Hyderabad: Rape, Murder ,Encounter

A wag was asked, " why do police encounters at scenes of crime happen only in the early hours after midnight? "

"bcoz reconstruction of crime is best done in light "

" so why night ? "

" well, during day it is  'dark' that is most in bold relief, whereas at night one 'sees' light clearly, even better with criminals not blocking the view "

On to a serious note. Now that dust is settling on the mass euphoria over encounter killing of Hyderabad rapists soon after the crime one needs to sit in sober contemplation. Why this manic swing in public sentiment, from hysterical rage to unrestrained elation, and what does it hold for the future ?

A crime is not an act against God or one that prickles our sense of fair play the wrong way.  Though criminal jurisprudence couches crime in obfuscating legalese, in essence, it is a violation of our collective consciousness;  and  punishment for a crime, a reparation for it, to put it bluntly, retribution, an eye for an eye. All talk of punishment as deterrence against crime (if it were so the world would have been free of crimes long ago), or a penance at the end of which a 'thieving' Valmiki reforms to a 'Ramayana' Valmiki is self delusional.

In this instance the collective consciousness was rightly exercised and it cried for recompense. Nothing sinister, only a diagnostic symptom for restoring societal health just as a fever is elemental to treating a diseased body.

But the hedonism on display holds some disturbing portents. Is the police an instrument to instantaneously deliver recompense to an  outraged 'common' consciousness's baying for blood rendering judicial processes superfluous , reducing judiciary to a sinecure, blurring the distinction between a lynch mob and cop ? Is a 'common's rage' a Mafame Defarge knitting names of 'criminals'  for feeding cops' 'encounter guillotines', a la  "A tale of two cities" ?

No civilized society will countenance such a state of affairs - one institution ascertaining collective consciousness to determine a crime,  investigating, sentencing and executing the sentence all by itself. That happens only in Hitlerian regimes.

But I have a more fundamental objection. Extra judicial killing is not the best way to sate collective conscience.

"Thus a man will suffer half an hour of mortal fear with a robber, but once the knife is finally at his throat, even fear vanishes"  Fyodor Dostoyevsky, "Crime and Punishment"

Between taking the  rapists out to the crime spot and the encounter killing rapists spent less than 4 hours in morbid fear of death. Then finis ! Permanent deliverance from all fear. Their families will mourn awhile but will soon reconcile to changed circumstances and adapt their lives accordingly.

What if they were tried and went through the grind of our exasperatingly tortuous, tormenting  and frustrating judicial procedure? Whether in jail or on bail they along with their families would have  lived in perpetual  dread of death, died every living moment of it. Would not collective consciousness have then been more  amply recompensed ? Even if some had gotten scot free, courtesy lack of evidence, they would have already spent every minute of some ten years or so that the proceedings 

lasted in living death.

Therefore, public outcries  for instant extra-judicial reparation are a sentimental folly. If cops succumb to these outcries they do immense disservice to the collective consciousness.

Criminals escape conviction due to  shoddy, botched up investigation that fails to collect and present clinching evidence , or cops themselves being in cahoots with criminals , or compromising  cases for considerations beyond the call of duty. Encounter killings serve cops in two ways- covering up their investigative incapacities  and earning public accolade .

No police academy churns out Encounter Specialists, let not common folk do it !

A Footnote on World Television Day

That we celebrate a  World Television Day is an eloquent testimony of its abiding signification in our lives. It is a deeply intrusive, transformative  influence, changing social mores, the way we dress, the things we eat, even the way we look at each other, haloing men, hollowing others, in effect , materially reshaping social attitudes and  individual choices. Long held conventions and firmly grounded societal signposts are getting replaced with new benchmarks of 'modernity'. Much has already been written about it. Yet, on its day of glory, I can't resist the temptation of adding a footnote in  acknowledgement of the thrall in which it holds us. 

My great grandfather belonged to the jowar-bajra ki roti, kodo rice (an indigenous  variety now extinct) and saag epoch of Indian gastronomy. My grand parents transited to 'chakki ka atta' and parboiled Taichung rice( a high yield dwarf hybrid rice strain developed in the 60s), my parents put  polished arhar dal, arwa chawal and a wholesome mix of veggies in the menu. I brought  packaged grains, oils and flours,  and other branded groceries to spice up the dining table ; my brood reared up under the proselytising gaze of  'Television' went  eclectic and cosmopolitan in their gormandising. The flavours and aroma of  Chinese cuisine -chow mein, chilli chicken sweet- and- sour soups floated about. 

But things turned really  topsy turvy  with the grand children.Theirs' is a truly global palate that tucks  in Kentucky fries, pizzas, pastas, burgers, French fries,exotic Thai food,sushi in wasabi,  Continentals...... and whatnot. Food is no longer  what is cooked at home but that which is ordered on line. Not a little of this metamorphosis is attributable to  advertising hypnopaedia unleashed by television.

The Tele boom in the post-WWII West was fertilized by corporate advertising moolah that targeted the  DICs , Double Income Couples, the baby boomers.  Much the same is happening here with a half century lag, only that the DICs come from the assembly lines of  IT and services sector, not industrial.

Whatever it maybe , if the grand children are not to corral us oldies in  Reservation centres for 'Roti-Dal savages' in their BRAVE NEW WORLD ( Aldous Huxley saw it all a century ago, only that he was obsessed with viviparous reproduction, we with gastronomical delights ) our taste buds need to globalize and globalise fast. Otherwise, our  homes risk branding as

culinary ghettos that grandchildren avoid. 

As a footnote to a footnote, this anecdote, most certainly apocryphal, is pretty instructive in many ways about the BRAVE NEW WORLD that television is envisioning. 

On TV a young chap spotted an unequivocal promise from the famed fast-food chain,  Burger on the Double. 

 "your order at doorstep in 30 min, else you get it free".

To check on it he ordered a 'cheese burger'. As Dame Luck would have it, the delivery boy's  knock came 45 min later. So he took delivery and shut the  door. But the boy wouldn't go away.

'late delivery, hence no payment. go away ' , bellowed the chap triumphantly. 

'Sir, that offer is only for chicken burger ", smiled the boy. Willy-nilly, he paid up. 

Sometime later he ordered a  chicken burger. Again late, but again he had to pay.

' Sir , the offer holds only for chicken jalapeno burger ' 

Determined to avail what promised to be a certain freebie he next ordered a chicken jalapeno. The boy was late yet again . Aha ! he had the boy by the scruff this time , no getting away. But the boy continued to smile, ' sir, delay due to force de majeure is excluded. It’s raining and still is '. 

On a bright sunny day with the gods smiling all over he took another chance. He reordered chicken jalapeno. As before  the order came late. 

