LIB'erated'YA DOG !!!!!

A bare torsoed Lt.Col.Bill Kilgore walks up to Captain Willard with a Texas nonchalance and blurts out “.. I love the smell of napalm in the morning ..” . Well that single line by Robert Duvall might have been the defining scene in the Coppola masterpiece ‘Apocalypse Now’ but apart from making cinematic history it also sheds light on the psychology of men engaged in war . No matter how much The Economist screams out that wars arise from the geopolitical conflicts or economical competition , to me men who decide to go to war have either big ego or small physical attributes . Yes, it’s the Libyan war where the west has again went ahead with its regular 10 yearly plan of sexually intercoursing (F-word again) a country in the name of  democracy .

For the uninitiated the West namely the French, England , US and Canada (please check if the last one qualifies as a country) has invaded Libya to free the Libyans of the tyrrant ‘Q/G’addafi and create a free society where there will be power of  democracy. Well I am not going to be some nonagenarian Bengali Communist (who readily blames the U.S for his weak bladder problems ,calls Manmohan Singh the Indian ‘Dick’, Dick Cheney that is you dirty mind , hopes for a party ticket in this life and hopes to play in the lap of  Jyoti Basu in the afterlife ) and blame it on Oil . Instead let us look at the personal lives of the three Moses in this story and go for the Freudian way of pinning things down .

Case I : Nicolas Sircrazy (Sarkozy) – the President of France, the prime mover in the war, has major domestic issues . His wife stands a good 4 inches taller than him , is a former supermodel and also plays guitar . So to compensate for the 4 inch loss (in height , you dirty mind again) Sircrazy points big guns and big jets at poor hapless guys and silently screams out in bed “J'ai obtenu balles” (I have got balls) .

Case II : David Came’n’Gone (Cameron) – the Prime Minister of  U.K , the poodle of the US like many before him , has just become a dad . And no dad wants to be seen as a loser in the eyes of his little daughters . In his tenure as PM , the unemployment rate has risen up and Britain is in need of dire economic reforms which hardly makes up good lines for a child’s lullaby . But this does : “ Daddy with big guns is gonna fight ; To seek real justice and for what is right “ .

Case III : Barrack Obomb’ya (Obama) -  Well for a start he is a myth and he does’nt exist . It is actually Bush who is wearing an Afro- American suit and calling the shots (Dick Cheney is Michelle Obama in a woman’s suit) . The wise men had predicted the birth of a man named Obama who is gonna free the world of its sins much like a religious chap born a few millennia back but then we are still waiting .

And if you are still brainwashed by your weekly Sunday microphone blaring Communist agenda , well alright oil might have some role to play in the war . For a start Libya is one of the highest producers of oil in Africa which amounts to about a quarter of its GDP . So any turmoil in the region which would ultimately culminate in a oil crisis would send shockwaves in an already fragile western economy. And besides if people of a country want freedom they should be given a chance to earn it themselves without the interference of any other country . If its your problem you certainly don’t want the whole world to know about it … for a change how would Sarkozy feel if Gaddafi mailed him a training video to increase height or Cameron got a phone call from the Libyan outlet of Naukri.com The French Revolution would’nt be what it is if it was called The French ‘with Guillotine sponsored by Spain’ Revolution.

So from above it can be seen that except for Obama (who might again be an alien) all the other movers in the war have some deep seated personal issues which need immediate redressal before they go out of their minds and start attacking every oil producing nation . So no matter how much your local newspaper and columnist want you to believe with big graphs and GDP numbers , remember kids , war is the ultimate morphine for people with big ego or (this time let me be more specific) small physical attributes in the lower abdomen region ( the P- word*) .

* P-word has been deliberately omitted keeping in mind the sensitivity of readers involved . If you still did’nt understand the P-word look up for male genitalia in your thesaurus . If you did and got offended by it please replace P-word with President Bush or Prakash Karat depending on your allegiance .  

