Siddharth Srivastava's Blog, page 10

Nothing sells like cricket in India

Indian cricket stars make a lot of money, recently reinforced by the IPL auctions. Yuvraj Singh will be paid Rs 14 crore, Dinesh Karthik will pocket a cool Rs 12.5 crore for a few weeks of effort on the field. The two are not even regulars in the Indian cricket team anymore.

Each minute on the field, runs scored will translate into lakhs of rupees spent by promoters, who obviously hope to make even more profits riding on India’s craze for cricket. Vijay Mallya, who bought Yuvraj, believes he will be able to fly high again riding on cricket. Priety Zinta believes IPL will provide some succor away from her dwindling Bollywood career.

No cricketer with even a remote possibility of being selected for the IPL wants to rest on his laurels or retire in a hurry. Kevin Pietersen (Rs 9 crore) is laughing all the way to the bank despite being sacked from the England cricket team on grounds not connected to merit. Whoever said intrigue is monopoly of BCCI, otherwise one of the world’s richest sports bodies.

Virendra Sehwag, however, wants to run a school, which is noble. But, then Viru has always been a little different from the rest. Indians interest in cricket cuts across class, caste, age, gender. It’s the kind of following any politician or political party could kill for.

Narendra Modi has had to work hard for 10-years in Gujarat. Still, he is unsure about the middle class votes. Rahul Gandhi constantly speaks about the sacrifices of his family for generations. Still, the Congress is staring at defeat.

The IPL auctions offer a governance lesson too – just like cricketers it is only the open market that can determine the right price for India’s natural resources such as telecom spectrum or coal blocks. Not undercover allotments to crony capitalists that Arvind Kejriwal recently spelled out are the real destroyers of India. The former Delhi chief minister never ceases to surprise.

Just as one was beginning to believe he is a maverick who will drive any government to bankruptcy by extending unsustainable freebies, the Aam Aadmi leader recently revealed a new pro-business side. Kejriwal needs to learn from Sunny Leone and bare all, rather than confusing and frustrating his followers no end.

Will the Indian cricket bubble burst? Not in a hurry. As long as the Indian cricket team continues to be a subcontinent bully, the followers will stick. The tag of minnows abroad will be forgotten after a successful domestic series. No point in blaming “obnoxious’’ MS Dhoni for holding the worst overseas record following recent failures in South Africa and New Zealand on the back of abject surrenders in England and Australia.

Any captain will be helpless so long as Indian dust-bowl pitches produce assembly line cricketers such as Suresh Raina, proficient in hitting sixes off balls that only remain below the knee pad. Such consistent bounce can only breed cricketers woefully inconsistent abroad on bouncy wickets.

Despite the match fixing controversies Indian fans believe games are mostly fair and competitive. Indian cricket has been lucky to produce personalities such as Sachin Tedulkar, Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly and Sunil Gavaskar who played the game in the truest spirit.

This is unlike the general disillusionment with politics, where the corrupt and criminal often call the shots. Decisions are made for narrow political gains, for example the Tamil Nadu Jayalalithaa government recently deciding to release Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins or earlier the Congress at the center hanging Afzal Guru out of turn.

Further, no other team sport in India, that really draws the eyeballs, can challenge the supremacy of cricket in the foreseeable future. Indian hockey standards are poor due to lack of facilities and inept management. The team even failed to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Any under-19 school or college soccer side from Europe can whip our national team, under any conditions. Flashes of brilliance such as Saina Nehwal can only be minor diversions from the main fix. Cricket, Bollywood and Arnab Goswami will continue be India’s main entertainment options for some time to come.

(Buy my book An Offbeat Story here, described by a prominent book critic as one of the most humorous and entertaining reality fiction novel by an Indian writer)

The Dubious Hanging of Afzal Guru

(Re-posting this piece in the context of the possible release of those convicted of killing Rajiv Gandhi, one of the few Indian politicians I really admired)

There have been extreme reactions to Afzal Guru’s hanging in India. While there is anger and resentment in the Kashmir Valley, many see it as justice finally delivered. Over time Guru has conveyed and symbolized different meanings to different sets of people, despite the judiciary pronouncing him guilty. He is simultaneously seen as a terrorist, innocent, victim of police brutality, instance of gross human rights violation, injustice, pseudo secular politics, a soft Indian state, inept handling of Kashmir and Kashmiris by New Delhi.

