When Traitors become Martyrs, Nationalists become ‘Hooligans’

The JNU imbroglio hurt me too. I felt provoked as if a lunatic smacked my mom and made her bleed. Given below is what I wrote in my journal when India-bashing was at its peak at some of the educational institutions.

Read on:

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It was to Afzal Guru’s discomfiture that the Indian security forces thwarted his bid to raze the Parliament down. I could still remember Promod Mahajan hurriedly runs along the corridors of the Parliament with worried looks. He was so scared of what was happening around him.

There were human losses in the terrorist attack. But still, Guru might have been disgusted of his not being able to bring more anarchy to the Parliament as planned. He would have been even cheerful at the time of hanging, had he known that a herd of misguided young men would come soon, resurrect him from his grave and glorify him a martyr. Sure, we have in our midst such prats; such a bunch of devil worshippers.

I know Guru is dead and gone. But the breed of saboteurs, he left behind is still at work. They are onto his agenda to finish the work he started. Their infiltration into the highest seats of the country’s learning can vouchsafe what they are after.

Their purpose is not to bring mayhem to the University campuses through a series of bomb blasts. But, they engage themselves in doing more abominable act than physically wrecking the educational institutions they encroach. Yes, they begin tinkering youngsters there, sowing wild oats in their minds and turning them potential dangers to the nation’s sovereignty.

That is why we see a cluster of ill-advised young chaps at the JNU and other Varsities sing paeans to Afzal Guru and his ilk and heap indignities on their motherland. The bizarre slogans shouted against India at the JNU is not a freak incident, but a well-planned campaign. Thus the fringe who indulge in anti-country antics transform traitors into martyrs; anarchists into heroes.

This may be due to the handiwork of infiltrators. But what I cannot understand is, can indoctrination can go to such an extent of making innocent students a bundle of jerks? Can it make them slight their homeland and kiss the feet of terrorists? Yes, it did and would do if the nation is not on its guard.

Pitifully, anti-govt media and some revisionist ideologues defend the students’ sloganeering saying they are only exercising their right to speak and it is not an affront to India’s unity.

It is still puzzling to know why the opposition parties are silent over such campus fracas. Why don’t they condemn the smear campaign carried against the nation at the JNU during a cultural programme? Tragically, the granny Congress too – they ruled the country for a hell of time and knows what unity means to India – is not getting provoked by such anti-India tirade. May be, the party looks at this issue as fodder for their guns always trained against the ruling BJP.

Comrades, left or right, would always like to grind their own axes in the Indian political arena. I hear them shrill, too on the JNU issue. But, it is not to pull up the students for their backstabbing the nation. Nor for their singing hallelujah to the terrorists. They hop on the campus turmoil only to defend their students’ unions who are said to be accomplices to the anti-national fringe.

Berserk goes the media, especially those of the visual ones. Wedded to sensationalism, their primary concern is to either retain or expand their share of viewership. So, it becomes necessary for them to pitch in themselves against the ruling party come what may. So, when a herd of students heap indignities on India at the JNU, they manufacture their own version of the episode. They call people hooligans, Modi toadies, Patriotic freaks who condemn the fringe for throwing invectives at the nation.

The intellectuals also go wayward and buy the media’s rubbish. Their phobia against the ruling party make them invent a series of reasons to justify students adoring terrorists and maligning India. Their hostility to the govt is so strong that they don’t see the elephant in the room.

And that is the story of nationalists becoming hooligans. Anti- govt turkeys still continue to hound them for not towing their lines on JNU’s hoopla. No conscientious Indian will buy their ‘right to speech’ stuff. For, we know they lean on Constitution only to save those who are out to destroy India. We also know the social and political philosophy they teach reeks of despicable anti-nationalism.

The Delhi HC has since granted bail to Kanhaiya Kumar. He is now back to the JNU. Thanks to the efforts of a callous media, he is now a cult figure. Writers of substance vie with one another in giving him a halo of heroship.

Though I get upset seeing the nation celebrating his release from the jail, my spirit of nationalism gets emboldened when I read the remarks of the Hon’ble Judge while giving bail to Kanhaiya.

Excerpts from the judgment:

 “Freedom of speech guaranteed to the citizens of this country under the Constitution of India has enough room for every citizen to follow his own ideology or political affiliation within the framework of our constitution. While dealing with the bail application of the petitioner, it has to be kept in mind by all concerned that they are enjoying this freedom only because our borders are guarded by our armed and paramilitary forces. Our forces are protecting our frontiers in the most difficult terrain in the world i.e. Siachen Glacier or Rann of Kutch.”