' Sir, it seems the whole city is on the streets. Even gods cannot control this traffic, a force de majeure even greater than rains'.
Livid with rage he threatened to expose the fraudulent offer in  Facebook. Nonplussed, the boy said,  “ as you please sir, but do give us a five star rating in the feedback " 

The last one heard of him  was that he was on the double chasing Burger on the Double, down to next to last item on the menu in quest of an elusive freebie. 

That is the hypnotic spell tele marketing casts, ensnaring us into chasing ghosts and falling for the Quixotic - putting round pegs in square holes. What happens when vision gets fully replaced by Television ? Only Big Brother knows !

And the winner is Goddess Sri or Gauri ?

Sculpted panels at the rock cut temples at Ellora, Maharashra, portray the cosmic couple engrossed in a game of dice.

The popular folklore has it that Lord Shiva and Parvati once had a fling at the ‘throw of dice’ to entertain themselves.  And Shiva lost . An ecstatic Parvati just couldn’t believe it, she had beaten the lord himself. Thrilled to the core, she in her exuberance gave the gambler a ‘Midas touch’  boon - spend the Diwali night at the gaming table and keep amassing wealth throughout the year. From then on gambling on Diwali night became an adjunct of Diwali festivities. Along with the worship of wealth goddess Laxmi , the memory of Parvati’s success at the dice too is kept alive.

So, today beware the poker faced . If his luck holds many will leave the gaming table a diwala ( after all there is just the gap of a vowel between Diwali and Diwala ) . And both, divine sanction and divine indulgence, would back him up.

Hindu myths and traditions are replete with the high and mighty gambling away their wealth, kingdoms ,even their wives. However, the Hindu is an incorrigible prude. He never played strip poker. Stray gamblers did lose their underpants. Lord Shiva lost all including his loin cloth and had to walk away naked. Poor Drapadi was tormented with chirharan under public gaze because the Pandavas had staked her and lost at chauper. .

Me too in my callow, salad days kept my tryst with this tradition. After propitiating goddess Laxmi, we sat down to a longish ‘Teen Patti, or ‘flush’ card session that stretched well past midnight.   The poker faced like Le Chiffre in Casino Royale with expressions inscrutable whether the hands held three aces or dud cards always came up tops. But we played for low stakes for we had a little money and thus little to stake. We had no wives and none were interested in ‘defrocking’ the loser. The male genital held no charms for us.

The rules of the game decreed that a fixed amount or a percentage of the money on the board would be expropriated from the booty at the end of each round to defray expenses on food and drinks. We didn’t know then of the scriptural sanction for it. But there is . Kautilya in Arthashashtra enjoins upon the Superintendent to take 5 per cent of the stakes won by every winner fee chargeable for supplying water, accommodation and other services at the table.

But we never abided by the Katyayana’s diktat “ The keeper should give to the winner his money (out of his own pocket) and he should recover from the defeated gambler within three fortnights.’ It was strictly cash down, money at once. If you went broke ,you went out of the door.

Some may see irony in the fact that on a day the Hindu importunes goddess Sri for wealth, Shiva’s consort, Parvati ,points him to the gaming table. In the ‘throw of dice’ there is no win-win outcome, only a winner and a loser.

Dig deeper and the contradiction gets resolved. In Hindu cosmogony the creative process of ‘brahmand’ is a broad sweep, all comprehensive , all encompassing. Brahma (as per Vishnu Purana ) created the harmful or benign, gentle or cruel, full of dharma or adharma , truthful or false, devas or demons...simultaneously from the primordial flux. In the cosmic flow of time and space, the yugas, life and death, creation and destruction go apace. Contrast this with the Genesis where the knowledge of good and evil, the progression of births and deaths arise only from an indiscreet act of man, ‘the original sin’- Adam and Eve disobeying Jehovah and eating the fruit of the forbidden tree.

The process of acquiring wealth and dissipating it both must co-exist, that is the Hindu‘s conception of the natural order of things.

Who is afraid of ‘laxman-rekha’ ?

In the ‘history’ of Akhand Bharat the first death sentence for crossing the laxman rekha was pronounced on Shishupal, king of Chedi.

As the legend goes all the kings of aryabrata are seated in the glittering hall of the newly built rajmahal of Pandavas in Indraprastha. The highbrow gathering is green with envy at the glamour and splendour of the royal palace and the city constructed by none other than Viswakarma himself, the architect of devas. The occasion is solemn - coronation of Yudhishtra as king of half of Kuru dominions.

The Rajasuya yagna for consecrating a king is in progress . One among the assembled dignitaries must do the honours for agra pooja, an integral part of the Yagna. Pandavas consult the elders and choose Krishna. Shishupal explodes in uncontrollable rage and vehemently remonstrates. How can Krishna supersede the more qualified including Duryodhana and he when they are in attendance! Moreover , Krishna is not even a king. He incites the gathering and starts to abuse him . There is a flutter among the kings, a buzz in the crowd. Many start taking sides. The yagna proceedings come to an abrupt halt. Krishna ,however, is unruffled, a placid lake amidst the rippling cacophony and tempest of opprobrium.

Not Bheema, his hackle is raised. How dare Shishupal vilify his illustrious, godly cousin , he must be taught a lesson. He rushes menacingly towards Shishupal. However, Bhishma pitamah stops him midway and tells the assembled kings of  Krishna’s ‘vachan’ - he will not harm Shishupal till he commits one hundred crimes against him . But Shishupal is on an unswerving  trajectory. He, heedlessly, persists in his unrelenting vituperative tirade and in the process crosses 100 sins. 

Krishna with wry resignation observes Shishupal crossing the  laxman rekha, and releases the sudarshan chakra. Shishupal gets shorter by six inches from the top. Oops ! That’s what happens when one doesn’t abide by laxman rekhas.  

Humans grow up negotiating a baffling maze of laxman rekhas, red lines, no-no(s), no-go(s), ‘don’t you dare(s) !’ ‘that’s the limit !’.......This is haram, that is non-kosher, this is taboo that a must do, beef is grief....! How desperately an adolescent yearns to be an adult , just to draw up rather than heed laxman rekhas . Sadly, that isn’t the way life unveils . More nuanced, more subtle ,and more grating on the nerves , red lines sprout that shackle body and spirit. Nevertheless societal well being rests on the scaffolding of such proscriptions. If Shishupal had stopped at the 100th sin, he would have lived to fight another day.

