In Delhi, Metro kills. (Or is it Killer Metro?)

LONG before cassettes, compact discs and other hi-tech sources of music invaded our lives, there was the humble LP – or long play records.

Now, played over and over again for every guest and her uncle’s relative who came home, the records often got scratched beyond repair, leading to the needle going all over the place. It also got stuck quite often, playing in a loop like a broken record.

Example: like India’s health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, who, plagued even as the country is with swine flu and a world of other health issues, is stuck on controlling India’s population with ideas of late marriages and late-night TV programming to deter sex.

Which brings us to the issue we might as well discuss. Population. Azad is right, in a roundabout way: India’s population is way too much for our political, civil, social and anti-social societies to care too much about a few lives gone here, and a few gone there. A few lives snuffed out by a pillar falling at a Metro construction site in South Delhi, for instance.

Or more lives that could have been snuffed out barely 30 hours later at the same site, when cranes pulling out the crashed debris crashed themselves.

The reaction: inquiry commissions galore, and the obligatory few lakhs of ‘compensations’ announced for families of the ‘victims’.

Question: Can you compensate for a life? That, too, life of the lone earning member of a family, most likely steeped in debt back in the village? For, that precisely is the state of the families of Anshuman Pratihar, Pappu Yadav, Amit Yadav and Niranjan Yadav, as reported by Delhi Newsline over the last two days.

What, pray, were they doing? Following the government’s ever-ambitious dreams of basking in its own glory, come October 2010 with the Commonwealth Games, and putting one more project on an even more ambitious track.

‘See, what we have done!’ the political class would say next October, and you can bet that your October 2010 salary on that. ‘If there’s a will, there’s a way,’ they would gleam on.

Sure, but as every smoker knows the poor-taste joke: if there’s too much of Wills, there always is a smoke.

You can’t of course blame the authorities, for within hours after six men turned ‘victims’, the Metro railway chief took ‘moral responsibility’ and resigned. But realpolitic and exigency counts more than morality these days, so he took back the resignation within a day.

Question: who will take the physical, material and corporal responsibility for turning men into photos on wall?

After all, somebody made a mess of the project. A big mess. Somebody had also made a mess at all the earlier messes on different lines of the same project.

The political class has an answer: inquiry commissions have been set up. The truth will come out soon and “action” then will be initiated against the guilty, as Urban Development Minister S Jaipal Reddy told the nation through Parliament.

Question: who will the action be initiated against? No one has been booked, after all. The police have registered cases of culpable homicide (or murder, as I prefer to out it, shorn of the cover that the pretentious word seems to offer) against ‘unknown persons’.

There you are then: somebody messed up for sure but bet your salary of October 2009 that no name will ever come out.

If it was homicide, or murder, of six young men, sure. But there are no murderers. No one is culpable.

Who needs culpability anyway? After all, there are too many of us in this country. A few funerals do not matter, but for the immediate family members.

Damages, after all, have been paid for those funeral services.

May be Azad in his stuck-LP mode is right: bring down the population and we might start caring for each other.

At last, the truth: Maoists led Mamata in Singur, Nandigram

Finally, the media has begun reading traces into what has seemingly been evident for long in West Bengal: that the Maoists have backed Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress in her agitations in the past couple of years.
Nandigram. Singur. Two of Mamata's singular achievements as a politician for over two decades now. Cut out the two, and Didi becomes just another four-letter word: Zero.
In Nowhereland, and with a one-way ticket into further reaches of Nowhereland, she was hurtling from one platform to another in political vacuum when the Singur issue came up, followed by Nandigram. Till then, Mamata and her band of men (for there were hardly any woman in Trinamool till even two or three years ago) could, at best, organise a hartal in Kolkata. And even that would have been an unsuccessful one, leading to clashes between her men and the CPI(M)'s. So much for her organisational skills!
Then came the twin issues, and suddenly Mamata and Trinamool were seen by the Indian media as beacons of virtue, a born-agaon Mother Teresa, with skill sets in organisaing protests equalling that of Mahatma Gandhi's. It was a joke, of course, for all the groundwork was done by the Maoists, and frustrated, rebellious and kicked-out CPM members.
Only, the men and women who should have seen through the joke and called the bluff -- the journalists -- never saw it. Perhaps they did not want to. The hatred against the Left was so deep-rooted that they failed to see the bigger picture. And the far bigger menace: bloody lawlessness like Chhattisgarh or Jharkhand.
The monster's out of the bag now; some of the Maoist leaders have been quoted by the media seeking their pound of flesh from Didi now -- in return for the favour in Singur or Nandigram.
Having half-turned West Bengal into another Naxal-hit area, will The Lady see sense now?
Good question, but going by her antics over the past two decades and more, seems unlilely.
So, burn my beloved Bengal.