REVOLUTION ON THE WRONG SIDE OF NILE

Revolution – process of curing the cancer of the society only to inflict AIDS on it . Now don’t get me wrong , I have had my fair share of marijuana infested John Lennon audio lessons to scream out ‘Power to the People’ every time any political party blocks my urban space to scream out the same . But the idea of revolution and democracy in a Muslim majority state does scare me only because of one single word : Pakistan . You look at Pakistan .. that country is in more need of a revolution than Mamata Bannerjee is in need of a husband . But in all probability the Pakistanis are never going to get out on the streets and start demanding for a better economy or more Indian satellite channels on their TV . Here is the reason why : Religion .

Before you start judging me as the type of Muslim liberal junkie who proclaims his secularism by denigrating Islam and down the years is dreaming of becoming the first Muslim President of the Sangh Parivar or the Shiv Sena ..well atleast you got the first part wrong . What starts out as a democratic set up in a Muslim majority country ultimately ends up being an Islamic revolution ultimately plunging it to the Talibanisation of the state of affairs . Again before you start judging me as the kind of guy who is on the payroll of  Narendra Modi I’ll give you examples .

Exhibit A : IRAN –starting as an Islamic revolution in 1978 to liberate the people from the tyrannical rule of the then despot , has now boiled down to one of the most gross violation of  cultural rights of its artists and also the basic rights of its women . Call me parochial but a country which imprisons a great film maker like Jafar Panahi in the name of non-conformity to the Islamic school of thoughts needs to be bombed out (now I am so getting my US visa)

Exhibit B : AFGHANISTAN – for all aspiring Jihadis “THE AFGHAN SCHOOL OF RECONSTRUCTING A VIOLENT ISLAM THROUGH A NEW QURAN” has been what IIT’s are to any pimple faced teenager or what Baywatch was to thousands of  adolescent Indian guys in the 90’s  .Well alright the US might have had sexual intercourse with that country a bit (this is the most decent way of saying the F word) ..big deal .. now you start blaming the country which has given us the greatest invention known to mankind – PORN.

In semblance these countries have a long list of adjectives like "Democratic”, “Republic” “Sovereign” even “Secular” present in their constitution but what they interpret of these words would make Voltaire and Rousseau dance up from their graves “Thriller” style . So yes , I did support the Egyptian Revolution in the beginning but after a few days when the name “The Muslim Brotherhood” cropped up in the newspaper atleast I knew that the revolution was sexually intercoursed (F-‘ed’ word). In their defence the Muslim Brotherhood might have been doing some notable humanitarian work all throughout Egypt for the past many years ( but so did Khomeini  who sounded like Susan B. Anthony before the revolution and drunk Anthony Gonzalves after it ) . And lets not get into Pakistan , that country is virtually a black hole collapsing on itself in a whirlwind of religious extremism powered by US napalm .

So heres the remedy : status quo . I am a muslim but I am a resident of West Bengal too and take it from me it is not that difficult to tolerate a power that have been sexually intercoursing (F-‘ing’ word)  us for the last 34 years and after that still bring a new party who is gonna do that much harder . We will never go out on the streets and I advise you Egyptians also not to . Its very difficult to accept the fact that either ways you are going to end up in a regime either under Mubarak or some Mullah or some Mamata or some CPM where your right to a better life goes out the window before the voter ink dries up on your fingers ; but once you accept that fact then you will realize that the magnificient pyramids were built by slaves under despotic rulers not by free spirited individuals .

MINORITY REPORT

If you think that this piece of writing concerns the state of minority affairs in our country and how the total income of the minority population divided by the total income of the unorganized sector is half that of the GDP concerning only the organized sector barring those working in service and hospitality sector normalized to the level of the total export of chickens to Bhutan , you are wrong . It is the job of the revered Congress High Command to appoint GOM’s who inturn form committees headed by retired cronies to decide upon major national issues like ‘What should be the average height of a Mayawati statue’ or ‘Does Karunanidhi look like Hugh Hefner in his Rayban shades’ or the ‘state of minorities in India’ . What this report concerns is a peculiar trend that has plagued Bollywood (our greatest cultural export after Kamasutra) – The stereotyping of minorities in Hindi movies .