Many comments on social networking sites, where one presumes young Indians are most active, derive a pathological Taliban-esque pleasure in the death of Guru. English TV channels, meanwhile, went berserk after the hanging, claiming to speak on behalf of an apparently revenge seeking, blood thirsty Indian people desperately waiting every morning for Guru to die.

The fact remains that Guru knowingly or unknowingly facilitated the 2001 brazen attack on Parliament, which nobody tires of mentioning, is the symbol of Indian Democracy. The big question about Guru’s hanging is the timing?

Why now, when he has been on death row for more than a decade, along with many others, including assassins of Rajiv Gandhi and Beant Singh, the former chief minister of Punjab?

Why is it that the two main political parties, the Congress and BJP, are agreed on Guru’s hanging, when the issue has remained sensitive and divisive for so long? This is when politicians in this country do not even agree that rape is a crime committed by men – that it has nothing to do with vibes, clothes, diet, jeans, short skirts, hour of the day or night, hormones, disco, occasion, location, boyfriend, working or drunk women.

Clearly, there has been sinister intent in the death of Guru, unlike the hanging of Mumbai attacker Ajmal Kasab due to the clinching evidence caught on CCTV cameras. Guru was no master mind or ideologue like a Hafiz Saeed or Masood Azhar, who roam about in Pakistan like celebrities. He was a pawn, possibly a mercenary caught up and influenced by the wrong people. He tried to lead a normal life, but failed due to the lure of money.

With Indian Muslims gravitating towards supporting regional outfits in electorally crucial states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the two national parties Congress and BJP are fighting to win Hindu and middle class votes. The stakes have turned higher and thus politics dirtier with general elections approaching. Simplistically put, the assumption is that Hindu’s do not like pro-minority politics and feel happy when Muslims are put on the back foot.

The merit-driven hard-working, often self-righteous middle class, on the other hand likes to play by the rules, dislikes indecisiveness, procrastination, dirty politics.

A living Guru had been turned by some into another instance of government inaction, an aspect made more glaring due to failure in several other spheres – growth, economic reforms, generating employment, changes in education, checking corruption, Maoist rebellion and importantly talks with Kashmiri separatist groups.

The Congress-led New Delhi government is also alarmed by the emergence of Narendra Modi with his twin agenda of good governance and clinical development that goes down well with the middle classes. Modi does not need to get after the Muslims. The dynamic Modi more than proved his credentials in 2002 by passively overseeing the Gujarat riots.

What better way for the Congress to confuse the electorate by springing Guru into collective consciousness to obliterate a bit of the Modi effect.  Too many emotive issues have been played up in the past to influence and polarize voters – the politics of caste, building the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, Mandal and reservations, among others.

These are mere cloaks to cover inadequacies of performance, corruption, governance, positive change and affirmative action. Guru might have deserved to die. The timing of his hanging, however, is a charade to cloak bigger failures and pursue selfish political intents.

(Buy my book An Offbeat Story here, described by a prominent book critic as one of the most humorous and entertaining reality fiction novel by an Indian writer)

India gears up for general elections

India is gearing for general elections this summer. Indians usually make their vote count. Political players are on overdrive to influence the electorate. Narendra Modi’s sponsored page ceaselessly appears on the sidebar of my Facebook page, though my attention was recently diverted by everybody’s, including my FB movie.

It does feel great to star in a film even if I viewed it maximum number of times. There is no guarantee, however, that every Modi Like will translate into a click of the EVM (electronic voting machine) button for the BJP.

India is too vast and diverse for a sponsored FB page or millions twitter following to determine an election. Without doubt Modi considers zealous social media netizens to be a core constituency. Given nature of India’s first past the post (FPTP) ballot, Modi knows too well the slightest swing in his favor can make difference between victory and defeat.

Beyond the virtual world, opinion polls favorite Modi has been traversing the country addressing massive rallies, appealing to students, chai wallas, dalits, backward castes, upper castes, north easterners. This proves real pulse of the nation lies in streets, alleys and by-lanes. Not inside TV studios with simultaneously speaking guests, as Arnab Goswami would like us to believe.

After years of aloofness from everybody except a select few insiders, Rahul Gandhi allowed himself to be interviewed on TV for the country to figure out the real him. Maybe he should have chosen to remain an enigma. The interaction with Arnab reaffirmed beliefs the Gandhi scion desperately needs to move out of introspection to performance mode. After all, people voted for the Congress party to change their lives for the better, not for Gandhi to discover truth.