Heart wave in Delhi: Even Manmohan ‘loves’ the Left (smiley)

Politics, Manmohan Singh says today, is “an art of the possible”. What he perhaps missed out saying is it is also the art of lying.
Otherwise, how do you change your views 360 degrees in less than 24 hours?
On Friday (May 1), Singh had addressed a rally in Howrah, in the suburbs of Kolkata, and launched a Bofors missile of an attack on Buddhadeb Bhattacharya’s Left Front government in West Bengal. He had blamed the Left for all the under-development and joblessness in the state, apart, of course, from criticising them for nearly scuttling his deal with the United States -- aka the “n-deal”.
Today (May 2), he tells CNN-IBN: “We have worked with the Left parties before... I have enjoyed working with the Left.”
Really, Mr Outgoing Prime Minister? Or is it the heat stroke effect?

Why Mumbai didn't vote, and why it's good

A day after The Big Polls in Mumbai, it was a shock this morning to see newspapers toe the news channels, their imbecile yet upmarket country cousins, in blaming poor Mumbaikars for not turning out in droves and jam all roads leading to polling booths.
Barkha Dutt to Kiron (writer unsure about the number of Rs or Ks in her same, so seeks pardon) Kher in The Buck Stops Here on NDTV: Why do you think Bollywood’s appeal to Mumbai to come out and vote failed?
Poor Dutt! As if we Indians listen to even our own conscience, let alone our parents, forget about some filmstars showing us the finger! Get some brains, Ms Dutt.

Hindustan Times (Delhi edition) headline, with some seriously high-blown 72-points (that’s an inch in size): “All talk, no vote”
The shoulder strap, in mercifully smaller size, says: “Despite 26/11, candle-light vigils and voter campaigns, Mumbai stays home”
I believe the guys at HT thought the poor readers in the Capital would have gone insane and would miss the issue after all this emotional atyachar, so they put the ‘Mumbai stays home’ bit in red for effect.
Now, now, why did those Mumbaikars take out candle-light vigils and talk loudly against everyone and his/her uncle? Because they felt the rage literally come out in smoke from their noses, and they felt threatened after being targetted like only poor (not economically but generally, meaning everyone and her uncle) Indians have ever been. So what is the connection between talking about your right to safety after you have paid all dues, taxes etc and been good citizens, and going to the pooling booth and vote?
Simple answer: Nothing. Not for the media, though.
Give me a break, even I would have floundered for a choice given the options. A filmstar’s daughter who perhaps never brought up an issue of importance in five years in Parliament (Priya Dutt); a goonda from a goondas’ party (Ram Naik), a chor and a turncoat, among other things (Sanjay Nirupam); a rich man sporting good clothes and shades with no clue about the basic issues of a Mumbaikar (Milind Deora).
And these are just four candidates from across the spectrum. I would have given the polling a skip had I been living in any part of Mumbai, as I would do even on May 7 when Ghaziabad goes to polls.
Let us please not confuse the Good Citizen bit with voting, which, as the Constitution puts it, is a right that I may or MAY NOT opt to use. I, and I believe most of the “57% voters (who) skip the ballots” in Mumbai (headline in DNA newspaper), are good citizens and ‘nationalists’ to the core: we pay taxes on time, we pay all our dues, we pay power water and all other bills (sometimes a little late, but with a penalty!), we do not bribe or accept bribe, we genuinely try to be nice folks and not harass, abuse or slaughter people in riots…
That last one was a 69-worder of a sentence, and Microsoft Word is showing a green line -- for a “long sentence”. It’s time to pause. Take a deep breath. And go on living with pride, as it always has been.
Let the imbecile mediamen/women do their imbecile things in spare moments. We Indians are a forgiving, and forgetting, lot.