Of more relevance to modern contexts is the liberal import underlying the obviously punitive carapace in the gatha , namely, Shishupal being allowed to commit 100 sins by divine dispensation. Today we jump at the gun and shoot at the first instance. Society is in jitters, is in deep angst, having immensely shrank distances to laxman rekhas . The country of immigrants wants no more ; the cradle of Islamic civilisation, the middle-east, has reached the tipping point of Shia-Sunni tolerance and stews in a boiling cauldron of internecine strife ;  liberal capitalism is deemed to have run its course ,anti-globalisation noises, Brexit are symptoms of it ; the country that gave the Islamic world its first whiff of modern liberalism , Turkey, slides incessantly into authoritarianism; a country that advertises ‘one nation two systems’ is hell bent on eliminating the only other system where it exists, Hong Kong ; India an avowed secular nation is in the grips of identity politics, having reached the end of the tether of  ‘minority appeasement’.

Everywhere it seems  the laxman rekha is much less than 100 sins away. 

Dharma is the best

There’s a chemistry of thought running through these childlike propositions 

Plus    and  Plus =    Plus 

Minus and  Minus = Minus 

Plus    and Minus =  Plus or Minus, depending on which is bigger 

Hydrogen gas and Oxygen = water 

The end product is either one of the combining elements (Plus or Minus) or something new that embeds the elements but not the properties of either .

Now this one .

Male  and Female = child

The child is a new life but endowed with some elements of physique and nature from either or both parents. (the Baap par gaya hai, Maa par gaya hai truism) 

Thus laws of the material world and the laws of living beings differ. Material laws are static, imperishable and predictable. There is an abiding sense of certainty and finality in the inanimate world. Do laws for humans carry the same feel of definiteness ? For lower forms of life , yes, for they are governed by matsya nyaya, the law of the jungle that makes survival of the fittest the enduring supreme truth. However, laws for the highest form of life and its salvation can’t be the same. 

Different religions, spiritual leaders and seers have sought to divine these laws but only come up with dissimilar prescriptions for righteous conduct, many in sharp conflict with each other. But there is a common substratum of rules of conduct running through each system of theological thought. We can name it revealed truth, universal ethics, morality or whatever ,but the Hindu conception of Dharma, to my mind ,comes closest to embracing the whole common area. 

Dharma includes all that is rightful conduct but also much more. It is flexible and a practical path to human salvation. Dharma would make it rightful for a starving rishi ,Viswakarma, to steal dog meat from a chandala when faced with a choice of death or theft . Preserving the divine gift of life overwhelms all ethics in this case. So must Duryodhana be killed by landing unethical blows, but die he must for his vanity has been the cause of mahabharat. So the manner of his slaying is inconsequential and his elimination a dharmic necessity.

The current strife between peoples of different religious denominations espousing the supremacy of their particular faiths seems so futile, unwarranted . Between religion defined sins and virtues and the universal ethics of rights and wrongs lies the dharmic course. Dharma meanders between the two boundaries, electing the action from within their bounds that which is most appropriate to a given situation, a given moment and a given place. It is the spiritual path to salvation- individual-centric and incorporating the best of religion and ethics. According supremacy to universal normatic rules of conduct rather than faith dictates will surely make the world a better and healthier place for its inhabitants . 

India- Modi’s Lok Sabha sweep triggers unprecedented rhapsody

As the counting of EVM votes reached its definitive phase where leads become irreversible, my neighbour called. He was understandably ecstatic, nay that would be putting it too mildly, euphoric seems apt but still an understatement ,at the summit of a hill would be just about right if it were Mount Everest . Figuratively speaking, for generations uncountable and from times immemorial his is a Bhajpa family . With BJP poised to beat street expectations demolishing all opposition and pretences to power, he whooped out of my mobile, 

‘ Kya haal chaal hai ? ‘.

Normally an ingenuous te^te-a-te^te opener, this one was unmistakably laden with a deep sense of deja vu , I-had-told-you-so. And the tone barely concealed a taunt. Had he been on FaceTime I would surely have ‘seen’ him grinning too like the proverbial Cheshire Cat. Victory is a hot relish to season political palates. 

‘Dheron Badhai Ho, aapne toh poora maidan hi saaf kar diya. Kuch baccha hi nahin.’ ,I gamely acknowledged. 

‘ RG bhi haar rahe hain. He should resign.’ 

‘ What use resigning? But introspect he should. ‘ 

‘ Dynasty aab nahi chalegi. Rahi toh BJP aur badi bahumat se aate rahegi ! ’

‘If dynasty is balle balle for BJP why wish its banishment ? ‘ 

‘ Hum rashtrawadi hain, we want congress to live ” 

‘ so if Congress forswears dynasty will BJP let it win ? “ 

Without batting an eyelid he chirruped , 

‘ jeetega tab bhi nahin ! ‘ . 

To the feisty neighbour ,congress, with or without dynasty, was nasty. Expendable stuff . In the field of politics too the universal law of sustenance, matsya nyay -one fish is food for another, applies with as much vigour. How silly of me to forget it ! 

Then he changed tracks.

 ‘What do you make of this victory ‘

‘Spectacular ,breath-taking , stunning , humongous .....’, I rattled off superlatives to sugar his moment of glory. 

‘ I mean what made it possible ? ’ 

‘ Bhai Saheb, dissecting such an overwhelming verdict is beyond me. Wait a day or two , many percipient analyses will flood national consciousness. Right now savour your victory and send me ladoos. ‘ We signed off. 

The TIME divider-in-chief is now firmly in saddle as the nation’s commander-in-chief. Having bridled at many disconcerting features of Modi 1.0 era, a Socratic doubt about Modi 2.0 leapt to mind. 

A de-addiction centre wouldn’t attempt making a drunkard temperate with more wine. What if it does serve more wine ? Well, the only plausible explanation could be de-addiction drugs were out of stock. Till then wine serves as a palliative. 

‘

Modi gifts the nation a poll strategy -Discourse Jam

Democracies think of poll strategising  in terms of VACO -voter arithmetic, chemistry with voters, and orotund orators thundering down the masses into awed genuflection with their magniloquent rhetoric. Our party thinktanks, however, have two more instruments uniquely desi - lexical SEMANTICS that puts wicket-taking top spin on meanings of orated words and phrases , and ‘JAM’ ,no not the acronym present regime swears by, nor the sweet jelly stuff we grew up on , but the pesky jam as in a traffic jam. 

Take the first one - lexical semantics . Needn’t go further, suffice it to give a few examples. 