Ever wondered why every Aslam Chacha or D’Souza uncle or Harpreet Singh almost always look , sound and adhere to certain clichéd notions that has characterized their respective religions since Dev Anand was young enough to be called a hero (which by the way was way before the first dinosaur egg hatched  or the birth of any geriatric character in an Ekta Kapoor serial ). So whenever you come across a Christian character in a Bollywood movie, 9 out of 10 times his name would be Peter (if male) or Jenny or Maria (if female) or D’Costa or D’ Souza(if old) . Most of the times they would speak in heavy anglicized Hindi ..” Tumko kya Mangta hai ?” and certainly they would either be a baker or a liquor shop owner or a drunkard themselves with family lineage tracing back to Goa .

It gets weirder with the portrayal of Parsis . With a quirky “Dikra” always on their lips they inevitably are very grumpy but with a heart of gold who always end up helping the hero elope with the heroine in their 70’s Fiat car . They always have a queer habit like that of a trembling hand or a blinking eye or are obscenely obese. And they have to be childless ..which explains the grumpy with a heart of gold attitude.

But the fun really starts with Muslim characters , named Aslam(if male) or Salma (if female) or Chacha or Chachi(if old) . The muslim male always have a skull cap on their head and kurta pyjama heavily starched on their body . The place where they live ought to be in a dingy but civilized locality which must have seven or eight houses which have their walls painted green . And they have to be God fearing guys (background score comprising of azans or an Arabic infused mandolin picks) who never miss their prayers (remember Imaam Saab of Sholay .. son died who cares lets pray).

Classic example of all the specimens mentioned above and many more can be observed in any 70’s movie like ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ - the greatest artistic national unifier after ‘Bidi jalaile’ . There are many such examples with other communities like the Buddhists ,who we don’t see much in the movie plot line because they are always in the monasteries treating injured heroes and guiding them towards the path of Nirvana ,which ultimately involves killing off Amrish Puri .

Now call it my tiny myopic world but I seldom find these portrayal in real life so widespread as shown in movies .. theres no denying they do exist but there is also Peter in real world who can speak chaste hindi without the “kya mangta tumko??” twang or a Aslam who sports the latest hairstyle barring the skull cap. If Sikhs were really that funny and boisterous as portrayed then we would have had a Prime Minister who could atleast crack up laughing at the sight of Jairam Ramesh’s hairdo  . If Ratan Tata was half of what the Parsis are portrayed in movies then the only car we would have rode would have been an Ambassador . Now yes you can argue that all the people I have mentioned are too few in number and the majority of India is far removed from this exceptions ….  Well thanks for finding my specs and putting it on my myopic eyes .. now my country is full of people who are Muslims , Hindus, Christians ..but seldom Indians .

(and yes to clear your suspicion ..I did watch Krantiveer 7 times and Gadar- Ek Prem Katha 5 times before coming up with the last line)

WHOSE MAO IS IT ANYWAY ????

Ever heard of a tug of war played reverse where two parties push an object on the opposite side  to win a match … well that’s what going in West Bengal nowadays . The object in question is the tag “ Maoist” and the two parties in question is the CPM and Trinamul . In a state where traditionally every car riding , a Salt Lake flat owning guy is termed a bourgeosie (don’t you dare think of Jyoti Basu) and every coffee house hoping poor loving, Noam Chomsky reading guy as proletariat (think of Jyoti Basu) , tagging Maoist is the new thing .Anybody from from your local veggie seller who charges Rs.100 for a banana to your boss who doesn’t pay you enough to buy it ,can be a Maoist . But it gets confusing and messy when the tagging gets onto the levels of the kingpins.

