Hero worship is anathema to democracy

During my Engineering College days, Amitabh was the One man Bollywood movie industry. He was No.1 to 10, leaving the rest way behind. He was not just the Superstar, rather the mega star of those days. I don't think in our lifetime, we will ever see any one of his stature, who single handed dominated the industry for so long a period of time.

I was a huge fan of him too, watched many a junk movie of him which I would conveniently ignore. But I was not a blind fan of him, as some of my friends in college were. Even the slightest of criticism towards the tall actor, who stood taller above the rest, would be taken personal by his followers. Late 80s was a politically charged time in India. Amitabh was an MP from the prestigious constituency of Allahabad, who resigned on the aftermath of the Bofors Scam.

Amitabh's fans would sympathize with him, pleading innocence of behalf of their hero, as the Angry Young man had a noble intention, but could not sustain in the hurly burly milieu of Indian politics. I disagreed. Amitabh was no ordinary MP. He had already attained a Mega stature and being close to Rajiv Gandhi, he could have done a lot for his constituency. He hardly did anything notable. He didn't leave politics midway through his tenure because his adversaries prevented him to do the right thing. It's rather being a shrewd guy, he knew it was the right thing to do at the right time. However, my points fell into deaf ears of his fans, they would come charging at me at the slight perceiving of insult towards their demi God.

Fast forward to a quarter of century later. I see the same traits in many fans of Narendra Modi. No doubt our PM is charismatic, an energetic salesman who effectively communicates and connects to the audience. he is a welcome breather from his do nothing predecessor and corrupt Congress government. Last election was Modi's election, he single handed gave simple majority to his party. Yet he is not above and beyond criticism.

He reminds me of India Gandhi who was immensely popular, post 1971 war and attained a cult status amongst the masses. When threatened, she imposed emergency. She could have won the elections in 1977 but for the iconic JP. In fact she swept South India where they only knew to cast their vote for AMMA  INDIRAMMA, or Mother Indira. The Indira wave from South touched 4 seats of Odisha bordering Andhra where folks would say in the local dialect KAANGRESS KU VOTE DABARA EKKA (we only would vote for Congress), though she lost from rest of Odisha and India.
The saga of Indira Gandhi is not very old. Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. Ronald Reagan famously said, "trust, but verify". Being fan is fine, being blind is not. Hero worship is after all anathema to democracy.

Challenges ahead of Modi when he is back from Bay area to Bihar

This weekend Modi had a grand gala time in America. He got a Rockstar reception as reported by a section of media (personally, I would qualify the euphoria mostly limited to the NRI community, nowhere close to the reception his contempoary visitors Pope or the Chinese President Xi got). Now it's time to do some reality check.

Modi was feciliteted by many Techie honchos of West Coast, who sense major business opportunities in India, eagerly waiting for the caged Tiger to be unleashed. Now the challenge for Modi will be to "walk the talk" back home. The bureaucracy is not yet completely willing to free industries from the shackles of red tapism, a hangover from years of Congress rule.

Roadblocks are still ahead, an example is the non passage of the Land Aquisation Bill, which doesn't sound very promising. If promises made on the soil of Silicon Valley is not backed by actions back home, it won't take long for his reputation to get soiled.

Soon he will get back to India, where reality strikes him as he goes on campaigning in the badlands of Bihar, in the heat and dust of cow belt politics. He will be dealing with the likes of Laloo, far cry from the folks he dealt in the salubrious Sunnyvale of San Fransico bay.

A lot depends on this election. A below par performance by BJP in Bihar, would put a spanner on Modi juggernaut and his reforms. The promises made in Santa Clara can bite dust in Siwan. So be optimistic, but cautiously optimistic, with a dose of bitter reality. The realpolitik in India is different. They sense major business opportunities in India. Now the real challenge will be back home to "walk the talk". The bureaucracy is not yet completely free from red tapism and roadblocks are still ahead. Non passage of Land Aquisation Bill doesn't sound very promising.

