Siddharth Srivastava's Blog, page 11

An interview with Rahul Gandhi

(Re-posting a piece I had written in March last year in the context of the Congress party deciding that Rahul Gandhi will not be PM candidate for 2014 elections)

The following is an imagined, though candid and freewheeling, interview of Rahul Gandhi, by yours truly, following the Congress leader’s categorical statement that he neither wants to-become Prime Minister of India nor marry…

Sir, why live in such denial?

This is an incorrect assessment. The Gandhi dynasty has never denied power to itself. As a matter of fact, I am over ambitious, like the rest of youth of India. I am the real youth icon and not Modi who is over 60. Let me explain.

Although I have said I admire Mahatma Gandhi the most, it is actually mummy Sonia Gandhi who is my political guru. I hold her in higher esteem than my father, grandmother and great grandfather. She has been Prime Minister of India for nearly 10 years, without being one.

She is actually the super PM of India, as the PM reports to her. That is a phenomenal achievement given today’s coalition politics. My aim is to follow mummy – to be super PM of India, a much higher post.

As any student of history knows, the Gandhi’s have always been a cut above the rest. Today, many want to be PM including Mayawati, Mamata and even Mulayam. Within the Congress Shinde, Chidambaram, Tharoor, Dikshit, Antony all fancy their chances, after we (mummy and I) elevated Pranab as President and earlier Manmohan as PM reporting directly to the super PM.

In the BJP, LK Advani has been desperate to be PM of India for decades though he has only managed to be deputy PM. Now, we have Narendra Modi wanting be PM.

The Gandhi’s can never be part of a regular crowd of PM seekers. We are above all this petty politics and as my brother-in-law correctly said earlier, the mango people. We are the true rulers of India, by destiny.

Even beyond politics, why do you think Salman Khan is so successful? Not because he is another hero like Akshay Kumar, Aamir Khan or SRK. Salman is a super hero. He is the Bollywood equivalent of a super PM.

Let me ask you, who leads a better life, the promoter or the CEO? CEO’s will come, CEO’s will go, but Richard Branson will always be there; airlines may fly or not but Vijay Mallya will always be the high flier. PM’s will come and PM’s will go, but the Super PM will always be the all-powerful. The only position higher than Super PM is God for which only Sachin Tendulkar qualifies.

Sir, your mom had reasons not to be PM as she is a foreigner. There are no such issues about you as you are a naturally born Indian?

Good question. I have thought about this a bit during my free time in London that I visit often. Life as the son of the Super PM of India is quite good, so as the Super PM it can only be better. I don’t have to go to office every day, I holiday when I want to, speak to the media when I choose, visit a dalit household for a change of scene, hang out with my pals, go cycling to Gurgaon with my brother-in-law, spend time at the gym or play with my pet dog who is followed by a separate retinue of black cat commandos when he goes for susu to the park.

When the Delhi gang rape incident happened, I was on holiday. Imagine if I was PM. I would have to cut short my vacation and make an address on national TV at short notice without the help of a speech writer.

As super PM’s son I call my own time. I disappear and appear when I wish. I vanished when the telecom scandal happened or the defense scandal (read helicopter not Bofors) broke. Now, when these issues are no longer relevant as the media has forgotten about it, I have re-appeared to speak to you. Mummy of course has refined the politics of the unspoken to much higher levels that I hope I can one day achieve.

She does not speak on any issue (publicly, that is), but makes it a point to instruct Manmohanji over phone every morning on the files that need or do not need to be signed. It is a win win situation. We (Mummy and I) eat the cake and have it too.

We, however, have to keep reminding Manmohanji that as PM he needs to speak more. Keeping silent is the prerogative of the Super PM. Mummy says that she dreams of the day when a PM will call me for instructions too when I could be doing anything, maybe scuba diving in Andaman’s.

Sir, what about marriage?

Oh yes, that. I need to find someone like Sunny Leone. Just kidding. I am having such a good time right now. Why spoil the party by getting married.