Spoken                                                  Spin 

*नीच राजनीति -                                       नीच जाति 

*नीच क़िस्म का आदमी -                            ग़रीब आदमी -चायवाला 

*Give Modi a slap of democracy -     give Modi a slap 

*Modi is arrogant, Duryodhana 

was arrogant -                                     Modi is Duryodhana

Next ,Jam . Its earlier two variants are now SOP (standard operating procedure). Both originating from the eastern part of the nation, Bihar birthed the first one - vote jam, that is voter’s inability to vote because he is physically prevented from reaching the booth and his vote is cast by booth looters. But what if the voter did reach the booth ? Bengal’s response wombed the other one -booth jam. Even before voting officially opens , supporters of the dominant party at the booth queue up at the gates in long serpentine columns. Any suspected ‘unsympathetic’ voter now has to stand at the tail. His voting turn probably never comes as ‘sympathetic’ voters coming after him manage to find a place ahead of him courtesy other ‘fellow sympathiser’ in the queue . Both variants continue to flourish in select parts of the country . 

Under the Modi dispensation an entirely new variant has emerged -Discourse jam. It’s like the booth jam , just as the ‘other’ voter is frustrated from voting , in the discourse jam the ‘voice’ of the opposition fails to find space in the media. Through financial patronage, ideological colonisation and the unchallenged first-movers advantage for BJP in the case of social media , election reportage has now been  ‘flattened’ - space only for that which bolsters electoral prospects of BJP or detracts from that of opposition parties, put succinctly, nothing save a ‘Modi discourse’. ‘Other’ news goes down an irretrievable memory hole , unseen, unheard, un-debated  . 

To a disinterested viewer it sounds pretty dull - vapid , monochromatic, single frequency monotone not a cacophony of dissonant notes from different bugles that a typical animated multiparty Indian Election is known for. Rajiv Gandhi ‘s INS Viraat ‘personal taxi’, Rahul Gandhi’s citizenship, Mamta not responding to Modi’s call , 1984 Sikh riots, Rajiv Gandhi ‘Bhrashtachari No 1’ ,coating and re-coating of a Balakot strike with various nationalistic hues and such like rhetoric find multiple echoes across a broad swathe of media space. The dire state of economy, unemployment, worsening Kashmir turmoil, rising crimes against women, dalits, minorities, deteriorating status of poverty alleviation, failures  in governance, brazen attempts to recast the constitutional ethos in a majoritarian mould, concurrently reshaping institutions to facilitate this nefarious grand design, all issues raised by opposition find muted sound bites and little print ink in media. The social media space is even more asymmetric for the right wing voices reign supreme by default . There are no competitors. 

That precisely is discourse jam, shrinking opponents’s media space for articulation of its electoral narratives. It is a stark reflection of the stranglehold Mr Modi has on media spaces as also his signature contribution to Indian electoral practice.

Giving Minimum income guarantee (NYAY) is a state obligation , Rajdharma

Lost in the fuss and brouhaha surrounding NYAY (minimum guarantee scheme) is an abstruse philosophical wrangle. Should the state relieve the poor of their  misery? Today the question seems daft with the ascendency of welfarism but in the not too distant a past the predominant Hindu socio-politico consciousness was Karma - present existence is an atonement for acts done in a previous birth, hence is to be stoically endured. Only good deeds by self here and now had the potential of ending recurrent  cycles of birth and death to finally liberate the soul from its bodily cage. Look deeper into Ram Rajya , the reign of eponymous Lord  Ram, and one gets feel of a period marked by peace and social solidarity but not of a state in the welfare mould. Therefore, revisiting the question may not be too infantile. 

The archetypal poor embedded deep in the Hindu psyche is the brahmin, Sudama. Born poor, walking through childhood and adolescence in abject poverty, he ,in turn, raises a family living hand to mouth as his parents before him. Though the thought of going hungry was never far from the mind, he bears his adversity with fatalistic abandon brooking no compromises with brahmanic dignity. A non-bhikshu brahmin ‘accepts’ offerings never ‘seeks’ it ;  dole ,therefore ,is anathema. His wife ,however, cannot bear to see her miserable children groan in hunger and keeps badgering him to seek help from his childhood friend, Lord Krishna, divine incarnate and ruler of Dwarka. Reluctantly, he agrees. Krishna is overjoyed to see his poor old friend after a long, long time and greets him with inexpressible warmth and bonhomie. Soon the two get so lost in reliving and sharing each other’s yesteryear that time flies by and comes the time to depart . Sudama overwhelmed by Krishna’s impeccable hospitality quite forgets the very purpose of his visit- seeking financial help. Krishna too overlooks giving parting gifts.  Sudama leaves empty handed but when he reaches home he can’t locate his house or spot his family . In place of his ramshackled hut stands a glittering bungalow and in front stand his welcoming children,  quite unrecognisable in new regal dresses . The stores in the house overflow with provisions, precious metals and gems. His days of demeaning poverty are over. 

This anecdote from Bhagwan Purana exemplifies the all encompassing compassion of God for his devotees. But it is also indicative of the change in nature of Rajtantra between epic period and the age of Puranas. The anecdotal context of the Sudama episode is an earthly kingdom of Puranas, not Ram Rajya . And Sudama is not cast in the traditional mould of a Krishna devotee, rather he comes with the normal expectations of a distressed subject from a ruler. What compelled Krishna to lift Sudama out of his grinding poverty by assistance in cash and kind ? ( some perverse minds will read into the anecdote - a divine sanction for crony capitalism.) Rajdharma bound even godly kings to the same social compact that the elected have towards electors in a democracy- ensuring a better living for the poor. Today, that translates into providing a minimum income , unfettered access to basic public goods like primary health care and education and an ecosystem of equal opportunity for all. Governing elites derive legitimacy from fulfilment of such social imperatives. 

Therefore ,NYAY in any form or wrapping , is a state imperative - not a dole, not an idea to be trashed;  but a Rajdharma to be fulfilled  in the best possible  manner. 

Bow to the cow

No ! Mr Ogden Nash , the cow isn't just a creature of bovine ilk with moo at one end and milk at the other. Indian medical science has gone beyond the moo and milk to the pee and poop of the cow. Shedding thousands of years of apathy native therapeutics has resurrected from the haze of history an unappreciated but complementary branch of Ayurveda - Cowpathy . 

For long denied its rightful honour, it’s slowly but surely finding its groove. Cowpathy, in the end, may even foster antipathy towards mainstream ‘pathies’ like allopathy, homoeopathy, naturopathy. Why would I opt for any other when cowpathy is virtually free, more accessible and offers divine salvation to boot through cow care ? 

A cow at home 

And healthy you roam. 

For the sceptics here are a few ‘demonstrated’ curative powers of cowpathy.

*‘If you rub a cow, from the back towards the neck, it helps cure your blood pressure.’ Sadhavi Pragya

*"Even when he was 120 years old, Lord Krishna looked like a 12-year-old because his soap was made from cow dung", says a cowpath 

*"We make pregnant women eat cow dung and urine paste to ensure a normal delivery," chief, Akhil Bharatiya Gau Sewa. 