DASYU Ranjan Series

During my growing up days in Bhubaneswar, there used to be a series of cheap, yet popular and widely circulated Odia detective novels. The most famous amongst them was the DASYU RANJAN (Dacoit Ranjan) series.

 

The novels would invariably start like " RAATI ADHA. CUTTACK RAJA RASTA RE TEERA BEGA RE CHHOOTI CHALICHI KALA RANGARA AUSTIN CAR", meaning, "it's midnight. On the highway of Cuttack travels an Austin car at the speed of an arrow." I have never seen an Austin car in my life. But I can assure you, driving a car, Austin or otherwise in Cuttack at arrow speed would earn a safe ticket to heaven.

 

The occupant would be no one but the legendary Dasyu Ranjan. He stealthily enters Zamindaar ( Feudal lord ) Roy Choudhary's palace, where a grand party is going on. Liquor flows like river Mahanadi during monsoon. Dasyu Ranjan dramatically enters into the scene and manages to steal the diamond necklace of Zamindaar's ALIYALI KANYA  ( daddy's darling daughter) and escapes before his act is discovered.

 

Ranjan was more like an anti-hero, a Dacoit with a golden heart. He along with SAATHI (accomplish) Ratan, would always give a slip to the legendary Odia Detective, the chain smoking Inspector Bijay Babu who perpetually trails Ranjan. Bijay Babu keeps on smoking cigarettes one after another, ignoring cups of tea going cold. His persuit also goes cold, yet unable to fathom the mystery of Ranjan. At end, when the real villain chains Bijay Babu to feed him to his pet Octopus, Dacoit Ranjan comes to rescue. Bijay Babu exclaims, ASCHARYA (Wonder), is he really a DASYU ( Dacoit) or DEVTA  (God). This is invariably the last sentence of the novel.

 

Those DASYU Ranjan series novels were written by one Pramod Kishore Panda. Most of them were repetitive, with minor changes in plots. They usually came with names like SAGARA PATHE  (onwards sea) RANJAN, PEKING  (as Beijing was called then, China was still a 3rd world country) ABHIMUKHE  (towards) RANJAN, MOSCOW (during height of Cold War Moscow was perceived as an Indian friendly Paradise) RE RANJAN (Ranjan in Moscow ) and myriads gluts of smut.

Nevertheless, they sold like hot cakes. I cherished reading those junk. Such were the popularity of those detective novels, in our village library those were the only books borrowed, read and often stolen. The rest of the books were conveniently ignored. Not sure if those books, part of SAATHI (Friendly) pocket books, which can fit into one's pocket, are still available.

Money can do lots of wonder

Chinese hack and steal American privacy and patents on regular basis. Yet, the Chinese President Eleven (Xi) Xinping will be served a Twelve Course State Dinner in White House. Fully knowing that the Pope is grabbing all the media coverage, the Chinese President has preferred to wait in west coast city of Seattle, spending silly moments with school kids.

Why is that ? Following closely, close to two decades the visit of Chinese leaders to America, it didn't go unnoticed to me that for some strange reason, they have a penchant for cherishing the attention they get in Washington.  Whenever the American President visits China, they lobby top ensure that the trip to China is not tagged with visits to other countries and often succeed. Call it braggadocio, the Chinese find this exclusivity as an acceptance of their arrival on the scene.

Their leadership, of course is not the only one, who has this "Attention in Washington" syndrome. I find it amusing that in spite of their tremendous success in last few decade, the Chinese suffer from a strange inferiority complex, along with a sense of insecurity. Owning trillions of American debt is no joke, the pragmatic Chinese are fully aware of the fact. Even if Xi slaps Obama publicly during the State Dinner, the later will temporarily turned Mahatma Gandhi and show his other cheek to his guest. Because, "Money talks, Money matters and Money Rules", in this materialist world.

There is a liberally Hindi mixed Odia saying..

"ABE PARASU, JABE PARASU.
BABU PARASURAM..
PAISA KYA NA KARE KAAM."

Roughly meaning. ..