The Trinamul accuses the CPM and the Maoist to be the reincarnated Karan-Arjun of the movie Karan-Arjun – they were sworn enemies but really couldn’t kill each other off due to a temporal umbilical chord joining them (here the umbilical chord is not that of Rakhee’s but maybe of Hu- Jintao’s) while on the other hand the CPM accuses the Trinamul of hosting rooftop ‘dress up’ parties late at midnight where Mamata Bannerjee dresses as Snow White and the Maoists as her dwarfs . A simple solution would be to ask the Maoist about their allegiance but that would be like asking a beauty contest contender “why do you want to be like Mother Teresa ?” . While the ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ triangle continues to tingle among the three , it is increasingly becoming difficult to avoid the sound of guns raging in the state . In an almost open letter to the CM of West Bengal, P.Chidambaram (the smartest man on this planet after Crime master Gogo) had showed concerns about the activites of ‘harmads’ (he actually meant ‘HER-MAD’, Mamata Bannerjee’s sobriquet in Delhi) . But amonst all this din I genuinely feel sorry for Buddhadeb Bhattacharya ,he is somewhat becoming like THAKUR SAAB of Sholay .. no hands to act ..even if someone pins “I HAVE A CRUSH ON MAMATA” badge on his kurta ..he can’t do anything about it .. except maybe sob profusely to Biman ‘Ramu Kaka’ Bose . But in a state almost divided on the lines of Us and Them , a mere admiration of  Buddha’s starch white kurta or that of Mamata’s durable chappals can get you into a lot of trouble .. so lets stear clear of any admiration or apathy and lets concentrate on behind the scenes action of the ‘K2H2’ story .

By this time we all know that the Maoists leaders don’t give a Mao’s shit about the very oppressed people they claim to represent . At the most they can be seen as merecenaries hoping from one mission to another commissioned by either the Trinamul or CPM (decided on an IPL style auction ) . The same goes with the central government which is too busy washing dirty diapers of the heir apparent Baby G and going after visionaries like Dr. Binayak Sen who waste their entire lifetime doing  what the government should have done for the past 63 years and what the Maoists claim to be doing now . So for what it’s worth it is futile to tag anyone Mao or Anti- Mao, from a certain logic one person’s Maoist is other person’s Government and vice versa . It’s a pity that most of the deprived population ,who have been denied the basic needs of survival for the past 63 years, may never get to read ‘The Animal Farm’ . In an almost prophetic ending George Orwell wrote … “…The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

oxyMORON: PORTRAIT OF SCAMSTERS AS YOUNG ARTISTS

oxyMORON: PORTRAIT OF SCAMSTERS AS YOUNG ARTISTS: "2010 .. what a year .. to me it has been one of those years in Indian history where our politicians and cronies could get up from their brok..."

PORTRAIT OF SCAMSTERS AS YOUNG ARTISTS

2010 .. what a year .. to me it has been one of those years in Indian history where our politicians and cronies could get up from their broken parliament seats and sing R.Kelly style : “I believe I can fly …”. It has been that year when we truly became a nation to reckon with . We were the tortoise to China’s hare .. Sheila to USA’s Munni (all figuratively) . Its not because of the fact that in 2010 the government ‘announced’ national development programs worth billions of bucks (naming it right after Indira Gandhi to her unborn sister’s second nephew) or the government decided to build thousands of westernized toilets across the country or Pranab Mukherjee’s English pronunciation improved or Carla Bruni visited us ; these are just minor wafers compared to the transition we made in 2010. We finally let go of our horrid past of petty scams running into a  few crores concerning petty stuffs like cow fodder or stamp papers to more international standards of complex scams like 2G and CWG.

