Interesting turn in Bihar politics

In mid 1990s when Laloo Prasad Yadav, the Bihari politician was firmly at the helm of power, teachers were protesting for non payment of salary for ages. When confronted Laloo told the striking teachers that there was no money in the state exchequer. A teacher asked him - "But you Sir travel in state airplane every day. Where the money is coming from" ? To which a visibly irritates Laloo replied, "RAJA KE LIYE TO KHARCHA HONA HI CHAHIYE NAA (A King has his expenses which must be taken care of ).

For Laloo, he was the superior king destined to rule over the inferior subjects, as he perceived the later. Same goes with other feudal states like Odisha and to some extent UP. Ironically it came from the mouth of a man who rose to fame under the tutelage of Jai Prakash Narain - the famous leader from Bihar known for his simplicity and practicing true form of socialism.

There is also another anecdote of Laloo's famous idiosyncrasies. The villages in Bihar are notorious for bad road conditions. Once during his visit to one such places upon confronted by the locals protesting the same, Laloo came up with his weird rustic logic - "Good roads will only help the rich who drive cars which will bring them to your villages. Your kids and cattle will be trampled over by their vehicles. So why you need good road ?" Congress party and its cohorts want people to stay permanently poor so that they can perpetually vote for them, seeing their political leaders as messiah of the poor.

Down the road, nothing much seems to has changed. Laloo and his family managed to stay in power and still ruling. Absolute power has corrupted them absolutely, as the state still languishes at the top of the BIMARU state ( an acronym for the poor states of Bihar, MP,  Rajasthan and UP, means Sick).

In this context, the Bihar politics is currently taking an interesting turn, with Laloo and family
of plain thugs are hunted by CBI let after them by the BJP ruled center. Bihar being from the politically important cow belt with its valuable 40 seats is vital in BJP's calculations for 2019 elections. The aggressive Modi - Amit Shah duo who have already set the ball on roll for their reelection well ahead of their rivals, are leaving no stones unturned by trying to kill two birds in one stone.

The first bird is Laloo who obviously is the easier target with tons of skeletons in his cup board and his family members follow his suit. He is unequivocal opponent of the Saffron party, its bette noire since October 1990 when he stopped the Advani juggernaut at the town of Samastipur in Bihar, taking the BJP Bull by horn. Laloo has maintained his consistency of being anti BJP, as he is a political non entiry without the support of the 20% Muslims from his state.

The 2nd bird is Nitish Kumar, a selfish politician with the ambition of being the Prime minister of India one day. In order to fulfill his dream, he quit his alliance with BJP with the preposterous but usual excuse of secular - communal crap. Unlike Laloo, for the image conscious Nitish his clean, non corrupt image is his forte and vital for his political survival.

Laloo does not care for the image of himself or his family, as he can bank on his time solid time tested Muslim - Yadav vote bank. But Nitish Kumar does, as in the caste ridden badlands of Bihar politics he can't survive banking on his fragmented OBC support. His clean image trumps all vote bank politics of Bihar (I see here some parallels with politicians Ram Krishna Hegde of Karnataka and Naveen Patnaik of Odisha who have an obsession with clean image).

A shrewd politician he is, Nitesh knows his image is his asset and he can't afford to see it tainted by his association with Laloo's family sitting next to him in administration. That's why he refused to share the same dais with Modi w
couple of years back, now couple of days back he avoided sitting next to Laloo's son. His classic Catch 22 situation putting him in a quandary reminds me of this Odia proverb :

"ENU MARILE GO HATYA,
SENU MARILE BRAHMA HATYA,"

transliterated it means

"On one hand you commit cow killing,
On other hand you butcher a Brahmin."

For the sake of his image, he is probably ready to sacrifice his Chief minister's chair.  But for the time he is playing both sides for now, pitching for Sonia Gandhi to mediate as relinquishing a position of power ain't easy, as going to an election being while at the helm of power is always seen as an asset. But the formidable Modi - Amit Shah duo have cast their dice and made their move, checkmating their ex partner in power with a defensive position with few moves to spare.

What's important and what's not so much important

The other day I shared the news about a Muslim bus driver whose bravery and presence of mind prevented a bigger carnage from happening, when the bus he was driving was shot at by gunmen on its way to Amarnath, a Hindu pilgrimage. 