“The thoughts reflected in the slogans raised by some of the students of JNU who organized and participated in that programme cannot be claimed to be protected as fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression. I consider this as a kind of infection from which such students are suffering which needs to be controlled/cured before it becomes an epidemic,”

 “”Raising anti-national slogans do have the effect of threatening national integrity. The kind of slogans raised may have demoralizing effect on the family of those martyrs who returned home in a coffin draped in the tricolor, the Judge observed.”

Jai Hind

Image courtesy: Google

Are You a la Confucius?

Have you quit beating your wife?

It is a loaded question, put forth to a man to trap him. It tries to taunt him even when he answers the question in either way – affirmative or negative. But the contemporary man is very clever. Known for circumventing things, he will simply brush aside the question with a smile. For he knows he cannot even raise his hand against the woman at home as the DVA 2005 stares at him constantly.

 But, a man from the Victorian era would be more honest. He would, without any hesitation, take this question in his stride and answer it in the negative. For, back in centuries, husbands had the privilege of beating their wives. But the stick they use for beating should not be longer than their thumbs. They called it a ‘thumb rule. And the savage male society cherished having such a rule.

Good god, womenfolk was not allowed to move in bed even during intimate movements not to speak of moaning or groaning.

Confucius must be mad when he said:

“The woman’s duty is to prostrate herself submissively before her husband in such a way as to have no will of her own, but to demonstrate a perfect form of obedience.”

 The society got wild oats sown in its midst because of the Chinese philosopher. He was only responsible for the emerging of the patriarchs and the misogynist clan in later years. I guess Confucius’s spirit had not gone anywhere. That the thinker’s spirit got hold of a former UP CM became evident when he refused to condemn a gang of rapists, but cherished calling them as ‘boys are boys’.

Women were like personal effects of males in the bygone centuries. Heeding to Confucius’s advice, the patriarchal society made women subservient to them. Even Eve knew the agony of being a woman as soon as god created her. While munching an apple, she heard a voice telling her, ‘He [Adam] shall rule over you’. Shakespeare and Milton too told the women ‘to keep silent, be modest and accept a lesser place.

At last the inevitable that was in boil had exploded.  When oppressed women rose in rebellion it was like bomb blasts. It became necessary for the 18^th century women just show to the society that there existed another human species called ‘Woman.’ They had to wage many battles before getting them released from men’s cages. Their organized strength and indomitable spirit won them not full freedom, but a semblance of esteem.

The birth of the 20^th century was like spring for women. For women folks who were chattels, at last, heard gratifying words like ‘freedom for women’,’ women’s empowerment’ et al. They are now free to scale the walls set for men. There are now no domains exclusively ear marked for the male. Fair sex can grab them and pitch in their tents with flourish. They now don’t have to fear about Confucius, who had once commanded them to kiss the men’s feet.

But the euphoria and exhilaration the present century gave women was short lived. It was to the discomfiture of women that only a minimal percentage of them are able to climb the higher rungs of society and enter men’s turfs. A vast majority of unlettered and economically deprived women is still at the mercy of their spouses for survival. Like their counterparts in the Victorian era, they too are getting beaten by their partners not with the proverbial thumb-like sticks, but iron rods.

They say Confucius is dead and gone. They claim there is all round progress in women’s life. And the chains that tied them to stakes have already been broken. Free birds, they could now fly anywhere in search of new horizons.

All hyperbole. If women are in such eminent positions, why there is a law to protect them against violence? Why we needed to get a Statue amended to prevent harassment against them in work places? Why women are denied entry to temples following the 400 year traditional ban? Patriarchal society might have cast off its anti-woman outfits, but not their mindsets. Most men have Confucius lurks in their minds who would come out on demand.

Deepa is a smart young lady, a go-getter. An executive in an MNC she earns handsome pay. Her family too is affluent. A chirpy young woman she gets her life derailed past marriage. Having a drunken ape for a husband, she gets thrashed daily for trivial reasons. Life becomes so thorny for her that it gives her only bruises and wounds.

Parvathy, our maid, is not like Deepa. Uneducated, she is homebound, looking after her three children. Her husband, though a labor, earns a decent daily wage. But he spends his earnings on drinks and cherish being drunken all through day and night. On the days when he has no work, he would pester Parvathy for money and beat her black and blue.

Of the two, Deepa could hit back at her hubby and walk out on him. But she is silent, helpless. Since she doesn’t want the society to look askance at her – she is very much scared of the social stigma as her caste is not kindly disposed to single women – she chooses to live in her marital home. She is ready to get mortified … ready to bear with her husband’s physical assaults. She doesn’t give a damn to her emotional and psychological damage.