Rahul tried to enlighten us about his profound thoughts – changing the system, empowering women, rooting out corruption. Is this supposed to be complicated or what?

The newspapers are splashed with half page posters of Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi (both smiling for a change) claiming successful social welfare schemes, efficacy of which cannot be simply determined. The only certainty is a depleting exchequer.

India’s growth rates, meanwhile, have dipped to levels that can only mean downhill for most and failure of policy. Beyond Congress and BJP, others too fancy their chances to rule the Delhi durbar or at least call the shots like Left parties did between 2004 and 2009.

Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aami Party (AAP’s) is sadly turning out to be the Poonam Pandey of Indian politics, looking to dominate news headlines by hook or crook, allegations, dharnas, bombastic statements.

Running a government is not about making headlines. Even Poonam Pandey does on twitter streaming her private pics.In cricket parlance Kejriwal and his core group want to hit a six every ball. Virendra Sehwag tried for a while and has been dropped for good.

To keep up the tempo, party minister Somnath Bharti entered homes of women at night accusing them of being prostitutes. Gauging recent developments, AAP has been looking for excuses to vote itself out of power. And succeeded.

Kejriwal has resigned over the Jan Lokpal Bill perhaps fancying his chances as a future PM of India. The people of Delhi have reason to feel betrayed. If the emergence of AAP dented BJP’s performance in the Delhi elections, their desperate shenanigans could benefit Modi in general elections.

Away from the din of national media, the three queen bees of Indian politics, Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati and Jayalalithaa, street smart, power hungry, mean and ruthless, can never be pushovers.

As Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh found out, these ladies can make any government go down on its knees to have their way. And given nature of coalition politics, each one also fancies their chance for top job this year, instead of just being power behind the throne. I do feel sorry for Nitish Kumar though. He is a good man who seems to have played his cards wrong. Nitish has unfortunately sidelined himself while his intention was to trip Modi. Thankfully, DMK, political party cum corrupt business enterprise, looks to be staring at defeat.

(Buy my book An Offbeat Story here, described by a prominent book critic as one of the most humorous and entertaining reality fiction novel by an Indian writer)

End of road for Maruti 800

(Maruti Suzuki has stopped production of the iconic Maruti 800. A piece a wrote in 2009, when Maruti first announced that it has begun the process of withdrawing India’s first hatchback)

In an indication of a changing India, two lifestyle products that defined Indian middle class existence and aspiration in the 1970s and 1980s will soon cease production.  The decision by respective firms to phase out Bajaj Scooters entirely from March next year and entry-level Maruti 800 cars from metropolitan areas to begin with, is purely business related — sales have sagged.

But it also reflects a different mindset, another India and a new era that fancies faster motorcycles and bigger and better cars.  In the 1970s Bajaj scooters symbolized middle-class stability, although the engine, placed on one side, made the machine unstable.  By 1995, Bajaj had sold 10 million of the vehicles, sometimes hitting a million sales a year.

But in the current situation of rashly driven powerful vehicles and 24-hour call center cabs, two-wheelers are very unsafe. Also Bajaj was unable or unwilling to adapt its scooters to the onslaught of sleek, fast and fashionable motorbikes imported from Japan. By 2005, the company announced it was discontinuing its biggest seller of all time, the Chetak. Now the Kristal, its last model, will soon go.

Back then, father on wheel, mother pillion, younger child standing in front with head bobbing out, older sibling squeezed between mother, father, everybody with arms around each other for balance and protection, epitomized complete Indian family. “Hum do hamare do.’’ It was idyllic.

Needless to say, the famous ad tag line “Hamara Bajaj” (Our Bajaj) translated into brisk sales. The strict father, seeped in the idealistic hangover of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, could have typically worked in a government department, university professor or trader; the mother, a housewife, dedicated to the family, spent hours in kitchen, cleaning house and praying for their welfare.

The unified aim of the husband-wife duo was to ensure their children a good education to turn them into engineers (via cracking the coveted IIT exam) or doctors (via the equally difficult MBBS entrance exam) or make it to the IAS, the top government job (via the even more difficult UPSC exam).  With such a focus on study, a big sprinkling of the Bajaj kids did make it and many of them went to America, the land of opportunity, to become software czars and cardiologists, reproducing kids in turn who today call the shots in political stakes as campaign managers and fundraisers driving BMWs or Mercedes- Benzes and collecting bikes that probably cost more than their father’s whole life income, many times over.