So while Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh were playing “Dumb and Dumber” in a sequel to their movie “Roop ki rani Choron ka Raja “ and Rahul Gandhi (PRAISE BE UPON HIM) was busy posting cowdung cakes on a Dalit woman’s Facebook wall, the Raja’s , the Kalmadi’s and the Modi’s tangoed their way into our wallets and raped it 70’s hindi movie style . While previously we used to feel low about scam names like ‘HAWALA’  or ‘CHARA GHOTALA’ compared to the likes of  something like the WATERGATE , it was only because of these people we had scams with plots which would make Christopher Nolan movies seem like public service messages . Together they plundered amounts which would have been enough to sponsor 300 of Obama’s business trips to India or add two more storeys to the mansion Anil Ambani is building his wife . It could have also been used to save the poor cattles living in the villages of India who eventually die of hunger or pressure of debt (but I guess that features low on everyones list ..who cares for cattles ..they are no cute stripey tiger) .

Which is my favourite scam you ask … I’ll say CWG ..as an aspiring B-school aspirant it taught me the whole new methods of violating the golden rule of economics – Supply and Demand . Well there has never been a huge demand for toilet papers in India so the prices should be low , but somehow Kalmadi managed to fudge up accounts and get for 12000 a roll . Or wait …maybe there was a great demand for them .. well you do need a lot of toilet paper to wrap around the eyes of  the Justice statue : the one that is there in every court of India holding a faulty balance .

WHITEWASHING A BROWN FENCE

THE BEST AD ON TV THESE DAYS

White boss : why will I give u this job

White candidate : because im fair .

White candidate(talking to other white people) : I think he is perfect.

White Boss :  From when can I join Boss.

Before you try to make sense of the above : if you are a single lonely girl or boy living in a dark damp place feeling like a burden on the world … YOUUUUU!!!! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE … Im fair and you are not...

Who said the world is fair, it’s not , it’s fair and lovely … I am a racist and I hate to admit it (and that makes me a true Indian).Every time I see a Firang .. there’s a initial pang of envy which eventually gets beleagured by the primal impulse of calling out GORAAA/GORIII aloud. Now I’m just gonna deal with the “envy” part .. call it the colonial hangover but we are a sucker for whiteness. A recent market survey (which I might have made up with a few shots of vodka/ I might have read it in The Economist..whats the difference) states that Asians specially Indians spend major part of their income on beauty products specially those involved in lightening your skin pigmentation. Now assumig that the market survey did occur and I was not drunk while reading it , it only validates the fact that has been circulating since Nehru met Edwina : Our ass is black but we want a fair face .

Blame it on the white porn that we grow up watching or the white Sonia Gandhi we blindly obey, we have come to tag anything white as beautiful, clean and successful (think of Rahul Gandhi) while black is something ugly, poor and deprived (think of the Dalit families Rahul visited for Moral Science project in school). We wont easily fantasize about Padma “Brown Sugar” Lakshmi when all our adolescent nights were wasted on watching Pamela “White Heroin” Anderson . And when you have a weakness for something be sure there are hundreds ad guys waiting to pounce on your fantasies . So before you can say Bipasha you are being emasculated by hundreds of ads showing tanned people kissing white angelic bums in servility… again before you can say Michael Jackson you are smack infront of your grocery store buying a tube of fairness cream with as much guilt as if you are buying a pack of condoms . Add to that the Gods of the modern world like Mr. Gobbledygook Khan telling you to get your own gender specific fairness cream so that you don’t have to venture out late in the night to the ladies hostel to get a pack ..(nice proposition by the way) . Well Mr.Khan if only you had applied more of the fair and handsome cream on your pseudo photoshopped white skin then you would not have been mistaken for a brown terrorist in a Gora airport.

So all you girls and boys who are unfortunate enough to have been born with a not so white complexion…. It’s not long before you will hear these public messages on TV:

Message 1 : AMITABH RAI BACCHAN : “DO BOOND ZINDAGI KE” (followed by an approving nod by AISHWARYA RAI BACCHAN)

Message 2 : GOBBLEDYGOOK KHAN : “EK TUBE KAMYAB ZINDAGI KI”………