*“ A concoction, Panchagavya, cured me of cancer “ confirms Sadhavi Pragya. ( for the uninitiated, Panchagavya is a mixture of five (panch) cow (gavya) products: milk, curd, ghee, dung and urine.).  Shankarbhai Vegad, BJP MP, Guj. lends his weight with “I am witness to it. Cow dung and urine are a 100 per cent cure for cancer.” Amit Vaidya, 38, a cancer survivor vouchsafes “I would drink the (cow)urine I collected and would cover myself with gobar twice a day and stand in the sun,”. Soon medical reports showed the cancer receding.

*’cow dung contains Vitamin B that can relieve you from cough and cold. ‘ Vasudev Devnani,ex-education minister, Rajasthan. 

*One lady smeared panchagavya all over her body and in 21 days her psoriasis disappeared ,asserts a Tamil Nadu Agricultural University,TNAU social post. 

*Treatment of AIDS/HIV with panchagavya is magical, “even though the blood tests will be positive, patients will exhibit no symptoms of AIDS and lead a normal healthy life” TINU 

However, the therapy ‘works’ only if the Indian sense of ‘purity’ and ‘pollution’ is not abused . Use products only from the native bovine stock not foreign breeds or hybrids. Otherwise it will be all gobar ganesh. Additionally, take care what the cow is eating through the day. 

“Look at the cows that roam Mumbai’s streets, feeding on plastic. How will their urine be medicinal?”

Holy cow ! Still not convinced ? You must be a cowhead . And  like a cow regurgitate, chew and digest it all over again. Else , in present antediluvian times many will have a cow .

Doing nyay with NYAY

Every general election since 1977 , says Aaron Purie, is a pirouette on a major theme. If 1980 waltzed around TINA (there is no alternative ), 2014 was awhirl to TIMO (there is Modi only). His pick for 2019 -AOTM (anyone other than Modi) or TATA (there’s a third alternative).  However, if Congress’s sales pitch for NYAY finds traction with voters it may well be NORA ( Nyay Over Rashtravadi Anyay). 

Most sceptics denigrate NYAY as a gross abuse of economic wisdom. And their principal arguments- its impact will be inflationary and that its recipients may be liable to abandon work to live off it, both fallacious. 

As the economy faces a deepening demand dormancy direct cash transfers like NYAY seem the only way out to boost propensities to consume, rekindling growth that presently smoulders at a newly discovered ‘Hindu rate’ of 7% . As sufficient leeway in terms of under-utilised capacities exist, NYAY will be mildly and beneficently inflationary. If no surer ways can be found to kick employment to a higher trajectory, Keynes advised  - ‘government should pay people to dig holes in the ground and then fill them up’. And that is canonical economic wisdom. 

Further, under leapfrogging digital and technological innovations free market dispensations are neither creating jobs commensurate with manpower growth nor equitably distributing wealth. Joblessness and inequality are disrupting age old social solidarities in the midst of remarkable economic growth in western economies , maladies that have already crossed our shores too. That incomes from upsurge in economic activity ultimately trickle down to the poor is now a proven myth, Oxfam reports and Piketty’s outstanding research on growth and inequality bear eloquent testimony to it. The massive investments promised in BJP’s manifesto may generate growth but the hopes of the poor for higher real incomes would be about as realisable as the khichdi in Birbal’s handi hanging high up on the tree to cook from the fire on the ground below. It will take long ,lifelong. 

Is there a moral hazard in direct cash transfers to the poor presumably from ‘evaporation’ of the incentive to work ? Cassandras of doom go as far as to conclude that unearned money in the hands of the poor will induce them to ape  unaffordable ways of the rich, indulge in profligate consumptive splurges making them moral dissolutes and physical wrecks. There is a ring of elitist hypocrisy and entitlement about it, is conspicuous consumption by the rich more productive or morally edifying than one by the poor ? Is a farm loan waiver any different in its economic impact from surgical hair cuts amounting to as much as 90% of bad corporate loans? The poor mismanage loans and lose money, the rich manage loans, yet lose money . The lost lucre in both cases is just as lustreless. The poor can be just as fiscally responsible or squandering as the elite. 

For decades the poor have been beneficiaries of doles in cash and kind, yet from a base of 71% of population being poor at the time of independence , the poverty level is down to 22% . India was among the few countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015 . In the decade between 2004-2014 as many as 14 cr people broke free from the stranglehold of poverty. None of this would have been possible if the recipients of state subsidies had stopped working 

So what schemes like, NYAY , are more likely to do in the present times is to motivate recipients to seek a higher quality of work without having to bother daily about putting a meal on the table. That would be a wholesome development not to be decried. 

A measured cash transfer to the poor , not too inadequate like the Kisan Samman Yojna, nor massive enough to disrupt the economy is a good idea. It is a state obligation too. Article 39 of the Directive Principles of state policy makes ,inter-alia, reduction in concentration of wealth a national imperative concomitant of creating a more equal social order. 

Indian Polls - canvassing through acronyms ,abbreviations

India is a terrific place to be in when polls are happening. In fact, aficionados of the      heat and dust of electoral battles need to    reside here full time for polls are as recurrent as annual visitations of  festivals, some  being held twice a year, eg Ramnavmi, Chath.

What makes ‘ poll watching ‘ in India singularly unique isn’t the innumerable fluttering banners or waving placards, or the crescendo of sloganeering, or the drumbeats of processions parading the streets or the interminable cavalcade of VIP cars rushing from one meeting venue to another , or the Rath Yatras or that typically Indian brew of all of the above rolled into one- Road Shows. It is in the use of an esoteric brand of political rhetoric , one that contrives acronyms and abbreviations to convey perfectly sensible and easily decipherable messages that its fascination lies. And the master craftsman is none other than PM, Mr Modi himself. This one from his UP assembly campaign bears eloquent testimony to his wizardry. 

The expectant crowd is asked 

‘Do you want a scam free India ? ‘

‘Yes’ rises the roar. 

‘Then do not vote S(Samajwadi Party)C(Congress)A(Akhilesh Yadav)M(Mayawati). ‘ And the two parties get ‘acronymed’ as scamsters .