Mumbai shows the middle finger to polls. Really?

Why are they marking the middle finger in mumbai, and the index finger (as we have all known since ages) in other parts, say lucknow?

Manmohan: Rahul-baba zindabad

Manmohan Singh: "Rahul Gandhi has all the qualities to be a good Prime Minister."

Question: What does Manmohan Singh know about good premiership?

Status: Ready with shoe, target invisible

* ‘Educationist’ at Supreme Court judge
* Sikh journalist at Chidambaram
* Former schoolteacher at Naveen Jindal

All their claim to fame is of course the poor shoe. Talking of shoes and their throwers, heard the latest? Ever concerned about making the Commonwealth Games more successful, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has found a new event: footwear throw, on the lines of javelin and discus throw.
No it’s not funny, for given the level of performance of these new players on the block (B-negative, or below-par), there are serious doubts whether India can manage a medal even in this newly introduced sport.
But let Ms Dikshit worry about that. I am today concerned whether I could take a shot at the Games with that game -- to represent India, yaar, and make some money on the side by doing footwear commercials.
Anyway, given that I would need some target practice, I am zeroing in on some names. Only politicians volunteer, please, in this poll season:

# Gyanmohan Sing: For saying all of India loves Bush -- he forgot that a large chunk of the country now has proper sanitation, and does not need to go to the bushes to relieve themselves.
# Bhalu Prasad: For failing to come up with better antics; performances now seem like repeat telecasts in good ol’ Doordarshan
# Ayavati: For irritating the hell out of any TV viewer looking for some entertainment in news channels with her monotonous, read-out speeches
# Pee Chidamvram: For smiling his good-boy-look-at-me smile all day, all night. Just by the way, doesn’t he get bored?
# Bahul Andhi: For making boring speeches about all sorts of Kalavatis et al
# So-near Andhi: See above (generally for making boring speeches about Ayavati et al)
# Lal Keshto Sadvani: For a Chaha Chaudhary lookalike, he is too big (and bald) a bore
# Harendra Nodi: For failing to appreciate any Indian dish apart from theplas and dhoklas
# Aaj Thackarey: For vilifying Hindi-walas in a city largely driven by them
# Khamota Banerjee: For hating everything in and around sanity (arrey, some things, sometimes, are understood. But EVERYTHING? Ugh, someone tell her to go take a hike -- ta ta.)

No jokes, Shivraj writes memoirs (does he change shirt after every 1000 words?)

Shivraj Patil, it is reported, is writing his autobiography.
What’s interesting, he is reported to be dedicating half the book to his role as Home Minister in the Manmohan Singh government.
Roghto, reader, his “role” as the Home Minister!
Which brings us to the question: will half the book comprise empty pages?

So near yet so far(ce), says shoe after going past PC face

Note the date: April 7, 2009. New Delhi.
It’s historic because it’s the first time that an Indian journalist took a potshot -- literally -- at a Home Minister. Jarnail Singh, for the uninitiated even after hours of repeated footage of the hit-and-miss incident, is the Dainik Jagran journalist who threw a shoe at P Chidambaram.
In an exclusive interview, the shoe that missed the face but faced the nation bares its sole:


How does it feel to miss the Home Minister’s face?Just like the cricket ball out of an Indian fielder’s hands -- always missing targets. No, just kidding; on a serious note, I feel bad for Jarnail Singh because it just exposed what a hit-and-miss journalist he is. But on the positive side, it proves he can be a good television journalist -- wide off the mark!

What were you thinking when, after being hurled and in air, you were flying towards the Home Minister?
I was worried whether the insides of me smelt foul! You know, journalists are on their feet almost half the day, and you can imagine the fragrance once the shoes are off! But seriously, I blame Jarnail because he threw me in a fit of rage without thinking about my olfactory reputation.

Which personality’s face would you like to kiss?
Given half a chance I would do anything to stay off any feet that will walk all over me. It’s a weighty issue, but if staying off the feet means flying past faces, why not? To answer your query, being hurled at politicians gives me a certain mileage at this point of time, now that the IPL has gone off our shores. With every channel following everything to do with any neta, I can certainly face the nation with my sole intact.

