Sinha, Swami, Shatrughan and Shiv Sena

Sinha, Swami, Satrughan and Shiv Sena. All four who now talking in the same tune, critical of the current status of Indian economy are generalists (except Swami) and political opportunists. All have their axe to grind against current Modi government - wrong people trying to say the right thing. Let's look at each case on individual basis.

YASHWANT SINHA - He is generalist to the core, as clearing an Exam in 1950s doesn't make him a great economic professional (though his bureaucratic fraternity are self proclaimed Mr. Know Alls). Yashwant Sinha is doing exactly what an opportunist career Bureaucrat, and a turncoat who has swung like Pendulum from the Left (Socialist) to the Right (Swayamsevak) in his career.

As a bureaucrat he was a well ensconced Babu who licked the b**ls of the Bihar Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur and Chandra Sekhar, both legendary Socialists to climb the Bureaucratic ladder. Sensing VP Singh wave in 1989, he joined politics. Firmly in Chandra Sekhar's camp, he became the Finance Minister in 1991 in his protege's ministry which lasted only for 40 days.

After the Fall of Chandra Sekhar government he joined a resurgent BJP and became close to Advani. He again backstabbed Advani soon after 2005 when Advani praised Jinnah, only to patch with him later - a la, a typical Babu who like cockroach mastered the art of survival.

In 2013, Sinha was 80 and probably became too slow witted to figure out the Modi wave. He boycotted the Goa session of BJP where Modi was declared the Party's Prime Minister candidate. But the Bihari Babu, a master in the art of manipulation later patched up and managed to get a seat for his son and saw that his son became a minister.

Now at 84 and fag end of his career, Yashwant Sinha is talking bullshit to stay in the news. He is a mere generalist, with a politically laced point of view - far from being an expert on economy.

SUBRAMANIAN SWAMI - The only erudite person and economist of substance among the quartet. But his criticism is purely political. The sulking Swami has few Friends and more enemies as he backstabbed all through out his political career. Those who have a short memory - he was the main architect of the downfall of the BJP government in 1999. He is pissed at not getting the Finance ministry which he has been eying since ages. Frustration of not getting it grows with his age.

SATRUGHAN SINHA - A failed actor and a failed politician noted for his cheap histrionics. Does anyone cares for him ?

SHIV SHENA - It has become a toothless tiger after the death of Bal Thackeray whose PUTRA MOHA (Love for son) led to passing the baton to his useless son rather than the more charismatic nephew Raj. The party is more of an liability rather than an asset to BJP now. The cub Thackeray can only mew like a cat, can't roar. Now he tries to mew louder to stay relevant by questioning every decision by BJP - from Bullet train to Books on economics.

RIP Satyaswarup Mohanty

Every person has a right to live. It hurts utmost and a pall of gloom descends  when like a bolt from the blue we get the news of someone's passing away. And it hurts more, if that person happens to be young and known to you. Because, like every young man and woman, they too have a dream.

I don't know Satyaswarup Mohanty personally. Never saw him, never spoke to him. We hooked up on Facebook. He constantly complimented me on my writing. Soon our interactions increased and we turned into Facebook buddies.

He was a Right Of the Center person, sometimes aligned to my points of view, sometime not. Though an ardent supporter of Modi and BJP,  he was far from a ANDHA BHAKT (Blind devotee). We had our share of differences on occasions, but it was respectful within the realms of civility, never personal.

In fact, during my last trip to India this summer, he texted me with a desire to meet me. I was immensely flattered, but my limited time on hand, prioritization, a hectic schedule and non - cooperative, snail crawling Bhubaneswar traffic prevented me from doing so. 

However, on my "to do list" before my departure I wanted to make a courtesy call to him, but the selfish me kept on procrastinating and the call never materialized. Knowing the vagaries of life, if I were a Clairvoyant and had my ways, I sure would have met him.

Reminds me of this Hindi song.

ZINDAGI SAU BARAS KI SAHI,

ZINDAGI KA BHAROSA NAHI;

CHAAND CHHOOP JAE KAB KYA PATA,

CHANDNI KA BHAROSA NAHI.

Transliterated..

Life is to live for hundred years,

But destiny is unreliable forever ;

Never know when moon goes hiding,

For Moonlight is not worth relying.

When this morning I heard the news of his passing away due to chronic ailment, something snapped inside me. As I finish writing my obituary and regretting my inadvertent ignoring him, not being able to meet him one last time, I can feel the blurriness of eyelids. The haziness is due to the corner of my eyes moistened enough to take off my eye getting glasses. My reflex action used bare fingers as wipers to wipe the tears off.

Stay happy amongst Angels in heaven my dear friend, where you rightly belong.