Take another, this time his shisya, Amit Shah . He morphs the name of 26/11 terrorist ,Kasab , into an  abbreviation for Ka(का)Sa(सपा)B(बसपा). Who votes a terrorist  ? None ,so don't vote congress, SP, BSP , that simple is the messaging. True to form, Mr Modi has kick started the ‘abbreviationisation’ of political rhetoric for 2019 electoral season with सराब (alcohol) from स(सपा)रा(रालोद)ब(बसपा) , a rather laboured one on this occasion, but countered effectively by congress abbreviating नरेन्द्र मोदी ,अमित शाह as नशा (inebriation). Expect many more down the line ,the nation will soon be awash with ingenious acronym derivations .Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi could end up abbreviated as रस RAS) or रासो( RASO) of ‘The Prithviraj Raso’ epic of Chand Bardai fame or Gandhi-Nehru-Rahul-Sonia Gandhi foursome may be spoken of as ‘GAN(chi)NA(hru)RAhulSonia’ that is Ganna Ras .( Nehru is actually a corruption of the word ‘nahar’ ,canal . His forefathers settled near a nahar during the reign of Farrukh Siyar) 

The other striking feature of our poll campaigns is to discourse in terms of binaries . Electoral choices that get bandied about range from the coherent Naamdar (dynast)vs kaamdar(worker) (though why a naamdar cannot be a kaamdar too is never explained ), Sapoot (good son) vs Saboot (a son demanding proof for everything) , Majboot (strong)vs Majboor (helpless) , Gathbandhan(compound) vs Milawat(mixture)  , Matbhed (difference of views ) vs Manbhed (incompatibility), to the horrendous , Shamshan vs Kabristan, and the diabolic Ramzade vs Haramzade . 

Finally ,I wonder . Had Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump campaigned for Presidency on Indian soil, how would they have abbreviated their rhetorical skirmishes to suit Indian spice and flavour ? Let may paint one scenario. 

The ‘playboy’ Trump bragging of his feminine conquests to Billy Bush in a leaked video that also shows him exhorting ‘grab them by the .......’ , would have ignited Clinton in indignant outrage,

‘DON and his basket of deplorables ! ‘ hollers ,Hillary 

Drawing a sharp riposte from Trump, 

‘Just CHILL ‘ ( Clinton HILLary )

Well, look forward to new additions in the glossary of ‘Indified’ acronyms, abbreviations and catchphrases, the season has just begun . 

Have a good day.

Chowkidars rob and steal sleep

The nation has a new pastime, prefixing ‘Chowkidar’ to names. So General V K Singh may now be known as Chowkidar General V K Singh  or General Chowkidar V K Singh, whichever catches his fancy ; the latter ,though, would seem a climb down for a retired army chief.  Forgotten is the quibble over the body count of terrorists killed in Balakot or where exactly to place credit for safe return of Abhinandan -the 56” of Mr Modi, or Trump, or Xi, or Prince of SA, or UAE, or.....

Today ‘Chowkidar’ buzzes whether it be ‘Chowkidar Chor Hai’ or ‘Main Bhi Chowkidar’. The freshly minted Chowkidar Ravi Shankar Prasad , Law Minister, is euphoric. Mr Modi’s lonesome existence as Chowkidar is over. If the hashtag #MainBhiChowkidar on Twitter amassing 20 lakh tweets and 1680 cr impressions is any indication he has mammoth company.  If a mere 10% of those impressions sufficiently impressed people to take up chowkidari  not only the whole of India but significant number of chowkidars would still be left over to patrol rest of the world. Already , Chowkidar Prasad ,points out, one crore people have parroted ‘main bhi chowkidar’. Does the nation have that many chowkis to place them ? 

Still it does sound hugely comforting to have so many chowkidars suddenly erupt all around us. My own exposure to a chowkidar ,though, hasn’t been entirely salubrious. His nightly  rhythmic whack of stick on the road, ‘tuk, tuk, tuk ‘ accompanied by staccato bursts of the bellow, ‘Jagte raho, Jagte raho, Jagte raho’ would break Hynos’s spell just as it took hold. Miraculously I survived sleep deprivation but kept asking myself if people jagte rahe and be vigilant what for his services?  Further, twice a year, Holi and Durga puja, he called to claim

 the customary ‘parbi’  in cash. One Holi he demanded double of what we offered, we flatly refused and he left in a malevolent mood muttering foul curses under his breath.That night we slept soundly, uninterruptedly. The morning, however , brought no cheer for we found to our chagrin all the four cane chairs in the balcony gone, stolen. From the office of the Housing Society we learnt the chowkidar had not reported for duty the previous night. Eureka, that is why we had slept soundly. He was never seen again. Whether our loss of chairs had anything to do with his disappearance we shall never know but the coincidence lay heavy upon us for a while. 

That’s the problem with chowkidars , they won’t let you sleep in peace and they steal. Incidentally, the neo-converts to chowkidari are all ‘parbi’ dispensers unlike chowkidars of yesteryear who were a poor ‘parbi’ collecting lot. But then a suit boot ki sarkar needs suited booted chowkidars to go with it. 

More Chowkidars of PM, Mr Modi, fewer Chowkis to man

The nation has a new resolve-prefixing ‘Chowkidar’ to names. General V K Singh may now be known as Chowkidar General V K Singh  or General Chowkidar V K Singh, whichever catches his fancy ; the latter ,though, would seem a climb down for a retired army chief.  Forgotten in the hullabaloo surrounding this fad is the quibble over the body count of terrorists killed in Balakot or where exactly to place credit for safe return of Abhinandan -the 56” of Mr Modi, or Trump, or Xi, or Prince of SA, or UAE, or.....Good that such a sterile debate is buried. 

Today ‘Chowkidar’ buzzes in the hallowed precincts of power. If for a time ‘Chowkidar Chor Hai’ rippled ,now ‘Main Bhi Chowkidar’ convulses Bharat Mata. It seems Indians are in quest of a supra identity transcending all others, scrambling to onboard a voyage of re-discovery of self. And find all spiritual cues pointing to an unexceptional identity - Chowkidar. 

The freshly minted Chowkidar Ravi Shankar Prasad , Law Minister, is understandably euphoric. His party’s boss is ab initio a self-professed chowkidar. And now , if the hashtag #MainBhiChowkidar on Twitter amassing 20 lakh tweets and 1680 cr impressions is any indication he has mammoth company.  If a mere 10% of those impressions sufficiently impressed people to take up chowkidari  not only the whole of India but significant number of chowkidars would still be left over to patrol rest of the world. Already , Chowkidar Prasad ,points out, one crore people have chorused with gusto ‘eureka ,main bhi chowkidar’. Never mind that the nation may not have that many chowkis to place them, a triviality to be sorted out in due course. 