Come Peter, Go Peter,
Oh My Lord Peter.
Money can to do,
Lots of wonder.

LOHA Movie from 1980

Recently, I watched a few minutes from the Hindi movie LOHA (Iron) from 1980s on one of the Indian movie channels I subscribe to. Amrish Puri is the main villain, named DAKU (Bandit) SAITAAN (devil) Singh, with an explosive moustache and a thin crop of hair bisecting his bald head. A 5 feet long double barrel gun strapped one side of his body with a thick belt of bullets wrapped around his waist, extending upwards to his shoulders on the other side. He had more hair on his eyebrows than his head and a thick lair of dark KAAJAL (Mascara) paste under his eyes.

The reason I took pains to watch this, even for a few minutes, was due to the nostalgia associated with it. I watched this movie in its entirety, in a bed bug infested theater in Puri, Odisha in 1987. Bed bugs in Puri can bite chunks of your a** off, which is apparent from the back scratching of the viewers coming out of the theatre. Adding to my woe, someone left a big mouthful of chewing gum on my seat. I realized this midway through the movie when I tried to get up. During the intermission I cleaned myself from that gluey stuff using a handkerchief (a part of a teens pocket paraphernalia those days along with a comb). Then I took my TASREEF (sat down) to finish up the rest of the movie, now taking utmost care to avoid the torn away portion of coconut coir and springs protruding upwards from the chair.

As the movie was about to end, Dharmendra, one of the lead actors kept charging towards Amrish Puri yelling KAMINE KUTTE MEIN TERI KHOON PEE JAUNGA( You scoundrel dog, I will drink your blood). He gives Amrish Puri a downward blow, using his fist as a hammer on his head, which instantly buries the later inside the solid ground until his waist, such was the power of Dharmendra's blow. The entire cinema hall erupts with whistles and applause's. Dharmendra had a huge fan following in Puri those days (I doubt he is aware of this).

Leaving Amrish Puri for dead, Dharmendra now turns around to embrace his other accomplishes Shatrughna Sinha and Karan Kapoor ( a Bombay Dyeing model in 1980s who had a forgettable movie career). But not so fast, in Bollywood formula multi starrers the villain manages to kill one of the heroes before he dies. Amrish Puri slowly turns and grabs a gun which always has a single bullet left in it, gives his typical smirk and shoots Dharmendra from back. The single bullet spent, Amrish Puri can now only click his empty gun and of course is killed now by a hail of bullets from Shatrughna Sinha. Now it is Dhamendra's turn to die, not before uttering a long monologue how fortunate he is to die in the arms of his friends. This forgettable movie LOHA is not so forgettable for me.

Ganesh Puja memories from Childhood

Ganesh Puja brings back nostalgic memories of childhood days. We as kids, used to eagerly wait for days for its arrival. I could barely sleep the night before the auspicious day, my mind was preoccupied with getting early to pluck or rather steal flowers from neighborhood houses. I starkly remember a homeowner chasing us urchins after we stealthily managed to enter into his yard. In the haste to chase us away his LUNGI (a piece of cloth worn by males which can be conveniently removed for multiple purposes ) slipped off his waist. In the commotion that followed he spent the next few seconds lifting the LUNGI from the ground and tying it back, giving precious enough time to jump off the walls and flee.

 

Back home, time to decorate the foot long Lord Ganesh statue made out of clay and placed on a chair. We decorated the strings tied to the hands of the chair extended to the corner of the room with triangles of color papers with the help of ATTA (flour) glue. After a quick shower, it was time to wear a pair of new dresses and wait for the ordeal of PUSHPANJALI (offering of flowers) to be over before eating the BHOGA (or Prasadam) to quench our already starving stomachs. An integral part of it would be the Laddoos of Rashi (TIL) made by my grandmother.

 

Post noon it was time to go to BJB College near our house and sample the BHOGA served at different departments. It was mostly a mixture of sweetened CHUDA (or parched rice) with fruits and if luckier some dosage of oil soaked BUNDI along with it. It was enough to fill our stomach till the evening when we would venture out in bicycles to view Ganesh Pandals.