The story of Dawood's wife secretly visiting India

I am reminded of a funny story from my home state. A starving jackal was lying on a large field, craving for food. He saw a Bull, happily grazing with it's huge ba*ls swinging like a low hanging fruit from its behind.

The hungry jackal wouldn't dare attack the Bull, as the giant bovines reaction can be unpredictable. Watching his forbidden fruit swinging vigorously like pendulum from behind, the Jackal thought its fall is imminent and patiently waited for his meal.

Soon it became noon, evening, followed by twilight. No sign of the Bull's ba**ls  falling off ! The mountain sized bovine moved away after finishing his meal. The frustrated jackal died from starvation.

The moral of this story in Odia :

"ANAAI ANAAI GALANI BELA

 SANDHA PE**A LAGI MALA SIALA".

Roughly transliterated...

"Forever Waiting for Bull's Ba*ls to Fall,

 The Jackal Died After All."

If media reports are to be believed, India's most wanted fugitive Dawood Ibrahim's wife reportedly visited India last year, incognito of course. It has been revealed by the Don's brother during his interrogation in Bombay.

May be inside my lifetime, unlike this ill fated Jackal, I will see a strong, assertive India capturing (I doubt) or killing of Dawood. Great expectation, but certainly not out of bounds. The son of a Mumbai Constable of police, now based in Pakistan supposedly runs an illicit empire of $7 Billion. Dawood has reportedly owns half of Bombay, has so much contacts across India - forget his wife, he can be an honorable guest of someone at helm in India and go back incongito.

A Nation or a Person, whose vision goes above and beyond the next quarter into the next quarter of century, succeeds in its mission. USA, Russia, China, Israel fall into that category. Remember, it took Americans nearly a decade to eliminate Bin Laden and Russians 9 years to punish Zia Ul Haq (rumor has been KGB planted a device in his plane to kill him). It took over a decade for Mossad to track down and spectacularly eliminate all the perpetrators of Black September terrorist group who massacred Israeli athletes in 1972, Munich Olympics.

Yet a sizable chunk of our security establishment are still stuck in Cold War era, lacking purpose, direction. They're mostly inefficient and often corrupt.

I recently read an interview with Vyacheslav Trubnikov, now SVR chief (Russian secret service post Soviet) from 1996-2000 given to an American journalist. He was born in Siberia and joined KGB in 1967.

Immediately he was sent to Calcutta, India under cover as a reporter. He said - "Every journalist in Calcutta those days was considered a spy". A KGB spy in India, in the middle of Commie paradise called Calcutta at the height of Cold War, was certainly not there to do social service with Mother Teresa. Soviet Union then was a nation friendly towards India, yet recruited spies in the house of a friend. But at the same time it supposedly trained India's secret service RAW a thing or two about the old school of spying.

RAW has its share of success, esoe in its neighborhood. It was still quite active under P V Narasimha Rao until mid 1990s and then faltered to keep upto the expectation. Hope it is getting back to track now under the current administration.

In that context, this Hungry Jackal in me is still waiting. Remember, I K Gujral withdrew RAW support networks from Pakistan, making us scratch our head and now starting our security from scratch. The present government has some catch up to do and I need to wait for that happen during my lifetime.

The hyocricy of the protest against Sunny Leone's Condom Ad

The nationwide uproar against the controversial Condom Ad by Indian actress cum model Sunny Leone simply reeks of hypocrisy. In fact more such ads are needed for safe sex and population control in a nation with extremely high number of sexually transmitted diseases, including the dreaded AIDS.

Our men are quite randy and women fecund. That makes Condom is the need of the hour, not condemn of its commercials. She is not advertising Tobacco which causes cancer, nor junk food which aren't heart healthy. 

We simply breed like rabbits - currently at 1.25 billion and still going strong, we are getting nowhere. Whatever economic progress we make is gobbled by this teeming, monstrous millions.

India's exploding human bomb is a major deterrent to its growth, yet hardly any politician talks about the stark necessity of controlling it. Most agonies our nation faces today can be very well be traced to this burgeoning POPULATION. 

Our politicians hardly bother about it, let alone have an agenda to curb this menace. Not long ago, a Hindutva protagonist advocated Hindus to have 4 children each as if we don't have enough. Tomorrow a Mullah or an Evangelist might match this rhetoric. As the old African proverb goes - if two elephants make love or war, it is the grass which suffers. It is India which suffers due to these battle of rhetorics.

It was never too late for China to address its population issue in the late 1970s. It is said that the Middle Kingdom's population would have been 1.75 billion now instead of the current 1.35 billion, had they not implemented the one child principle then. We are not a dictatorship like China who can ruthlessly impose any such agenda on its citizens.