Parvathy is not bound by any social stigma like Deepa. But, she too cannot avoid putting up with a hellish life as she is emotionally and financially dependent on her husband.

Enacting more laws won’t solve women’s troubles and trials. It is time for men to change their Confucius-oriented mindset against women. They should assist the weaker sex set their sails towards a new world of freedom.

Women too need to treat the world as their own. They don’t have to feel they are living in that slice of the world leased out to them by men. They could live their own life, not the one expected by the society. For, besides seeking happiness and love they must strive to find themselves in life. The world waiting outside their homes can be explored and tamed only if they become ferocious tigresses not timid chicks.

Happy Women’s Day.

Dr. Kalam is no more --- nation in tears

Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam is no more. When I heard about his sudden demise – he collapsed and succumbed to a massive heart attack while addressing the IIM students Shillong, an end so happened as he wished – I felt like having lost one of my close family members. I could feel a sudden vacuum enveloping the country. That way Dr. Kalam had been connecting himself with every Indian and had created a niche for him in every Indian home. For he was humane and his demeanor and deportment were such that a common man from a remote village was able to identify himself with Kalam. He abhorred ostentation. He was never putting on airs though he had held prestigious positions during his lifetime. A man among men, he proved the epithet true through the way he lived and the cause he espoused for India.

Always a humble being – simplicity and honesty were his hallmarks -- he stood tall amidst his contemporaries. This was not because of his being a missile man; not because he was once the President of the country; and not because of his being the recipient of the Bharat Ratna and other awards, but because he was a simple human being, a simple man with high and fabulous ideals, a simple man who dreamed of India becoming a giant among nations. He wanted India to be strong because, as he said, ‘only strength respects strength.’ He inspired the nation, mostly the youngsters, with his mind stirring speeches and writing. A great teacher, he had students always swarmed him as they cherished to get connected with him. His efforts to shape the young and make them redefine the course of the country by imparting to them worthy tenets placed him in high pedestal in the heart of the nation.

His striking frankness, outspokenness and flair for calling a spade a spade, though remarkable traits, didn’t bring him any plum job after he demitted the presidential position in 2007. A man of integrity, Kalam found the political arena an albatross and the politicians as Machiavellians.  This was the reason why no political party sponsored him for the presidential election for 2^nd time. Of course, Kalam accepted what destiny offered him as he refused to be a slab of a dirty political meat.

Post presidency, Kalam didn’t tie himself up to a homely tether. He didn’t relax or recuperate as his counterparts did. Stirred by the call of a new duty, a new responsibility, he thought, he owed to the country’s youth, he was always on his legs. He traveled the length and breadth of the country, met youngsters, interacted with them, with a flourish, and imparted to them the fine values of life. He said: ‘we will be remembered if we give to our younger generations a prosperous and safe India, resulting out of economic prosperity coupled with civilizational heritage.’ Younger generation of the country enamored of the new inspiration they got from Kalam saw in him their new messiah.

Kalam was not an individual but an institution; a one man army that tried to reform the youth, and, through them, make India more assertive and strong. Unfortunately it didn’t occur to him to channelize the new energy and power he created among the youth. I thought, many times, Kalam, using the potent youth power, will start a movement on the lines of Jeyaprakash Narayan’s ‘Total Revolution’ sans politics. Such a movement would have fortified the nation and healed off its ugliness. For reasons best known to him, Kalam didn’t go for such an evolution. Instead, he cherished being a teacher. India, thus lost a momentum and I don’t know how long it has to wait for the happening of another one.

While a silent and shocked nation witnessed with tears, Kalam was laid to rest in Rameswaram, his home town, and ‘a punya bhoomi’ [sacred earth] that – according to Hindu Mythology -- got the footprints of Lord Ram imprinted on its soil. A real tribute our grateful nation could pay to Kalam is to live up to his teachings, which he taught with fervor and hope.

May his noble soul RIP.

I have dreams both beautiful and bizarre

“Dreams are not those which come while we are sleeping, but dreams are those when you don’t sleep before fulfilling them” – Abdul Kalam

I always love to flirt with dreams. And I don’t grade them big or small. My thoughts and perceptions about them go well with dictionaries that say ‘dreams are the manifestations of one’s pent up feelings, desires, images and sensations, occurring during sleep’. Hence, a dream is a thing relating to human mind and not body.’ A matter of mind’, I would say. Though a dream is a matter or vision you experience in an unconscious state of mind, it still piggybacks you the rest of your life, make you reshape it in such a fashion to get what you aspire for.

