Indian of the Year

Sorry, this is my Tuesday rant, powered by a Wengers pastry and the accompanying sugar high. I really should go easy on the sugar though.
Everybody has an award nowadays, nice marketing gimmick. Get some sucker corporate chap to sponsor it, get clowns to vote on premium messaging services. Have a nice big show with lots of cheap scotch, keep lots of politicians and corporates happy and then claim that you have to let go of several interns because of ‘cost’ issues. Anyway, I don’t want to rant too much in this post. Primarily because I have a lot of work. But here is my ‘Indian of the Year’ 2008 – wait for it – The silent victim of terror attacks. All of them, from the migrant worker who collects the garbage to the executive who was just eating dinner.
You know, the Bombay train blasts of 2006 (one, two, three) were the first terror attacks that actually scared me. I used to travel in those trains everyday and even though I've probably left office that early once or twice in my life, I could have been on those trains. I’m not an overly religious person, but a few days after the blasts I happened to be in Kolkata and dragged my father to Kalighat (peculiarly enough for the first time in his life).
You know something, every single time I get inside my car and drive through Delhi I know that some jackass at a roundabout might scrunch me, even though the likelihood of me running over an idiot Pulsar biker is far higher. I have had more than my fair share of accidents and serious ones at that but (touch-wood) other than a concussion or two nothing major. Heck, I drive quite knowingly on Indian highways and have stared down enough Tata trucks.
I even survived one week of driving on Kerala roads – and those guys are by far and away the maddest bus drivers in all of India. On a plane, and I watch far too much of National Geographic’s Air Crash Investigation to know that every once in a while a plane will fall out of the sky (though like AI 182 often because people want to make a political point). Marna hai to marna hai, Boss. I know I share this manic fatalism of many of my countrymen, but really I live in a country where every office commute is an adventure.
Well, the fact of the matter is that I can die anytime. But I don’t want to die because of someone else trying to make a political point. Whether it is the lunatic wing of the Sangh or crazy Islamic terrorists from UP or illiterate cocaine-fuelled commandos from across the border. That is not the way I want to die, or for that mater that is not the way anybody should die. From business executives doing dinner at an hotel in Mumbai, to Bihari immigrants waiting on a station platform, to lovers walking in a park in Delhi, to women shopping for the festive season in Jaipur or people offering prayers in a mosque in Malegaon.
No blast is bigger than another, no form of terror is bigger than another. Politicians obfuscate the truth. They proclaim something to be the ‘Real India’ (Rahul Gandhi’s Sarah Palin moment - remember her 'Real America' rant, but that is another post for another time) but there is one India and all of it is ‘Real’. And the people who die are also quite real. Celebrate the achievements of the year – we did put a satellite on the moon, we did not come back with no medals from Beijing and we gave the rest of the cricketing world a big middle finger. But far too many of us died because of terror. And let us not forget that, or in rush towards the next eleven months of 2009 forget all their memories.
And as for the Karl Marx quote on the header, and if you get this on a feed...
"Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalized, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism" Karl Marx, Das Kapital. EDIT: It appears I've been hoaxed. As repentance I will now quote from Donald Rumsfeld.
I put that up because it sounds prescient but also because I agree with a line that Newsweek I think carried - to understand how capitalism failed maybe you should study its greatest critic. I don't think capitalism is dead, someone has made a lot of money in this downturn and is keeping very quiet about it, but capitalism as we know it will have to change.

EDIT: ContentSutra's post on Times Internet has some really interesting comments 

Time passes by...

The 'gunshots' at Delhi's airport were surprising - the news organisation that refuses to call terrorists terrorists killed six people. Another famous journalist on a leading network, desperate to repair her reputation latched onto the story and made it a hundred times worse than it is. Today, people say that nothing happened and I'm paranoid that the cops can't chase down a frikking Toyota Qualis. 

It was a Qualis for God's sake! A unstable, old car that Toyota sold to us for years thinking we would not notice that it was a relic from the 1970's. It worked well to transport call centre hamsters, but please it is by no stretch of imagination a 'performance machine'. That fills me with one hell of a lot of confidence. Sure, the police were chasing the 'terrorists' in a Qualis themselves, but to get outgunned by a Qualis! Whoa, I don't know what to say? Ineptitude or sheer Lewis-style driving. The Italian Police get Lamborghini's, our chaps get 30-year old technology. And they use the vehicles to skulk behind bushes with a radar gun. 

Anyway, it has been sixteen years since the subcontinent was changed forever. Weird anniversary right, all sorts of stuff was supposed to happen today, but nothing did. My friends still took flights to all over the place. We can't get scared.