 Only a conscious effort by the populace can bring down the growth. 

Interestingly, the only politician who seriously ever tried to control this epidemic menace was Sanjay Gandhi, the maverick son of Indira Gandhi.  (Another agenda of his was to keep our cities clean, free from dirty slums which were perennial eyesore). 

His grandfather Nehru supposedly said "Population is the strength of India" at a time when J R D Tata, a great visionary warned the former about it. CV Raman was more blunt and said " let's stop producing like pigs". Many including educated folks knowingly go into a Repeat - Until loop (in computer programming parlance) to procure a Male Heir to carry on their linage.

It is time to put a break on it. Like certain laws of Chemistry hold good under Normal Pressure and Temperature, India would have been far better off with a population of 600 millions (half of present) under normal conditions of Corruption and Lawlessness. 

Sad that in our chaotic democracy a few Netas, Mullahs and Mahants can only think parochially to achieve their political goals, rather than taking the Bull by the horn. Sunny Leone should be rewarded doing a social service, not stigmatized by the politicians - ideally it should be other way round.

The man who saved the world

In September, 1983  Stanislav Petrov, a Russian Military officer was sitting at his command center of the Soviet Air Defense Satellite monitoring system. He was suddenly startled as in front of him the alarming signals on the Computer grabbed his immediate attention. It  was several blips on the screen showing 5 Missiles on their way from their arch rival Superpower Unites States of America already on their path to hit the erstwhile USSR (Union of Soviet Republics as Soviet Union was known at that time).

Any person in his place would have immediately alerted the higher authorities. But not this man, who is widely credited for saving the world from a Nuclear war, probably a holocaust of unimaginable proportions. If he defied his conscience and informed his superiors, the Soviet Union would have got mad and responded in kind, resulting in MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). Thankfully, common sense prevailed on the head of a calm and cool Stanislav Petrov as he resisted from doing so.

There was several reason for him to have trusted his computer - for there was palpable tension in the air, as this incident happened only a few days after a Civilian South Korean Airliner was shot down over Russian Airspace, resulting in the death of more than 200 innocent civilians, which included an American Congressman. (Soviet Union claimed that Airliner was on a spying mission, deviated from its path, hid from the Radar and didn't heed to warnings. US and NATO didn't think so).

Yet he knew by heart of heart that Americans are not suicidal to attack its then Superpower rival without expecting any retaliation. Secondly, even if USA does so, it will fire hundreds to ensure total annihilation of USSR rather than fire just five. Thirdly, he knew that the Russian Inter Continental Ballistic Missile tracking system was far from being accurate and foolproof.

And it was exactly as he thought. It took him 23 minutes to figure out that what he just saw was no more than a computer malfunction. But what if it wasn't a glitch and the missiles were real ? For it would have taken exactly 23 minuted then for the Nuclear tipped missiles from US to have reached the heart of Russia. Stanislav Petrov could have gone down the history as the man who dilly dallied and responsible for destroying the erstwhile Soviet Union.

Petrov recently died at the age of 77, his son announced his death today. His extraordinary story was kept secret under wraps by the Soviets, typically of secretive Communist Regimes, lest it will expose the ugly underbelly of a nation rapidly slipping from its Superpower status. The news trickled out soon after the dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991.

This episode has been depicted by the great narrator Kevin Kostner (famous for doing so in JFK) in a documentary aptly titled "The Man Who Saved the World". It received several international awards. 

Yet Stanislav Petrov, the man who kept his cool under such adverse circumstances and later won award from his government for "Services to Fatherland", coolly faded into oblivion. He preferred to stay away from the media glare, until his death. RIP, The Man Who Saved The World. Without him, neither World nor We would not have seen the Internet, Facebook, iWhatever devices and much more.

Trump's dinner diplomacy with Dems

Donald Trump recently invited the Democratic Minority leaders Nancy Pelosi (House of Representatives) and Chuck Schumer (Senate) over for Supper. This is no Last Supper, rather the first of dinner diplomatic efforts to cut a deal over Trump's several pending legislative agendas.

This has left many hardcore Conservatives whining about the wining and dining by the President from their own party with the same folks they find alleric. A woman on Rush Limbaugh ( A hard core Conservative) show ascribed it as her PTSD (Pelosi - Trump - Schumer - Deal) moment.

Breaking bread with Democrats is a strict no no for the extreme Right wingers. Forget about any deal with Dems - they don't want to budge a bit on their hardcore Conservative agendas of Immigration and Economy of low taxes, any deal with the party is taboo to them.

Does Trump care ? Certainly not. It is not the Right wing fringe, but rather the moderate Swing voters from the Swing States have elected him to get things done in the swamp called Washington which has come to a screetching halt due to rabid bipartisanship.