A few of my friends protested about this case getting more than necessary coverage because the driver was Muslim whereas there are many good Samaritans from other religions too who have done equally if not more commendable acts.

It was a healthy argument with moderate vs a slightly extreme point of view. I consider myself a moderate, who is against all kinds of hypocrisy whether they are from Left or Right, with a penchant to mock and poke at them. But let's keep the religion aside for second and commend such an humane act which trumps over the rest, putting everything else divisive and parochial into the back burner.

No question, there are many fearless, selfless and faceless heroes who belongs to all religions. But that is besides the point. With due respect to the opinions of my friends, credit should be given where credit is due. Simply ask the persons inside the bus who survived. For them the driver is a messiah, his religion not withstanding.

Let me elucidate this by siting a couple of real life examples. Once during a telephonic interview here in US, one Desi Bhai (slang to denote Indians in America) grilled me over technical question, especially those rote specific (Americans ask questions at conceptual level but our Desi Bhais take a sadistic pleasure in verifying how much we memorize. Probably it explains why we rarely innovate). He asked me if I remember a particular error code, which is very rarely encountered, but you can always get from the manual. 

I politely answered that I don't know the answer. At the other end I could hear a sarcastic chuckle. I promptly asked, "Mind telling what's that error code is ?". He said - " I don't know". I felt like punching his face. It is important to find out from an interviewee what he or she knows, not to dwell over unimportant things that person doesn't know. However our Desi Bhais don't feel the same way.

Here is another anecdote from my childhood days. My grandfather was a Sanskrit teacher and scholar. On hot Indian Summer nights the village folks used to be entertained by PALA (a song and dance sequence with musical enactment of popular mythologies). My grandfather being one of the few learned ones from that generation was tasked to test the validity and erudite of the PALABAALAs (the guys performing PALA).

Those PALAs used to continue till wee hours of the morning. On the way back home, a fellow villager trying to impress my grandfather uttered, "PANDITE (O Pundit), the GAYAKA (The lead performer) explained that Lord Ram sent Hanuman to South and 3 others to East, West, North respectively to look out for his wife Sita. I asked him to name all of them. But other than Hanuman he could not name the rest". 

My grandfather responded - "SEMANE JHAADA JAI THILE (they all went to take a dump). It's more important that Hanuman went South and located Sita in Lanka who was kidnapped by Ravana. Who or where the rest went is Mythology, unimportant in this context". The rest walking on the Bhargavi embankment shaking the NIA HULA (A handmade fire torch) in the darkness of the dawn had a good laugh, as my Grandpa nailed his point.

If someone did a good job today, I will extol it and that more important. The fact that I did not mention about the millions who did a tremendous job in the last Millennium - be them Hindus, Christian, Buddhists, Jains or Jews is certainly outstanding but is not necessarily important to be mentioned in this context. 

Happy Guru Purnima

Today is Guru Purnima or TEACHER's Day. On this occasion I take the opportunity to salute all my teachers who have made a huge contribution to my life in shaping up my knowledge and character.

It is not just limited to the teachers in my school and college. My parents were my first teachers. Then came my wife, son, friends, relatives, acquaintances as teachers in various forms at different stages in my life. There is always something to learn from every human being, a prince or a pauper, a beggar or a sorcerer, an animal or an inanimate object. Life itself is the biggest teacher.

Decades ago there was this incident, when a sub-collector of Sonepur district in Odisha did this cowardly and shameful act of kicking a hapless school teacher, abusing him as a poor MASTRA (the way master is often pronounced in Odia, a term used in a derogatory sense for teachers back home).

I remember a cartoon related to the above incident which came out on a local Odia Newspaper with the following caption, (rhyming with our famous Sloka GURU BRAHMA, GURU BISHNU... :

GURU DEENA GURU HEENA,
GURU SAMANYA MASTARA;
KANDOOKA SAMAN GURU,
TASME SRHEE GOITHA MARA
ITI UPA- COLLECTOR
JILLA NAMA SONAPUR.

Transliterating in the same rhyme form to keep the theme intact,

"Teacher is poor, Teacher is mere;
Teacher is just an ordinary Master.
Teacher is akin to a football;
To be kicked for sure.
Courtesy Sub-Collector,
From the district of Sonepur."

I have heard folks asking in Odia to their children "KIRE MASTRA AJI KANA PADHEILA" meaning "Hey, what did the master teach you today". The English transliteration may not sound so bad but the way it is delivered in the native language is not a sign of great adulation.