Some of the Indian kids who lived the American dream called their parents over from India, who left, some selling off the Bajaj scooters as junk.  Other children, absorbed in their success and new money, forgot about their native families back home, offering endless themes for sob stories of abandoned parents for Hindi movies that sometimes passed off as meaningful art cinema.

Meanwhile, the Maruti 800 was launched in pre-liberalized India in the 1980s when the License Raj prevailed to shackle any enterprise, when access to state authority or grease money counted for everything — owning a telephone, a passport, a driver’s license or a gas connection and a house.

In keeping with authoritative behavior, most marriages were arranged. Gandhi and Nehru were forgotten entities although their pictures remained framed in every government office, ideals obliterated. The Babu (read lower government official) was king. Cordless phones were a luxury item, compared to over 500 million cell phone users in the country today.

The bulk of youth (everybody could not make it to IIT or IAS or MBBS) aspired to be part of this kingdom and wield the power to dole out telephone connections or hand out nationalized bank loans and progress in life — from Bajaj Scooters to Maruti 800s.

In a way the spiffy, quick pickup, inexpensive Maruti 800s that took on the ambling Ambassadors and Fiats that dominated Indian roads was the first challenge to the Raj, though there were car quotas still and one needed to bribe a Babu, maybe by offering foreign-made bottles of liquor.

The Maruti 800, fast, flexible and individualistic, a tin pot compared to cars of today indicated the 1990s and new a millennium. Today a typical middle class Indian family travels in a snazzier Maruti Swift or a Hyundai I-20, financed out of quick processing by private banks, visits chock-a-block malls during the weekend, watches high-priced multiplex movies, while the kids feed on pizza and burgers, probably from MacDonald’s, home delivery or take away, resulting in new age problems such as obesity.

The parents lead jet setting corporate lives, grapple with deadlines, keep global times; some fight lifestyle-related heart problems and hypertension, while others spend time at the gym or spa to de-stress and detoxify. Telephone connections are not a problem, bank loans are available online, cars can be brought off the shelf like a pair of jeans. There is freedom to choose.

Love marriages are on the rise, so are gays and divorce rates. Discussions center on Nehru’s affairs with foreign women rather than his beliefs and vision. Gandhi is remembered in the context of Bollywood masala flicks such as Munnabhai MBBS. The ones who have made it via the stock market or real estate windfalls commute in bigger Honda cars or even a BMW and travel abroad for holidays and spend evenings at expensive clubs, discussing art investments.  Mobile phone-toting maids connected to roaming parents look after kids who spend time on computer games and TV. The children imbibe good social skills in private schools followed by an expensive MBA (in India or abroad).

There are plenty of domestic service sector jobs that need more smooth talking and less thinking — hospitality, banking, insurance, tourism, outsourcing or at MNCs such as Coca Cola, Pepsi or Nestle, offering perks and foreign postings.

A lot needs to be improved, such as regular electricity supply and roads without potholes. A well-behaved Babu is still a rarity. Though there are masses poor in India still, there are masses of the upwardly mobile too, who like leisure and to dictate the market. 

India has changed — for better and worse. The era of Bajaj Scooters and Maruti 800s is history.

(Buy my novel An Offbeat Story here)

Aam Aadmi Party needs to succeed

(Arvind Kejriwal has threatened to resign. Re-posting this piece I wrote last month) 

Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is focused on setting right government functioning that I believe will go much beyond shunning red beacon lights on official cars and bungalows in Lutyens’ Delhi. If they are able to fix just this and nothing more, it would be a massive achievement. I have selfish (survival maybe a more apt word) interests that I want addressed ASAP.

The failure of government closely impacts my existence and anybody else connected to this country, I am sure. There are, for instance, unnecessary and heavy expenditures I am forced to incur due to dysfunctional delivery or non-existent public services. I have invested in expensive inverters and a diesel guzzling and polluting generator due to unreliable power.

If I did not I would probably be keying in this piece using a type writer in candle light. I have installed a water cleanser system, again very costly, due to the abysmal quality of the intermittent water supply. Sometimes the germs are so big they are visible to the naked eye. The filter needs to be changed almost every month due to the muck that flows in the water.

The generator that costs a bomb

I have to maintain cars for each member of the family due to absence of safe, reliable, comfortable public transport even as I regularly witness our VIP’s traverse about in big Lal Batti vehicles bought and maintained by tax payers’ money. I do use an auto rickshaw sometimes at considerable risk to my life and limb.