Anyway a most welcome lifeline has been thrown to the moribund institution of Chowkidar. Once upon a time , they counted. For the upper echelons in administration they were the first ‘port of call’ for goings-on in the locality, their eyes and ears so to say. With nose firmly to the ground, they kept mental notes of all happenings around them , reporting some , and exploiting most others for personal gratification in  a game of ‘soft’ blackmail - silence for cash. Much as the Church in France’s ancien regime collected tithes from peasants, chowkidars collected ‘parbi’ on festive occasions , the modern day equivalent being  ‘tip’ , reward for services rendered ,assumed to be rendered. 

Alas ! extension of constabulary deep into rural interiors and emergence of Security Companies to safeguard private property sounded their death knell. Guards replaced them. But the change came with a loss. Chowkidari being a  hereditary occupation generations after generations of them kept in touch with families in their beat ,something modern day guards can’t. Hence the leg up via #MainBhiChowkidar is terrific. The nation can surely do with a revenant chowkidar. 

It sounds hugely comforting to have so many chowkidars suddenly erupt all around us. Our personal exposure to a chowkidar, though ,wasn’t entirely salubrious. Half a century ago, when my father built his house on a plot allotted by a housing society the fear of theft always hovered in the air. Before us lay a wild expanse of barren paddy fields sparsely dotted with half constructed houses ; more pigs and cattle than homosapiens infested the area. The society had to engage a chowkidar. 

Every night the rhythmic whack of his stick on the road, ‘tuk, tuk, tuk ‘ accompanied by staccato bursts of the bellow, ‘Jagte raho, Jagte raho, Jagte raho’ would break Nidra Devi’s spell just as she embraced us. We remained awake till the tuk tuk and Jagte Raho sounds gradually waned and we could cajole Nidra Devi into re-enfolding us. He broke the stillness of night at least three times and interrupted our sleep that many times every night. Miraculously we survived sleep deprivation but kept asking the question if people jagte rahe and vigilant what for his services ? 

However, he remained in employ and kept knocking on our doors twice a year on Holi and Durga puja demanding his customary ‘parbi’  in cash. One Holi he demanded double of what we offered. He refused to take anything less, we refused to shell out anything more, a stalemate that remained unresolved. He left in a foul mood muttering curses under his breath.That night we slept soundly, uninterruptedly. The morning however brought no cheer for we found to our chagrin all the four cane chairs in the balcony gone, stolen. Too trifling a loss to report to the police we put in a word with the secretary of the society instead to inquire from the chowkidar if he doing the rounds had seen any suspicious movements. 

The chowkidar, he revealed, had not reported for duty the previous night. Eureka, that is why we had slept soundly. He was never seen again. Whether our loss of chairs had anything to do with his disappearance we shall never know but the coincidence lay heavy upon us for a while. Did he recoup the forgone parbi from our cane chairs ?

Yet, the quiet servile dignity of a chowkidar appeals. His battlecry ‘jagte raho’ was borrowed for the title of a blockbuster Bollywood classic featuring Raj Kapoor and Nargis. Bollywoodian plots created his stereotype and featured him in many films. Though infrequently, he shook it off to assume more melodramatic , even amorous roles . Dressed as a chowkidar, a botany professor, Parimal Tripathi, ‘chupke chupke’ fell for the charms of an irresistible dimpled, dulcet, chuiyee-muiyee, Sharmila Tagore. The 1974 movie ‘Chowkidar’ revolves around Shambhu ,the chowkidar, a character portrayed by Om Prakash with telling empathy.

But the chowkidar’s life is no bed of roses. Unnoticed, Sambhu ‘s sister living under his roof carries on a clandestine romantic affair with the village thakur and gives birth to an illegitimate child. Chowkidars like aam aadmi sometimes are amiss. However the millions of neo converts to chowkidari would like people to pay heed to Asha Bhosle song in the  film.

थोड़ा सा एतबार कीजिए 

फिर ज़रा सा इन्तज़ार कीजिए ......

If are queueing up to make the chowkidar self- declaration do bear in mind that whereas the chowkidar of yesteryear was a ‘parbi’ collector, the neo-convert is a ‘parbi’ dispenser. Where do you belong ? 

A Laxman Rekha for Rahul Gandhi ?

I fear for Rahul Gandhi. My neighbour foresees visitation of murderous consequences upon him for perennially crossing the Laxman Rekha. How can Rahul Gandhi strut about the country sloganeering “Chowkidar Chor Hai” ? Demeaning the PM is not mere irreverence but a blasphemy too , an insult to Bharat Mata. This is his perpetual refrain in our political jousts these days. That the Chowkidar too isn’t above hitting below the belt with more trenchant epithets does not pinch his shoes. 

I try to assuage his sense of hurt by pointing out that it’s the done thing in all liberal democracies nowadays and that there is a word for it ‘Trumpism’. In the good old days insults were inflicted by a play upon words or by subtle innuendos like this one. 

An MP said to PM, Disraeli : ‘Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.’ 

‘That depends, Sir,’ said Disraeli, ‘ whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.’

No longer. The flavour of post truth  times we live in is Trumpism- frontal assaults on opponents and certifying their vices by mere association. During the ‘heydays’ of Bofors scandal opponents of the PM screamed “Gali Gali Mein Shor Hai ,Rajiv Gandhi Chor Hai”. So, let’s not be overly sanctimonious, I counsel him. The profane not the urbane is the lingua franca of political discourse. 

Without ,of course, condoning use of epithets for political opponents, I venture a postulate - bad-mouthing in certain situations could be the difference between life and death and that is why leaders on the wrong side of political power divide take recourse to it. This folk tale from Bengal so aptly and succinctly illustrates the point. 

A wicked snake lived by a village road and frequently bit passers by. Villagers so dreaded the snake that they took all measures to avoid the stretch of road infested by it. One day a sage wishing to recruit disciples visited the village. The snake, fangs bared lay in wait , ready to strike. The sage spotted it but wasn’t intimidated. Unruffled, he asked “ you want to bite me ? Go ahead. If you happen to be the instrument of God to send me to swarg, I will only be too happy to be bitten . My deliverance from this earthly existence would be hastened .” 

The snake was taken aback, previously people fled at its sight, but here was a fearless one looking it in the eye. It felt shamed and powerless. The sage sensed a moral victory and after discoursing on the ethical way of living succeeded in persuading the wicked snake to abjure violence and then went his way. Thereupon the snake on sighting humans would sling away into the bushes. Gradually, villagers’ dread of the snake vanished. Urchins would now not run away but chase it and pelt it with stones. He suffered greatly and felt terribly miserable. 

Some time later the sage visited the village again to see how his newly baptised disciples were faring . The snake accosted him and bewailed, “ Holy man , as promised I lived the ideal non-violent life. But now villagers torment me. They catch me , twirl me by my tail and throw me afar, hit me with sticks and pour water into my snake-hole to ferret me out. My body is all bloody and bruised. But I have borne it all ,never once bitten anyone in retaliation. But if this continues I won’t survive long. What should I do “ 

“ I told you not to bite, but did I tell you not to hiss ? “ 

Do you get it ! 