My take is simple - a society which does not respect its teachers, can never prosper. Period. Great nations are made by great men. Great men (and women) are shaped by their teachers. HAPPY GURU PURNIMA to all.

The story of Nancy Hart

During last July 4th Independence day weekend came across this story about Nancy Hart, an American lady in my home state of Georgia who single handedly faced the British during the revolutionary war. Inspiring...

This war story was based in LAGRANGE, around 40 miles from my town where lived NANCY HART, the Revolutionary War heroine who single-handedly defended her home against a group of invading British soldiers.

According to the story, a group of British soldiers came upon the Hart farm in Georgia, and shot the family's best turkey. The soldiers barged into the house and ordered Nancy Hart to cook the turkey and serve it to them for dinner.

After she coolly prepared the meal, the soldiers stacked their rifles in the corner and sat down to eat. To their surprise, the next time they noticed her, she was pointing one of their rifles at them. When one foolhardy soldier made a move for his gun, she promptly shot him and held the others until help arrived. Later, the rest of the British soldiers were hanged from a nearby tree by the locals. No wonder the Americans drove the Brits away.

Modi's trip to Israel 2017

There is an epic movie named MUNICH based upon a true incident in the 1972 Olympics in the city bearing the same name. At least 11 Israeli athletes were kidnapped by the "Black September" a Palestinian terrorist group. A botched up operation to rescue them ended in killing all the Israeli athletes. 

Golda Meir was the then Prime Minister of Israel (she was known as Iron lady, a christening she shared with Indira Gandhi at that time). The lady Prime minister of the Blue Star state shows the actor Eric Bana who plays the head of a Special team selected from MOSSAD the feared secret service of Israel its famous Red file.

In Mossad parlance, if a terrorist's name finds its way to the Red file, his goose is cooked. It's said that no one making it to Mossad's red file has survived till date. Golda Meir minces no words as she tells the team leader "Your job is to find them and brutally eliminate them one by one, making the killings well publicized so that they get the message. Whoever plays with our state of Israel ceases his right to live". 

It took the team several years to track and eliminate each one of the perpetrators involved in the 1972 Munich massacre. One can feel her patriotic fervor well depicted by the legendary director Steven Spielberg in the movie.

In 1976 an El Al (Israeli) Air liner was hijacked and landed in Entebbe Airport, Uganda close to Lake Victoria. Flying 2500 miles, the Israeli commandoes conducted a spectacular raid code named "Operation Thunderbolt" to rescue the passengers with minimal casualty. The commando leader Yoni Netanyahu, the brother of the current Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu lost his life in that operation. (It probably brought the hardliner out of him).

Years later, I believe in January 2011 a team from MOSSAD, one of them a blond woman as captured by CCTV camera (probably wearing a wig) stealthily arrived in Dubai. They tracked their target to his hotel room and eliminated him. 

The marks of electricity shock and cigarette butts on the victim's body bore signs of Mossad hospitality. When his body was discovered by the hotel staff next morning, his killers had already escaped hours ago in different groups by boarding different flights to multiple destinations. All of them came to Dubai using fake passports. One of them from a British national who was certainly not a commando material for he had quadruple bypass heart surgery and never travelled out of his country.

We can agree to disagree on Israel and it's policy. But I can never stop admiring their patriotism and the extent they can go to protect their nation. They are not only good at military,  the have perfected the art of lobbying in the diplomatic front by having almost unwavering support of the soul Super Power America. It won't be an exaggeration to ascribe Israel as the 52st state of United States.

In this context, the Indian Prime minister Modi courting Tel Aviv is important. Gladly the nation is slowly relinquishing its age old policy of treating Israel as a pariah state, even if it runs the risk of earning the wrath of Islamic world. But who cares. Indeed a bold, pragmatic and out of the box move by Modi.

This trip is widely covered in Indian media, social or otherwise. It will be interesting to know how much coverage this visit got on Israeli media. Not long ago Modi's meeting with Trump in Washington was widely covered back home, whereas the American media didn't share the same enthusiasm.

Current socio political scenario in Odisha - India trip 2017

Here is my take on the current socio-political scenario of Odisha based upon the feedback I got from multiple sources during my just concluded trip to Odisha (The usual Disclaimers Apply).