Unchecked and reckless auto drivers are real life Subway Surfers freaks. They offer their customers two choices – either reach the destination or die. I mean, this is not some Star Trek mission, just a short distance drive on earth.

Of course, I need to mention the quality of roads, again maintained by the government, that make the auto journey even more unpalatable. The auto drivers predictably believe that whizzing dangerously over potholes is part of the inbuilt gaming experience.

I am happy about India’s proposed missions to the moon or Mars. I am very unhappy about the permanent craters that exist on our roads. I, along with my neighbors also have to pay for a pool of private guards to prevent our homes getting burgled or cars stolen. I believe this is the job of the cops who are instead deployed to protect some nondescript VIP whose life is supposed to be more precious than all of humanity put together.

The essential cars 

Then, I need to send my kids to an expensive private school as government schools are a joke in terms of quality of education and infrastructure, including mid-day meals offered. There is a shortage of teachers, those appointed are absent or on strike and those that teach desperately need to be taught. Each time I or a family member needs to visit a private hospital I pay astronomical consultancy and diagnostic fees.

I should not need to but do not have a choice. I visited a dirty dingy overcrowded government hospital once after I twisted my leg. The queue was so long, the process to finally see a doctor so complicated my ankle would have healed or remained permanently crooked by the time I actually received any treatment. I limped to a private clinic nearby.

There are too many people in our country, including road accident victims, who die due to failure of our medical system to intervene on time. Then, there is the question of efficiently managing our natural resources to produce enough fuel such as coal, gas or oil.

The growing dependence on imports has resulted in our rupee devalued to levels that make a takeaway coffee in London a fine dining experience that needs to be sipped and savored like expensive wine. If the Aam Aadmi Party resolves to take on the above mentioned issues in Delhi and hopefully rest of India, my vote is forever with Mr Kejriwal.

(Readers can buy my novel An Offbeat Story here. Read extracts here)

If Tiger Woods had crashed in India

(Tiger Woods was in India this week. Re-posting a piece I wrote about the golfer in 2009 when he was in news for his personal life)

In an Indian environment, the Tiger Woods saga perhaps would have been a little different. When the golfer crashed his vehicle outside his house, the police and ambulance would have been the last to know, given the sorry state of such services in India. Nobody would have bothered to call or inform them as they never arrive when needed. No one wants to be involved in a “police case” that could drag on for years, with innocents usually harassed the most.

Woods would have been carried back home by the otherwise usually helpful and also very nosy neighbours. “He is having an affair/s, so problems with the wife,” they would all say – but only in whispers as such things are never spoken about loudly, in public, to the media, and never in front of the wife.

Riots would soon threaten to break out outside Woods’ house, presumably in congested Delhi or Mumbai, where roadside pavements are home to millions of homeless. It would emerge the driver was in a state of intoxication and, to escape his wife, ended up driving his vehicle over beggars and construction workers sleeping on the pavement at night. A couple of people would have died without knowing what hit them.

After some time, the police would arrive anyway as they sensed that the accident involved a rich man, but not a politician or bureaucrat or an affluent businessman with connections. They would wonder how being a golfer could be a profession at all.

Over cups of tea, they would wait for Woods to regain consciousness then ask him to breathe into a dirty, bacteria and infection-laden instrument to test for alcohol levels. Then they would threaten to take away his driving license (never easy to procure, given the inefficiencies of the system) and vehicle unless he took care of the attending officers. Bribe and booze bottles accepted, they would step out and fire their guns in the air to disperse the crowd. The log at the police station would read: “No alcohol traced”. The accident would not be mentioned.

The media, seeped in middle-class sensibilities, would have sniffed out the story as it has a very powerful and saleable peg – the rich driving big cars over the poor. Only top reporters with experience of covering events such as the Mumbai terror strike last November (and who provided first-hand live visuals – including to militant coordinators sitting in Pakistan) would be selected for the assignment. Senior reporters would station themselves outside Woods’ house 24/7, while others fanned out to hospitals. There they would push and shove their cameras and microphones past dead or dying accident victims to get that elusive sound byte against all medical advice or intervention, in the name of the freedom of the press and democratic rights.

The case would somehow eventually go to court. By now, much money would have changed hands, involving among Woods’ well-placed friends, relatives, lawyers and important police officials. Handed more cash incentives, the police would discover that the vehicle that Woods was driving was not registered in the driver’s name, as it was illegally imported to escape duties and taxes.