Those days Bhubaneswar was a sleepy township with hardly any traffic. The arteries of the roads were not yet clogged, so no bypass was needed. It was perfectly safe for us to bicycle our way from BJB flats to Saheed Nagar amidst funnel shaped loudspeakers from Pendals blaring out the contemporary hits. One of them was "MEIN HOON DON" from the Amitabh's hit movie Don.

 

Another one I can't forget was Akshaya Mohanty number
"LANDA MUNDIA DRIVER
GADIKU TIKE THIA KAR
GADI JIBA PHULBANI
SANGARE ACHHANTI GHARANI
GHARANI MUNDARE KHIA
UKUNI KARANTI BASA".
Roughly transliterated though the fun can be lost in translation. ..

" O bald headed driver
Stop your vehicle for better,
Phulbani is the destination
My better half is with me in person,
Bob tied pig tail has my wife
It is filled with lice"...
and so on.

 

There were many outstanding Pendals but the one by USHALA CLUB at Master Canteen, Unit 3 stood taller (literally too) than the rest. After a long tiring meandering around the city it was time to munch some PURI, ALOO DUM (curry) and sweets before hitting the bed.

if God wants to save someone

The other day I read this interesting Story on New Yorker magazine. This was the experience of a city cop years back, retold here.

 

While patrolling during his night shift, the cop heard a thud. He rushed to the spot to find a man who just jumped off from the 5th floor. He miraculously survived with minor bruises. The cop took him home, while the man narrated his story. On that day he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, lost his job and his wife left him. All happened within hours of each other, on the same day, prompting him attempting to kill himself. He took some pills, passed out and got up. While looking for his gun, he realized that his wife took it away when she left. So he tried, jumping off from his building as a last resort and failed.

 

A decade later, the same cop ran into him on a train. The later told the cop that he is doing just fine, has moved on since. Goes the saying in Odia

 

JAHAKU RAKHIBE ANANTA,
KI KARI PARE BALABANTA

 

"When saved by The Omniscient;
 Can't be undone by a person of strength".

Speaking American

Sarah Palin, who was John McCain's running mate in 2008 US Presidential election is calling on immigrants in the United States to speak "American.” Years ago, a gentleman told me we don't speak English, we speak American. I politely disagreed with him, saying "whatever you might call, however Americanized it may be, the language is still English". English, though originated from England spread world wide as the British colonies, including America adopted it either as mother tongue or the official language of communication. No wonder Winston Churchill, desperate to drag America into World War II when Germany was making gains in Europe told the then US President Roosevelt, "We are common people, separated by a common language".

English is a rich language. Like Urdu it does not have a script of its own (Roman script). Its richness comes from its flexibility, its not being shy at accepting words and phrases from other languages. This has been its secret sauce of survival (the other one being the language spoken by British and United States, two major powers over centuries).

In India, English used to the language of elite and the passport for success. A person having a good command over English commands respect. In Odisha where many in the state of excitement or anger switch to drive a point or score over their rivals, even it is PAKHALA KHIA Onglish (the typical Odia accented English which comes out of mouth after consuming a stomach full of water soaked rice). The word Yaar is already there in dictionary.com. meaning friend in Hinglish (Hindi-English). We also have our Binglish (Bengali-English), Tanglish (Tamilian English) and so on. 

We all know about words of Indian origin making into English dictionary, Bandh (strikes as going on in India now) and Gherao (surround) are few of them, though I have never seen being used here in US. Similarly I have uttered words Lakh (100 thousand) and Crore (10 million) to the bewilderment of my American friends and colleagues who only know thousands, millions, billions and trillions. The words Jugaad, Bandobast (both meaning making necessary arrangements) are already used in Indian context.

This phrase chewing English is another example of Onglish (Oriya-English) . Every year new additions are made to Oxford dictionaries, so who knows "Chewing English" could be one of them. I have chewed enough English for now, unable able to digest it, burping out my PAKHALA KHIA English.