The Democracy of Odisha can be pretty much summarized the way Abraham Lincoln described it, but in a slightly different way conducive to the state's milieu - it is OF the bureaucrats, BY the bureaucrats and FOR the bureaucrats. The Legislature is taken for a ride, being conveniently pushed to the back seat with Babudom (bureaucracy) firmly in the driver's seat.

The government is OFF the people, BUY the people (primarily through freebies like 1 Rupee Rice schemes) and FAR the people (don't have to go farther than the Neon lights on the outskirts the capital).

In addition, 100 odd families, Big and Small pretty much control the fate of an entire state of close to 50 million people with their well oiled network of pliant cahoots. The commoners love it - for them their Superior King is destined to rule over the (perceived) inferior subjects.

It was the same strategy adopted by outsiders like Afghans, Mughals and the British who ruled us over centuries. As the rulers did not have an understanding of the local language and culture, they succinctly cultivated a class of DALAALs (middlemen-cum-touts) they needed as "go betweens" to communicate the message from the Ruler to the Ruled and vice versa.  

Nothing much has changed over the years, even in the age of Smartphones and Social media. The ever omnipresent Babus (Bureaucrats) of Odisha have jumped to fill in that void in order to act as the conduit between the ruler and the ruled. It yet reinforces the age old adage - "History repeats itself, those who forget history are condemned to repeat it".

Cats as pets in India

Almost all exotic breeds of dogs can be found in India, especially in the cities and metros. From tiny Chihuahua to burly Alsatians you can find dogs in all hues, shapes and sizes adoring homes and accompanying their owners walking on sidewalks (footpaths) and parks.

But cats fare poorly as pets when compared to dogs in India, unlike their American cousins who find cats equally likable if not more compared to their canine fraternity. Cats in India come way behind dogs in terms of popularity and social acceptability. Same goes with the NRIs, at least in US where very few of them keep cats as pet compared to dogs.

Except very rare occurrence of folks in India keeping exotic breeds of house cats, you will mostly find alley cats who roam around streets and houses. The best cat lovers in India do is give them a fishy look and feed them with their fishy leftovers, letting them loiter around their house as temporary shelter.

Cats are very independent animals and need lesser maintenance than dogs. Some of them are known to flush the toilet after using it. Being territorial like their tiger cousins, they use their designated litter spot for potty. You don't have to walk them outside like dogs to make them relieve themselves. They can take care of themselves.

Kitties are copycats of tigers. While cat walking, its walk and mannerism replicates its larger cousin. Cat is just a miniature tiger, sans the black stripes on an orange coat. Even the jaws, the teeth look similar - except the tiger's teeth are much larger, its jaws powerful enough ti drag a full grown buffalo more than 100 yards. No wonder there goes this popular Odia saying BAGHA NA DEKHILE BIRADI DEKHA (If you haven't seen a tiger, rather see a cat), reinforcing their uncanny similarities.

But conspicuously, an overwhelming majority of Indians prefer dogs to cats. Cats are considered selfish, because of their independent and individualistic nature which goes against the spirit of more pluralistic Indian society. It sounds strange, especially when they abound in religious places where dogs are considered dirty and uncouth. If a dog enters inside the Puri Jagannath Temple, its MAHA PRASAD (Sacred offerings) become unfit for Lord's consumption and is buried in entirety. But cats galore aplenty inside the famous temple.

At the same time, many consider cats as harbinger of bad luck and act as mediums of evil spirits. It is considered inauspicious to see a cat first thing in the morning as well as when it crosses your path right in front of you.

One fine afternoon I was driving my son to his Taekwondo class amidst a mist sprinkled, fog engulfed weather. On a narrow road leading to its destination, I could see through the haze a Black Cat crossing the road right in front of me. I was instantly assured of bad luck for rest of the day. As per the familiar superstition back home, I thought if I back up a little bit I should be able to ward off any evil effects destined for me. 

So I looked on the rear view mirror. There was no car behind me. I backed my car counting 1 to 7. Then convinced, I shifted back to forward gear and continued my journey forward. My son was perplexed with my weird behavior and gaped at me. I explained to him about the superstition, to which he retorted back - "You afraid of a kitty cat ? How silly !"

It could be silly for him, but Old habits die hard; especially those related to superstition. I breathed easy and drove on, assured that all the evils being warded off.  Cat might have 9 lives, I have the luxury of only one.