The court would accordingly be informed that the entire case was fabricated as Woods owns no such vehicle, so he couldn’t be driving one. The accident probably happened due to a rashly driven truck that escaped in the cover of darkness, so no license plate number could be noted. Witnesses could not be trusted as they were sleeping. The number of killed and injured would in any case be reduced by the cops as some would be illegal migrants from Bangladesh with no record of their existence in India. Media reports about the actual injured and killed would be dismissed as mere hype and hyperbole.

Some of India’s top celebrities who love to appear on TV for any occasion – and many of whom have reportedly also had numerous affairs or have several wives – would come out in public to support Woods. They could include the likes of film stars Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Vinod Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, Kabir Bedi, Shekhar Kapur, Boney Kapoor, Mahesh Bhatt, or cricketers such as Mohammed Azharuddin, Saurav Ganguly and Yuvraj Singh.

Woods’ wife would by now be extremely sorry for what has happened to her husband and hold herself responsible for all the problems to her family, because under Indian traditions the husband is a god and can do no wrong. She would undertake a grueling fast and visit temples all over the country to cleanse her sins.

Woods’ mistresses would disappear from the scene. For the unmarried ones who presumably had a good time (in bed and otherwise), there would be no question of exposure to the media, since they would need to keep the honor of their families intact. They would have been be taught by their mothers to keep intact the virginity tag, the ultimate gift on the ultimate night of their marriage and valued most by the Indian husband gods.

The married mistresses would keep quiet for obvious reasons. Back at the scene of the accident, the laborers and construction workers who survived the crash would wake up from their unconscious states to discover that one of their kidneys had disappeared. They would be told that they were lucky to survive and be sent packing by the hospital authorities and the police.

Woods would go back to playing the professional circuit, wife and mistresses intact – if he happened to be an Indian, that is.

(Buy my novel An Offbeat story here. Read extracts here)

India’s two most eligible bachelors flounder

Over the last few days Rahul Gandhi and Salman Khan, often mentioned as the two most eligible Indian bachelors, though in their 40s, have been in the news.

Gandhi featured in his first face-to-face one-on-one interview on TV during which he mostly looked away from Arnab Goswami, the Badshah of Indian news channels. I have watched bits of the conversation that turned systematically boring. I have no plans to update myself about the repetitive parts I missed.

Who would? I was surprised that Arnab let Rahul speak as much as he did. Usually it is Arnab who does most of the talking, like King Khan. Clearly, there was some backroom prompting and arrangements at play, with reports that Rahul’s support staff included prompters such as Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

This only happens in school plays I believed, until now. Unlike the Gandhi interview, I have not watched Khan’s latest Jai Ho. Not even the promos or songs though I have checked out Daisy Shah, Salman’s latest muse. He usually likes them very young, pretty and just starting out on their career paths.

Then they find their feet in big Bollywood and move on. Katrina and Aishwarya did. During such process of separation Salman usually loses his temper at the media, some poor TV cameraman doing his job. Not when his movie flops.

I have watched many Salman films, Maine Pyar Kya, Andaz Apna Apna, No Entry, among others. His later action, comedy capers Dabangg (1 & 2), Ready, Bodyguard. Jai Ho is not doing good business by Salman standards.

Word of mouth and feedback from those who have watched the film has not been great. I don’t rely on critics ratings that can be widely off the mark. Salman can be forgiven for repeating a formula that has worked. But, diehard fans can perhaps no longer digest any more of his nonsensical abrupt shirt less cinema.

There needs to be change of script, which will likely happen. No doubt, Khan has had a tremendous run in Bollywood and will always find a place in any treatise on masala Hindi movies. I disagree with those who believe Gandhi made a fool of himself in the interview with Arnab or was being disingenuous.

The Congress party strategy has been etched over the past few years – engineer a regime of entitlements and subsidies aimed at the poor who are the biggest electoral base in India, rather than focusing on the difficult to please, high on aspiration, Arnab followers the middle classes. When Gandhi spoke to Arnab he knew the constituency wooed by the Congress would not be watching.

They do not understand English, would not have heard of Arnab, despite his frequent exhortations that his pointed queries reverberate in the mind of every Indian  – the nation wants to know. Perhaps they do, but only English speaking ones in a minority.

Congress strategy and thinking might have worked, but for Narendra Modi, who has made a habit of talking about his 56 inch chest. Busts were supposed to be selling points of female movie stars such as Sunny Leone.