Tell us a little more about your background.
Born into a leather family, I have always been up and running. My father was the classic leather -- all black, like the Kiwis, and immensely proud of it. He was a real secular: did not make any distinction on colour, make or brand identity. But given the state of the economy, with few people buying new shoes, my siblings and I grew up faster. So we are sneakers.

Lastly, do you see yourself as a competitor to the shoe that went past George Bush at Baghdad?
I think Jarnail did not do justice to my talent. His underarm throw was a little weak -- like Sourav Ganguly sometimes did while fielding at forward short-leg, missing the stumps from the shortest possible distance.

Shooting at Lankans in Lahore: After the shock, a joke

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's minister of state for shipping Nabil Ahmed Gabol said India is behind the attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team in Lahore on Tuesday, saying the attackers had crossed into Pakistan from India.

"The evidence which we have got shows that these terrorists entered from across the border from India," Gabol told Geo News.

"This was a conspiracy to defame Pakistan internationally."

"This incident took place in reaction to 26/11," he said. It is a declaration of open war on Pakistan by India," said the minister.

...........................

NEW DELHI DESPATCH BY DESKTOP DIARIST: Can't blame the Pak minister, though. He is a subcontinental politician with a gigantic foot-in-mouth disease of subcontinental proportions.

Rocky Mountain & I

The closest I have been to Denver, Colorado is on the Internet.
I learnt the words “Rocky Mountain” through that John Denver song Rocky Mountain High.
I learnt there’s a newspaper called “Rocky Mountain News” obviously from the Internet -– and, boy, did they sometimes design great front pages! (that’s courtesy the newsuem site).
Today I learnt it’s no more.

For hospitality sector, there’s a fire. Due to no smoke

A friend working in the hotel industry tells me footfall (oh, that’s the number of customers in the amazing world of newspaper vagueness) has really gone down the drain. The reasons are obvious, as television reporters never tire of telling us: the scare phenomenon in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attack in November (oops, sorry: “26/11”) and the economic slowdown.
Good enough reasons, I say. But one more reason here: Fuhrer Ramadoss’s diktat. I mean, the forced no-smoking signs inside restaurants, bars and pubs. Many, like me for instance, have simply stopped going out for a meal and a drink or three due to that human excreta of an order. But hey, aren’t many industries and sectors getting economic sops in this season of gloom?
So, here’s an idea for the hospitality sector: petition our esteemed health minister to withdraw the ban on smoking at eateries and drinking dens, temporarily at least. After all, extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, Fuhrer Ramadoss.

Why PC likes Slumdog

The film Slumdog Millionaire has found an unusual fan: PC Chidambaram. Yes, him of raise-the-tax-for-middle-class motto. India’s new Home Minister and forever-Finance Minister, as reports PTI, sees the film as elevating: he feels it showcases the entrepreneurial talents of slum dwellers in India. “Please watch the movie after its release," he said on Jan 24, a day after the film was released in theatres across the country.
“A slum like Dharavi in Mumbai is humming with business ideas and innovations and we have to reach to such people also… (A) lot of young men and women in slums have the necessary qualities of being innovative and are willing to take risk to carry out a business venture.”
No doubt, Mr Chidambaram. But what “innovative ideas” and “necessary qualities” do we see among the slum dwellers in the film?
Besides a man with a telescopic memory for all things that has screwed up his life, let’s see:
# in your childhood, how to con people
# in youth, how to con people
# in adulthood, how to con people
And, somewhere along the way, how to shoot a gun and join a gang.
Simple. And uncomplicated.
Good business sense and skill? You bet! Little wonder, his motto is raise the tax for the middle class.

Now showing, at a paper near you: Bad Times

It’s here, finally, for the Indian media. The bad times, the sad times, the mad times. The layoff and frozen-hike times. The heartbreak and heartache times. And then the rounds. Rounds of newspaper offices. Rounds of editors who, suddenly, would have no time for you. Rounds of banks to readjust your loans.
It’s like a merry-go-round/ Only, there’s nothing merry about it. The first black prez or not, I am afraid.