As l said earlier, Trump is not a Conservative Republican. He was a Democrat before (so also Ronald Reagan who started his political career as a Democrat and famously said - I didn't leave Democratic party, the Democratic party left me). Trump is more like a Right of the Centre Democrat. Republicans didn't elect him in the last election. It is rather the Democrats of the states of Pennsylvania (last voted for a Republican President in 1988),  Michigan and Wisconsin (last voted GOP in 1984).

Even if the Republicans nominate a Donkey or a Dog, those 35% of the Republican base will always vote for their party's nominee (same goes with Democratic base as well). Trump knows it and has taken these voters for granted. Come election, using his great convincing skill Trump can cajole his base to vote for him - by instilling a fear in their mind about a Democratic comeback. Politics is a game of perception and Trump has mastered it to perfection. This Dinner, Deal and Dessert thing fits to his image of a dealmaker.

In the meantime, Hillary Clinton is going on a cross country tour to promote her new book. Democrats are now saying, "Oh, so now you will visit some Swing States". I smell a rat here. The woman, highly ambitious she is, is doing the groundwork for a third Presidential run in 2020. 

God forbid if that happens. If Dems nominate her for 2020 - Trump (or Mike Pence if Trump doesn't complete his first term) or a Donkey nominated by GOP got my vote.

P.S. : For the uninitiated GOP which is the acronym for Grand Old Party is another name for Republican party in USA. It is akin to the Congress Party back home, which can be termed as GOP of India.

Why I admire Kangana Raunat

Why I admire Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut? It is more than she being an excellent actor. The reason I admire her, for she has taken the feudal, dynastic, hypocricy and nepotism laden Bull called Bollywood by horn. Her guts and raw courage puts her above the rest.

Most of these Mumbai based actors are slaves of the ever pervading, obnoxious Underworld. When the DADAs (Bosses) desire them to bend, they crawl. More than a decade ago, it took Preeti Zinta, a brave Rajput girl to speak out a thing or two against this mafia menace when our Macho, Muscled but MAICHIA (effeminate) heroes were ever ready to lick the balls of their BHAIs (Mafia Bosses).

Post independence, many actors and actresses came to Bombay from far and wide in order to try their luck in tinsel town, to carve a niche on their own. Many like Balraj Sahni, the Kapoors, Chetan & Dev Anand, Dillip Kumar came from Pakistan. Some gifted actors like Sanjeev Kumar arrived with modest means to hit the jackpot by sheer talent and hard work.

But in 1980s and 90s, many of them foresaw another jackpot in promoting their off springs. Dharmendra made sure his children from both wives delve into film industry. His son Sunny Deol was at best average, the other boy Bobby Deol  tried to be the both action and romantic hero and failed playing both. His two daughters born much later to his 2nd wife, a well known actress named Hema Malini had mostly forgettable careers.

Soon the star kids started regarding Bollywood as their BOPA ZAMIDARI (The Feudal adode of their Father). Many were simply spoilt brats, misogynists to core. They won't be on the stage today without the backing and blessings of their celebrity Godfathers (in some cases Godmothers and Godparents).

When asked who their favorite actors are, they take the names of their dad or mom (in some cases both) and / or many prominent Hollywood stars. (No wonder the name Bollywood has been cloned from Hollywood, it is a fetish in Bombay movie industry to ape anything and everything Hollywood). Rarely they adore anyone from their own fraternity - as they reek of jealousy and internecine rivalry.

Such insecure men constipated by tons of ego, unable to dump it, surreptitiously protect their turf - eventually making a mockery and ass of themselves. When Kangana Ranaut protested of their misdemeanors and misadventures, many including the likes of Hirthrik Roshan went berserk, venting out silly in front of the ever bitching media.

These effeminate heros can sleep with 100 girls to prove themselve as macho and boast about it. But if an actress sleeps around, she is branded a slut. The depth of our hypocrisy is difficult to fathom. Bollywood which loves to echo Hollywood, doesn't do the same as far as women lib goes.

There used to be a saying in my College - MUCHHE WOHI RAKHTE HAIN JIN KE APNI MARDANGI PER SHAQ HOTA HAI (Moustaches are kept by those who have doubts on their virility). Shaq or Shock, these AAMIR BAAP KE BIGDE HUE AULAADs (The spoilt brats of influential dads) badly needed to be taught a lesson.

I am glad, finally an woman of calibre, i.e. Kangana has busted the impregnable male bastion, manly enough to have the audacity to take on the recalcitrant eunuchs, exposing their ugly underbelly - their manhood or rather the lack of it. Hats Off to you girl for being the harbinger of much required change to status quo.