PM, Mr Modi’s bid for a second term

The drum beats of our noisy electoral democracy can now be distinctly heard. The time for bandhans, gathbandhans, mahagathbandhans, milawats, and mahamilawats is past. Napoleons are sallying forth to do battle for Lok Sabha 2019, from them the masses will pick out a Bonaparte. What will influence their choice ? Past will matter, so will past performance. But none more than the present moment. The Napoleon Bonaparte may well be the one who will write a good script on the slate of the present moment , one so compelling that people will not read the old slate. And to do that he needs oratorical skills of the tallest order.

To that end, the Sankalp rally in Gandhi Maidan, Patna on 3rd March 2019 was a revelation. Mr Modi is several notches above his rivals in that department. Here’s a snapshot, judge for yourself. 

‘Modi ! Modi ! Modi ! ‘ rises the tumult as he enters the grounds ; ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ ,bawls the  rumbustious crowd in front as he steps onto the stage. Has he, the eleventh avatar of Vishnu to some, subsumed ‘Bharat Mata’ too ? So it seems. He takes the mike and commands the ginormous throng to chorus ‘Bharat mata ki Jai’ ,one , two, three times before he launches into a blistering, unforgiving assault on opposition. The boisterous crowds in the front enclosures respond enthusiastically, flailing arms wildly they yell and yell, the resulting  clamour so intense that the ground under shakes. Spell-bound, the crowd latches onto his every word, cheers lustily, breaks into hypnotic spells of ‘Modi ! Modi ! Modi !’ and ‘BMKJ’ . His diatribes keep igniting sparks of spontaneous applause. I recall ,not so long ago at this very venue in 2013 , exploding bombs had failed to break his bromance with the crowd, it stayed put while he spoke on without missing a train of thought. Nothing has changed since. 

Lalu Yadav may quibble over the numbers in the crowd, undoubtedly lesser than what his landmark ‘garib rally’ mustered. What, however, matters is the emotional resonance Mr Modi whipped up. Besides, the ‘absentee’ crowd is of no consequence. When Giriraj Singh dubs them ‘deshdrohis’ and Pakistan lovers he leaves unsaid - they are to be pushed into Pakistan. And the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road as well as Lahore airport are now open to traffic. 

Mr Modi combines ineluctable oratory with an uncanny sense and feel of the moment, its pulse, and above all , an ability to modulate its rhythm and beat to serve his political purposes. Generously spliced with a ‘mahamilawat’  of fact, fiction, half-truths ,if not subterfuge, it treads a fine line between oratory, demagoguery and rabble-rousing. Mulayam, Navin Patnaik, Mamata, Mayawati are powerful leaders but with a limited gift of the gab. It much circumscribes their pan India appeal. 

And that makes Mr Modi not just complacent but cocksure of imminent return to power. He speaks the language of a victor. In his last soliloquy , ‘Man ki Baat’ , he invited the audience to his next one in May, that is after the polls. The opposition is challenged to table its next no-confidence motion against his government in 2024. That ‘Hindu Hridyay Samrat’ is destined to sculpt a Hindu India is an unshakeable article of faith among his fans. Doubting Thomas es may whistle in the dark. 

However, the problem with potent orators is the potential their magical spell carry to inveigle listeners into believing the diabolic - the Robespierre's wisdom “ terror is nothing else than justice ,prompt, secure and inflexible” ; or the absurd - a loan of Rupees one lac crore from Japan for a bullet train is ‘almost free’;  or that demonetisation is a Robin Hoodian act of snatching from the rich to give to the poor ; or that an increment in national pride gained by raising the tallest statue in the world is more edifying than putting food in a begging bowl. 

It creates an asymmetry, highlighting the script on the present slate and blurring that on the old slate. When Mr Modi bellows in Sankalp rally “जब हमारी सेना सीमा के पार आतंकियों को कुचलने में लगी है...... मैं कांग्रेस  और उसके सहयोगी दलों से पूछना चाहता हूँ कि वे क्यों वीर जवानों का मनोबल तोड़ने में लगे हैं ?” , the people will not read that a CM, Modi ducked a caveat on VVIP presence during ongoing  army operations against 26/11 terrorists to address the press in Mumbai on 27/11 and express his deep disappointment with the PM. Or that contrary to the prevailing zeitgeist of ‘lionising’ security forces he, even three hours after Pulwama attack, failed to solace bereaved families of killed jawans, not even a mention in his address at an election rally the same evening. Also erased from the old slate will be the grim fact that not one elected representative, ‘Sushasan Babu’ and ‘Chota Modi’ included, paid their last respects to Pintu Singh, the slain jawan at Patna airport on Friday, or at the cremation grounds in Begusarai on Sunday ,except Upendra Paswan, the Bakhri MLA from RJD. Knee-deep in politics, skin-deep in love for soldiers. When ‘mahagathbandhan’ is decried as ‘mahamilawat’ , the crowd is expected to turn blind to NDA’s own pot-pourri of 40 parties including the Afzal Guru glorifying PDP and mercurial Shiv Sena.

Going forward, Mr Modi’s oratorical skills will come in handy to camouflage ‘Grapes of Wrath’ that blot NDA’s five years- farmers’ distress, a 45-year high in unemployment ,and an economy settling into a new ‘Hindu’ growth rate of 7% under the new GDP series, to name a few ‘wrathful grapes’. Will the rhetorician , Modi, be able to deflect attention away to highfalutin abstract notions of national hubris, cultural nationalism, global standing ? Can he do what Anytus and co-accusers did to earn Socrates’ lament at the trial  ‘ I know that they almost made me forget who I was -so persuasively did they speak  and yet they have hardly uttered a word of truth.’

That is the challenge Mr Modi poses to his opponents. Will they be able to blunt popular appeal generated by Mr Modi’s rhetoric surrounding immediate events like terror attacks and plethora of nation-wide unrolling of projects and foundation layings at the fag end of his tenure by baring the ‘wrathful grapes’ ? Mr Ram Vilas Paswan’s expose- post aerial strike Mr Modi’s chest has expanded to 156” and ‘Chota’ Modi’s assertion that even ten hawks were no match for the lion Modi won’t make the task any easier.

My neighbour with whom I have regular political jousts entertains no doubts ; Mr Modi ,he says , is a GOAT ! Since he never tires of lionising him, I thought GOAT was a bit of a let down . Till he explained, 

GOAT - Greatest of all time .