“I saw my mom in my dream the night before,” said my friend, one evening, when we were in a restaurant sipping degree coffee. ‘She didn’t seem to age. She was like the same when I last saw her in my teens”, added my friend, his eyes moved to tears. Not a worldly person, my friend was always impassive and flat – a big stone sans emotions. But, now his dream made him euphoric as the old sweet memories of his mom seemed overtake him. ‘That’s another dimension of dreams; they paint human lives with tasteful colors,’ I told my friend who nodded his head in the affirmative. A dream has the power of adding luster to a man’s life, if he is emotional or stoic, give him wings and make him fly to the land of his fantasies.

There are still persons who say, with pride, that they don’t get dreams. They even compliment them for not living in a make believe world. I only pity those rough-hewn, passionless minds. I would call them uncharged gizmos no matter how elegantly they look and work smartly. That the odds men face in lives give them only those skills necessary for living and shut all his dreams and fantasies cannot be accepted. For, dreams represent what people see, hear, experience and wish. No man can latch his mind to avoid getting dreams. We’d better remember that dreams aren’t our errand boys but masters.

Though, to a section of humanity, dreams are superficial things – a bundle of mysteries – they still become integral part of one’s life. They are significant as they aren’t biased. Both the rich and the poor, the king and the slave can catch up with their dreams and stretch them the way they like. A dream is like a movie where you, a decrepit citizen, watch yourself swapping position with a monarch. The only tool a dream needs is a mind: a mind capable of dreaming, a mind capable of sustaining a swirl of fantasies.

 So many are the hurdles of life that it always become impossible for you to get what you desire. You often begin to hunt an elephant, but end up trapping only a mouse. The wounds your psyche thus receive from life gets healed by dreams. They, for example, make a physical wreck become a world champion in a hurdle race; a decrepit writer, thus find himself getting a Noble Prize for his writings – though they’re pedestrian; and an adolescent boy, to his excitement, sees himself flirting with a dream girl of his choice. That’s the effects of the dreams, they metamorphose men and women what they aren’t in true life.

There were times man could not deduce reasons why he had dreams.  Long research, after much sweat, found REM [rapid eye moment] stage of sleep to be the cause of dreams. That’s right. But even assuming that you get your dreams during your REM, some dreams never allow you to sleep before you fulfill them. It happened to Napoleon and Gandhi. Moved by their dreams, both, one a warrior and the other a Karma Yogi, went sleepless until they made their visions come true. But, wait. If you want to have the hang of a dream, it needs to be a quality one -- worthy of pursuing.

People all over the world invest their best mettle and achieve something remarkable in many fields, but attribute the reasons for their feats to dreams. Pitifully, we still have persons in our midst who evince interest only in getting their dreams interpreted than working to make their visions come true. This happens because we lack courage; don’t have the fire to follow our dreams. People, with indomitable courage and grit, don’t let their dreams go past them or let anyone stop them from having them as goals. To them, dreams are treasure troves, and, to follow them and fulfill them, they would forgo food, sleep and all the comforts of life. Like the sun rotating with the earth, they rotate with their visions.

Since ‘dream is a wish your heart make’, believe it, work for it and make it come true. To honor your dreams that show you a rosy way, you could make them a ladder, climb it and reach out to the higher rungs of life.

Why the World Bedraggle India's Daughter?

The room is in dark with intriguing silence; the laptop is on, blinking and emitting snippets of light. We get our breath hard, blood chilled when my wife and I watch the monitor, languorously re-enacting scenes of a gruesome rape being perpetrated by a group of goons in a moving bus. The voice that shrieks for help belong to a teenage girl who gets raped because she is out of home after 9 pm; murdered because she resists the thugs’ attempts to get their cardinal desires quenched. The BBC documentary has many loose ends and overtly biased. Instead of condemning the heinous crime, it gives amplifiers to Mukesh Singh and his cohorts to justify their acts and the subsequent murder of a gullible girl. “What I’ve pulled out of her body, I threw it away,” the juvenile’s bizarre voice slaps my ears and make me recoil. My wife gets into her feet, races over to the sink and throws up. I still sit frozen, gazing helplessly at the ceiling mired in cobwebs and piles of paint peels.Mukesh Singh, one of the rapists, continues to drone. His grading of Indian girls – he says only 20% of them is good – coupled with his lawyers’ gibberish on Indian tradition vs Indian women make my wife feel nauseous again. ‘My god! Who made this video? Was it by Leslee Udwin or by those misogynists who had snuffed out a flower and thrown it in the gutter? For the documentary puts the victim in a poor light and shows how circumstances lead a group of guys become rapists’, I say to myself, suddenly remembering the ‘boys-are-boys’ statement I heard from a senior politician,  months back. ‘Is the world too, like our country, not kindly disposed to women? Does it treat them as chattels?’ my wife asks, her voice is in shards. I get a numbness. I’m in no mood to speak, leaves her questions hang on fire.  I take a peek into the FB. It looks saintly. No verbal explosion is let loose there because of the British documentary. Only a few gets agitated over the video and vent their injured expressions. As for others, they’re still in the comforts of their cocoons either writing eloquently about their upcoming books or displaying heartwarming quotes or presenting recipes for new stuff.’ Why people are what they’re?’ a question confront me. Now I hear someone or something begin to speak from inside me: “The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.”