(Readers can buy my novel An Offbeat Story here)

 

The making of a rapist

(Re-posting a piece I wrote earlier in the wake of the attack on the Danish survivor near the New Delhi station yesterday)

My attention would not have been drawn to 10-year old Kaku under usual circumstances. It did, as our collective consciousness has been seized by the recent Shakti Mills gang rape in Mumbai and earlier in Delhi that resulted in the death of the brave Nirbhaya. I recently met Kaku just by chance at a park in Gurgaon, where I live. I take my three-year old daughter Alaynah there in the evenings.

Over the last decade, Gurgaon has witnessed stupendous growth, driven primarily by private enterprise and a builder-politician mafia that has dominated real estate space. Property prices quote more than New York, while glitzy malls, high rises, MNCs offices, big cars, golf courses, international schools and state-of-the-art hospitals abound. The metro is pretty much world class.

Just a decade back Gurgaon was a desolate area, the foothills of the Aravali Hills and contiguous to the arid land of Rajasthan.

Today, down the road from Kaku’s park are bungalows that boast private swimming pools, with kids being transported to destinations by chauffeur driven BMW’s and Mercedes Benz cars.  The government, as usual, has failed to keep pace with development. Roads, power, law and order, water supply, garbage and sewage disposal systems managed by the administration continue to be abysmal, third class and third world. A CEO sitting inside his/her plush office in Gurgaon could be a scene from anywhere in the first world, New York, London, Singapore.

Outside, the potholed roads, traffic jams, overflowing muck, cows ambling about, can only be India. Kaku’s park is frequented by a lively lot of thin malnourished kids of lowly paid construction workers that are near permanent residents of Gurgaon due to the relentless building activity.

Needless to say, the kids are poor, unkempt, unclean, wear frayed clothes with nosey invariably dripping during winter.

Alaynah somehow has more fun at Kaku’s park. There are the enclosed, out-of-bounds for outsiders and especially slum kids, gated parks patronized by children of regular middle class and respectable families.

Here kids tend to fight and quarrel a bit about fancy toys, cycles, cricket bats and balls. Alaynah thus finds the common open park near our house more to her liking. Children here do not possess any toys or cycles, so there is nothing to fight about.

I am okay as long as she has fun though I must admit I make sure she does not get too close to the other children. Given her usual protected environment, Alaynah’s immunity levels cannot match her play mates.

Kaku’s park, like other public areas managed by authorities, is badly maintained. The grass is uncut, the benches are broken and flower beds shorn. The swings and slides made of stronger material have somehow survived and thus a source of immense joy to the many little kids devoid of other toys in their life.

I happened to speak to Kaku as he sat quietly on the swing adjoining Alaynah’s, as she cheerfully belted her favorite mix of Bollywood songs and nursery rhymes, even as I pushed the swing higher. In five minutes I knew a bit about Kaku’s life – he had never been to school, did not know any counting or alphabets, knew no songs, never watched TV and hung around streets doing nothing the whole day. His friends, he told me, teased him by calling him daku (dacoit).

I asked Kaku why he was not playing, like the other kids and sitting quietly on the swing. He told me he had not eaten anything the whole day, so his tummy was hurting. I asked him to go home and eat. He said he did not want to go home as he was scared his father would beat him as he was a drunkard. I asked Kaku what he would like to eat. “Maggie,’’ (noodles) was his quick reply. I gave him some money to buy Maggie, though I have no idea whether he did.

Later, I could not help but think of the gang rape in Delhi and Mumbai. In both horrific crimes, the perpetrators were illiterate boys, minors and young men, petty thieves, criminals, subsisting on the fringes of urban existence, doing odd jobs, surviving, stealing, looting, eve teasing and eventually raping.

In some years Kaku will be a teenager, stronger, infused with hormonal changes that make boys naturally aggressive. He will probably stand up to his father, make friends with many similarly placed boys in the neighborhood and maybe form a gang. They will be acutely aware of the wealth around them, the cars, gadgets and soon the women, with no means, skill, language, education, money, to access or be acknowledged by any of them.

Can Kaku be a normal adult given such a brutal childhood? I don’t think so. Who should we blame if Kaku does not conform or turns into a real daku — us, his parents, government or society? Not him, for sure.

(Buy my book An Offbeat Story here)

Aam Aadmi Party needs to succeed

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)