Yet, Modi is trying to sell a bigger dream to the poor than the Congress – a permanent upgrade in their lives via growth and development. If he can effectively deliver this message in UP and Bihar, to add to BJP’s expected victories in northern states such as Rajasthan, Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, the party could head the government post general elections few months from now.

Many in the middle classes, especially the youth, are also willing to buy Modi’s dream, given his record in Gujarat. Congress party would have been better placed if the Gandhi’s allowed Manmohan Singh a free hand to push India’s economic reforms and crack down on corruption over the past five years. This would not have alienated India’s talking classes and youth. Would anyone have bothered about Arvind Kejriwal’s noisy Aam Admi Party?

Yet, nothing is permanent in politics and Bollywood. Salman could be back with a bang in 2014, Gandhi in 2019, by which time the duo will not be tagged “most eligible bachelors.’’ Maybe they do marry a lucky girl, with some prompting.

(Buy my book An Offbeat Story here. Read extracts here)

Nothing to be gay about

(Re-posting a piece I wrote recently, in the wake of the Supreme Court refusing to review its decision that criminalizes gay sex)

Vikram Seth has spoken eloquently about gay rights; Rahul and Sonia Gandhi have spoken about need to legalize consensual sex among same sex adults, while Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP’s) Rajnath Singh, not surprisingly, has clarified that homosexuality is unnatural and alien to India’s ethos, culture and society. The TV channels, meanwhile, have devoted prime time debates that have mostly criticized the Supreme Court (SC) upholding Section 377 criminalizing unnatural sex, including between gays.

The debate about gay sex in India exists at multiple levels — legal, personal and social. One big question is whether being a homosexual (and the sexual act implicit) is against the order of nature. Frankly, I am not qualified to speak on the subject. I know how it’s to be a father, son, lover, uncle, husband, spouse and sibling. I have, however, never been attracted to another man.

I can say this for sure. No parent in India or anywhere in the world would want his kid, male or female, to grow up to be gay or lesbian. It is about acceptance and sensitive handling should there be such an eventuality. It can never be a happy situation. Those who accept their kids as gays would be elated should their children revert to being “normal’’ if that is possible, like giving up on drugs or alcoholism or any other addiction.

No doubt, the gay story has been overdone a bit in India.  I am fatigued by self-obsessed emotionally wrought cry babies on TV speaking about their sexuality, the men discovering the woman inside them or the women finding the man inside them, or some such permutation.  Usually aggressive and sharp anchors such as Barkha Dutt or Karan Thapar are unusually sober when handling a feature on gays. It is almost politically incorrect to be straight.

Real love is about commitment, for example the sacrifice, patience and selflessness in raising a child. Real fortitude is about a woman who gives birth to a baby after bearing her for nine months inside her tummy, distorting her body in the process.

It is true, however, that the SC has erred in re-criminalizing homosexuality as there is strong evidence these sections of our population are victimized and discriminated, with the police, as is usual, playing a dubious role in the matter. Families, friends and neighbors are also perpetrators of violence, including physical.

The BJP, by siding with the SC judgment has not helped its cause as an inclusive party that allows peaceful co-existence of a section of people clearly in a minority. Agendas of development, growth and clean governance need to be accompanied by an evolved liberal social approach to politics that values personal freedoms and choices.

The middle classes and urban centers that are emerging as big supporters of the BJP regard these principles as much as jobs and higher incomes. BJP has failed to realize this. Rajnath Singh, the president of the party, is at the forefront of underlining BJP as conservative, possibly anachronistic party. Earlier, Singh criticized the English language as also alien to Indian culture.

Thankfully, New Delhi, at the instance of Congress party scion Rahul Gandhi, has appealed against the SC judgment. Showing conviction in the matter, the government has correctly initiated quick action on the matter. Section 377 could actually be irrelevant in India should there be higher social acceptability of gays in India and elsewhere.

It should ideally be seen an issue of misplaced emotions, not vaginal versus anal sex which are just means to consummate an already intimate relationship. In India there are laws against everything – honking, littering and even urinating in public.

They are not implemented, rather glossed over. Section 377 also makes unnatural, including oral sex, between heterosexual adults illegal. The cops don’t go around snooping for such eventualities unless there is a specific complaint, mostly women being the victims.

At the same time there are blatant violations of individual liberty, including LGBT’s. Cops prey on young couples in parks accusing them of indecency due to a harsh interpretation of another law that was instituted by our former colonial masters.