RIP Nirbhaya.

Mango Chutney/’The Creation of Love’ by Deepti Menon

 I feel the promos/teasers triggered for the Chutney now seem to be much ado as the book tries to be a damp squib. Stories are not tasteful besides being soaked in rank mediocrity. Out of the 27 short fictions, only a few pieces make the grade; others have fallen in midway and failed in the race. I see the bulk of the stories has platitudes for plots. Authors of such unreadable stories – true, they’re a bunch of greenhorns – seem to be having no familiarity with the traditional formulae of how to write a short story and, pitifully, they lack the gift of writing flawless English. While some of the writers could not avoid maiming the Queen’s language, a handful of others crucified it rather unknowingly or, shall I say, with a know-all air. That’s the reason why the Chutney is spoilt and littered with much extraneous stuff like grammatical goofs and typographical errors.

Apart from ‘The Creation of Love’, the book takes in many interesting stories having appreciable interiors and exteriors. The fact that only such of those stories give the Mango Chutney its worth and make it stand out in the world of books need to be acknowledged. Ms. Menon weaves her story – The Creation of Love – with a distinctive plot and makes it a splendid read with her amazing writing skills – her style unique and the language breezy.

A budding playwright is the protagonist of this tale. He visualizes a perfect love story of an artist and a poor girl of exquisite beauty. He roams about in search of such a girl in real life. He, soon, meets one living in squalor. He quenches her hunger, makes her live decently and pampers her with gifts. When he finally decides to take her into his life, he finds a widening, inexplicable chasm between him and her.

A well-penned story, it adheres to the established principles of the craft. It has a distinct beginning, a buildup and a dramatic end – characteristics of a well-crafted short story. Budding writers may find this story more inspiring as it has a remarkable plot and displays how it can be flawlessly presented.

 I like the following lines just because of their literary beauty:

‘His breath came in a whistle, as he willed the chill to clear the cobwebs in his mind’

‘Would he have to throw away his passion to nurture this little, fluttering flame?’

‘He walked, a new spring in his step’.

‘She stood up, looked at him with her heart in his eyes’.

 [I would shortly write about my other favorite stories]

Three Cheers to Valiant Husbands

Yesterday was the day of agony for my wife. Our Washing Machine [WM], her favorite contraption, and with which she had spent most of her time than what she did with me, breathed its last after toiling for our family for a decade and a half. Months back, it did indicate that all was not well with it by not being able to rotate its washing system. But then, my better-half, a hard core optimist who would fly kites even in a hurricane, dismissed the machine’s warning gestures and told me that the WM would hold back its breath at least for a year or two. Assured by her extravagant statement, I put my laundry into the wash tub and turned the power on. Gosh! The bloody machine stopped with a big groan and a bang as soon as it started working.

 My attempts to Rev up the machine went waste – I shook it and slapped it on the sides many times. The contraption, having got its life snapped in a trice, was there in the service room, lying in state and giving a handle to my wife to pour on me her choicest allegations/blaming. “You only killed the machine. You novice, how long can I put up with your dilly-tallying with home gadgets and making them work erratic?” Wife sneered at me despite her knowing that the machine was already in coma.

Soon a mechanic came, examined the machine and declared it dead. My wife was a bit disappointed and asked him if the machine died naturally due to its own wear and tear or to the meddling of someone. She glanced at me sideways. The mechanic smirked and said, “Ma’am, how long would you like a WM to work for you. 15 years is quite a time.’’ ‘Hi, mechanic, my savior, I moaned, you’ve unwittingly saved me from a noose. Your help will soon be rewarded.’

Now, there came a swanky, smart and fully automatic machine, a brand new one in shimmering white color. Came along with it was a service man; he demonstrated the functions of the machine with a flourish but in flawed and pedestrian English. He then gave me the user-manual and told me I could refer to it in case of doubt.

But to his shock, I returned back the manual to him and said: “Please hand over this manual to ma’am. I don’t know English.”

[This skit is dedicated to all Valiant Husbands to whose tribe I belong to]