge…Continue Reading “The merit of currency ban”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIOC8bKT4m8 Indian Express got a lot of flak for inviting head of a government that does not speak to media, stifles it and, for the first time in history of the world, permits policemen to burn effigies of journalists. Policemen, who have the gun and the FIR book and the power to harass, can now openly protest against citizens. Whatever the reasons Indian Express got the PM over, I wish the editor, Rajkamal Jha’s speech was not the intent. That would be wicked! After Ravish…Continue Reading “About journalism and thinking men”
I stress about a lot of things, so this may not be a big deal. But I have been stressing about it since yesterday, that makes it one. I came across a tweet from a food writer that equated Chinese dosa with rape of food. Now, to me, it is not about political correctness or feminism or sensitivity at all. It is about English. Rape has a meaning and it does not mean this. I have asked her on twitter, hope she takes it down….Continue Reading “‘Rape’ in food writing: tell me I am wrong”
Aaj ka bawal wala mudda – national anthem pe dharti pe bojh daalna The newspaper had a report that they want the same implemented in Delhi. Some lunatic has gone to the courts asking them for speedy implementation. But both central and Delhi govt have not responded for months. They know better, this is not Mumbai. There are no Shivaji offsprings here. Delhi would stand up and dance for Honey Singh and Badshah but a 70 year old track which has not even been remixed!!…Continue Reading “Standing for national anthem: The secret revealed”
We all make mistakes but only the best of us accept them. Let me be one from the superior league by accepting I erred by voting for AAP. Not that I had not realised earlier, but I spend more time driving now. When I am not dodging incoming cars, I am dodging Manish Sisodiya on radio. On every channel, every two minutes either he is sorry for the teacher killed or for Dengue or for something else. If he had invested the crores he spent…Continue Reading “Delhi made a mistake : AAP”
You have failed me, social media. And, all my friends are either too lazy or liars. Otherwise, why won’t anyone tell me that the movie starts and ends with ‘I can bring him back into the program or we eliminate him.’ The story has not moved a millimeter. The chase scene in the end was unnecessary and too Fast & Furious for a Bourne movie. Most of the scenes were rehashed scenes from earlier movies. There was no honesty in the script. The franchise has…Continue Reading “Jason Bourne and social media failure”
Cow politics is different from beef politics. And that forced our dear PM to speak up. How? Let me explain. Even though in numbers, beef eaters can be found more amongst dalits and upwardly mobile Indians who love their medium rares in Europe, the BJP campaign was aimed at Muslims. It played on the stereotype that Hindus pray cows and muslims ate them. Only Muslims were murdered and hounded. No matter what we say, after love jihad and few mad dog nationalism campaigns, beef campaign…Continue Reading “How is cow politics is different from beef politics”
I don’t have cable TV. So, I won’t know. But given that the papers and the channels come from same media houses, there should not be much difference in coverage. What happened in Gurgaon lasted a day. It became the talk of the nation. 24 people have died in Assam floods. Petrol is being rationed in Tripura. Manipur suffers from some roadblock every second week. How much we care shows in the square cms that these reports get in papers. Sometimes after days of occurrence….Continue Reading “Monkey business and banana republic”
Tip of the tongue intellectuals. We all have them in our lives. Kashmiris – traitors, Muslims – terrorists, leftists – jhola chaap idealists, liberals – clueless idiots, dalits and tribals — who? So on and so forth. Most of us educated English writing assholes have such compulsion to sound intellectual and such little empathy and patience to read and understand that we have become hollow stereotypes of our own selves. Think. Empathise. What would do in a similar situation ? Can you even imagine yourself…Continue Reading “Main bhi intellectual”
Judges of high courts can’t be appointed because the Chief Justice is holidaying abroad since a month. Judges get massive leaves, so do teachers. The govt wants to regulate teacher’s working hours, the judges remain demigods that can’t be touched. Allahabad judges touch a PM’s feet. But don’t feel the judges have started rotting now. Apart from bureaucrats, the only other group that is so rotten are the judges. They have always been that way. In the Mumbai blast case, which killed 257 people has…Continue Reading “The Indian judicial system is criminally unfair”
Lynching is not just murder. Mobs are not always an unruly, group of people with criminal intent. This is how we have come to roughly understand the terms and but they are not completely accurate. Our govt, courts and the whole legal system has a massive loophole when it comes to the biggest crimes. Once the number of killers is exceeds 4-5, the point till which they are called a gang, the law suddenly faints, falls down on the ground and starts frothing at the…Continue Reading “Why Gullberg Society verdict is a joke”
We have a separate glass at home for service staff. All our gods are white; all our villains are dark. One god who is not white is so sexy that he beds 16000 virgins. We call our non-fair friends and siblings kaalu. That’s affection. We prepare for more dowry if the girl is not white or yellow. We keep 25% of our population in what the world now calls slavery. A fair and handsome army rapes and destroys. They get reservations. The tanned skinned ones…Continue Reading “The Indian Racism – An Overview”