Couples in live in relationships need to pretend to be married in order to rent an apartment in Mumbai or Delhi. Police have arrested young people, including girls, for uploading material online that are essentially innocuous.  Homosexuality is an evolving theme world over.

It is not considered normal by huge sections of Indian society, unlike in the West. There is a social stigma attached. It will take some time for a predominantly Indian conservative set up, marked by deep caste affinities, to accept such associations as normal or merely aberrant. It should not be illegal for sure. As a personal choice it is best not to be gay, if that is possible.

(Buy my novel An Offbeat Story here. Read Extracts here)

An Offbeat Story

Spotted An Offbeat Story at the book shop next to Barista, DLF, Phase-1 Plaza, Gurgaon. Not in the Indian Classics section, but at the bottom shelf on Indian writers…

A Driving License without bribing

I renewed my driving license (DL) recently without paying a tout, the usual route advised by my gym trainer, ex-colleague and many others. As I found out (first up, I googled: how to get DL in Gurgaon, Haryana), some e-savvy touts advertise online.

The promotional literature describes (in very bad English) dealing with a government department as the most horrible experience that no self-respecting individual, human or otherwise should endure.

“We know how to deal with government cancer. Our customers can relax,’’ read one promo. I registered with an online tout service. Promptly, a girl executive (one can guess the age from their overexcited tones) sounding smarter than credit card and insurance telemarketers, called for details. I decided not to pursue the matter.

Call it the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) effect on me I decided to brazen it out. Btw I believe Arvind Kejriwal’s left leaning economic policies are anachronistic. I would easily settle for corrupt rich India than corruption free poor India, which is contradiction in itself.

Anyway, back to the DL process. The hall at the mini secretariat in Gurgaon where DL’s are dispensed to regular citizens (the real aam aadmi that cannot afford a tout) is quite large. The queue to procure the DL is much bigger spilling to the corridors outside infused with the sharp smell of urine emanating from very unclean toilets. As a matter of habit, I make it a point to visit the wash room at home or pee outside before visiting any government office.

The Queue

There are many desks in the DL hall occupied by sundry minor government functionaries, mostly free, busy in gossip, snacks and jokes. The long wait in the DL queue is for an audience with an overworked, overweight, hassled and harried official, addressed jocularly as Hanumanji, handling all paperwork singlehandedly. The real Hanumanji would have been much better placed serving Lord Ram and fighting Ravan.

Someone told me government has created post of one Hanumanji authorized to clear DL paper work. Forming another such position that would reduce DL processing time by half is a major administrative exercise that needs to involve higher officials, maybe minister, legislature.

In short, it will never happen in my life time. Inflexibility is a limitation of government that has been debated for long. If AAP sets this right, it would be a great achievement, though they need to realize they need govern now and stop fighting the system. They are the system. They are no longer activists. At the hall, most other officials while away their time over tea and samosas while citizens endlessly wait for their turn to meet Hanumanji or just give up and hire a tout.

Incidentally, the chap behind me in line happened to be a tout who good naturedly told me to pay him a couple of thousands. For him, this was just another day in office.

“Why waste your time,’’ he advised me. “Go and do your work and make money. The main aim of the government is to make it very difficult for regular citizens to get a DL the regular way. You pay us, we pay their cut and the job gets done quickly. It is very simple.’’

But, inspired by AAP, I had decided not to bribe and I was not going to let a seedy tout break my resolve though it was tempting as I was already hungry and needed to pee, outside.

After a good three hours of waiting time involving some amount of pushing, shoving, arguing with line breakers, out-of-turn crashers, those with references and contacts, my facetime with Hanumanji did finally materialize. For an instant he scrutinized me eagle eyed. I understood the message very clearly: “Why the f..k are you here a..hole? You could have just paid a tout? I have lost my cut you have wasted your time. You are an idiot.’’

Anyway, I had my paperwork in place, three copies of proof of identity and address that Hanumanji could not reject. He knew I had stood in line for three hours and would fight crazily if he dismissed my papers without reason. He signed and tossed my documents on a pile behind him.

“Your DL will reach you in two weeks,’’ he said in a tone that conveyed my status in the hall was lower than a cockroach. My DL has arrived. It took me three working days to procure one without paying a bribe.

One day for the right forms and advise. One day for the driving test which involved dealing with another Hanumanji while other officials lazed around in the winter sun. The pic below is self-descriptive. My advice to those not very Aam Admi seeking a DL: hire a tout.

One more queue

Buy my novel An Offbeat Story here Read extracts here