You know, I've noticed something funny, a lot of the rich and famous are out protesting about the attacks. 'Get the politicians out!', they're screaming. And in that context, democracy has delivered an answer, people have voted in huge numbers. I know some anchors plugged into this anger, but people are still voting. But then what happens, the Deputy CM of Maharashtra is a man who has all but been convicted of defrauding the Indian state. And then, another guy goes nuts for being ignored. Sometimes, I wonder what we were thinking when we chose democracy. But then again, I love it and I am looking forward with bated breath to the 8th. 

Sorry for not posting for a few days, I've got hangnail on the middle finger of my right hand and I'm hopped up on Combiflam. It hurts. A lot. And next week I'm off to the US for a couple of weeks. To the bankrupt state of California, (where a man and a man cannot get married) but I'm sure my rupees will be welcome. But I promise to keep on posting.

Utter crap...

Sometimes on the Internet and the papers you can find gems - like Priyanka Vadra admitting that Indira Gandhi would have acted differently. Erm, her mother runs this government - and despite all the Congress' attempts to prove otherwise, if her mom wanted to act differently she would have no matter what Laloo and Paswan say or do. So Priyanka implied that her mommy is no match to her nan! Wow! Gandhi family politics. Of course, at least she said something her brother was out partying. Maybe doing the same shit the terrorists were on. Sure, this is marriage season, but this single action will haunt the fourth generation scion of this family for years. I know NDTV wants to project him as our future PM, but I don't know about you and yes, I know life has gone on and blah, blah, but this is not what a future PM of this country does. Shame on you, Mr Gandhi, your father and your uncle would have acted differently.
But this post isn't directed at the Gandhi family. People will argue that I am a Sangh-apologist and will forgive anything the BJP does, no I still maintain Narendra Modi's presence in Mumbai was not needed and his announcement of a Rs 1 crore compensation to Karkare was over the top. John Kerry got called a flip-flopper in the 2004 US Presidential election? Americans don't know what flip-flopping is until they come to India. See Indian politicians in actions, like the disgusting commie who runs Kerala. Sir, all the Mallu's I know are bloody proud one of their own died, but not this man. Well sir, fuck you and your fucking party. I know that Prakash Karat at the end of the day is a spineless bastard who will not fire you but hopefully The Malayalee's who will vote in the 2009 election will vote you and your corrupt, land-grabbing party out.
No, the reason I started this post was because of this gem.
"Had they airdropped me from a helicopter in their rescue operation, I would have danced in skimpy clothes and seduced all the terrorist inside and would have killed them one-by-one. I know, eventually they will also kill me, but I do not mind dying for my country."
- Rakhi Sawant
I think being at a loss for words here is an understatement. No Rakhi, they would have not been fucking seduced by you, you talentless twat. They would have aimed at your fucking silicon enhanced appendages and blown them up. Which might have saved your life, which honestly seems to be a pity. Please, Rakhi shut up. Honestly. Many of us will happily say that we will give up our lives for this country, but right now, I am bloody scared and angry and I don't want to see things like this on the Internet. I am seriously at a loss for words!
EDIT: And the BJP has people like Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. I'm pretty sure a majority of Indian male politicians are misogynistic, but for it to come out like this is insane. Listen guys, the 'intelligensia' - you know - the formerly NDTV-watching classes (now pissed off by Barkha) will vote for you in 2009, but please, please STFU!

Again

I was sitting in office watching the entertaining Manchester United vs. Liverpool EPL game and the shit hit the fan again. Four blasts so far across the capital, no seeming order to the blasts other than being in crowded areas. I thought the media was a bit callous in their response and the pictures from the scene were not vetted and some channels were a bit too gory. Then again, when should you stop reporting and help? Thankfully, everybody I know seems to be fine, but it appears that ten people have died so far.
Of course, our Home Minister will hum and haw all over again and the gang of SIMI-lovers will be very quiet all of a sudden. I found it particularly entertaining that one channel went after the Police Commissioner asking him why the blasts weren't stopped. Thesad thing remains that in this mass of humanity that you can't prevent low-intensity blasts like this, though with ten dead, the blasts can't have been low intensity?
Again, I'm sure the idiots behind the blasts wanted to target the Metro but I would believe that the great work by the CISF prevented that. And it is infuriating when politicians like Mayawati throw tantrums when her people are frisked by CISF at airports.
You can't get scared at this, you have to suck it in and carry on. I was scared on July 11 though. This is India, shit like this will continue to happen until and unless our politicians grow balls. I hope all you guys sitting in Delhi are fine. God bless!