Monday 24 September 2012

Make Hay While Flags Burn



The marauding Chinese economic juggernaut is showing signs of slowing down, but one sector seems to be quite literally keeping the flag flying. These are units located in many of China's small towns and metro outskirts. They manufacture flags and now seem to be a beehive of activity with even round the clock shifts not being able to cope with the huge demand. Right now in China, only factories manufacturing fake i-Phone 5 have such schedules.

Chen Qiang, who used to be a Communist party official during the Deng Xiao Peng era now runs one such unit. He started off with making flags for Chinese Communist party, but has now acquired a global footprint. He said, "Nowadays the demand is mainly from overseas - countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt and some Arab countries, whose names I don't remember."

Though the spurt in demand has made Qiang happy, there is a sense of disquiet. He said with a knitted brow, "The strange part is that the orders are not for flags of their own countries; but for US flags. I am really surprised by this new found love for peddlers of junk food, colas and recession."

According to Qiang the demand last week was so high that they even approached the local prison to get the work done. "The prisoners did a major goof up in the flag design - instead of 50 stars in the US flag some had only 45. We decided to hold payment and were worried that we may face outright rejection and loss of face. But our customers took the delivery and hardly noticed the error. Though relieved, I had a niggling worry that they may find it later," he said.

"Though in business I strictly follow comrade Deng's principle - 'the colour of the cat doesn’t matter as long as it can catch mice'. But still, curiosity got better of me," Qiang said with resignation.

The other day when he met his old client Shanawaz Ali from Pakistan, he decided to broach the issue of obsession with US flag. After all he had been a frequent visitor and was instrumental in bringing other Arab clients to Qiang.

Ali, who stays in a Pakistani town close to Chinese border, said, "I keep getting phone calls from Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar about US flags. Looks like there are some anti-US protests going on and people are burning flags. Some Amreekan guy had made a film insulting our beloved Prophet and people are livid about it."

A visibly relieved Qiang said, "Oh, so all these flags were meant to be burnt", and secretly thanked his luck that the '45-star glitch' was of no consequence.

Ali then asked, "Do you have the design of French flag." "No", replied Qiang. "Try to get one, we may soon require that also," Ali said and took leave.

(A work of off-the-tangent imagination)

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Friday 14 September 2012

Silly Season

Looks like politicians want to now usurp the roles of stand up comedians. They are now out to provide comic relief and other forms of light distractions in the face of faltering economy, rising prices, starvation deaths, rotting food grains, drought and flood woes.
 

First it was Beni Prasad Verma. Somehow Congress party never gave him his due, probably because he was a turncoat from Samajwadi Party. However his remarks on inflation had the party's ace foot-in-mouth practitioners feel hot under their collar. 

He said that rising prices actually helped farmers! Probably long innings in Delhi's corridors of power has made him incapable to differentiate between farmer and middleman. Since he may be interacting more with the latter for election funding and other money matters, he may have thought they got a really good thing going. Now that government has increased diesel prices, hope he does not feel that the boys who dispense fuel at petrol pumps are going to book Mercs.
 

Some days later it was the turn of opposition BJP. And that too none other than loh purush Narendra Modi - normally known for combative rabble rousing statements.

He told a US newspaper that malnutrition in Gujarat was due to vegetarianism and middle class girls’ size zero obsession.  Surprisingly his remarks on vegetarianism went unchallenged and mercifully there were no Peta protests. It was surprising that no veggie pressure group took umbrage to his statement. Or probably they failed to make it to media's radar. 

But his comment on middle class girls more than made up for that shortcoming. While organisations associated with child rights and women brandished statistics to show how worse off  girls are in Gujarat; he became a favourite muse for cartoonists and satirists.

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi too joined the fray by coming up with a jaw-droppingly ludicrous statement on rising Muslim population in his state. To cover up Congress government's lapses in curbing Bangladeshi infiltration, Gogoi ended tying himself up in knots.

At a TV interview to Karan Thapar he shocked everyone by saying that the rise in population among Muslims was due to illiteracy. Thapar first thought it was a slip of tongue and asked him repeatedly, but he came out with same reply. His party high command was left red faced and tongue tied. And for Muslims it was a rude awakening, as it came from the mouth a leader belonging to a secular party.

Meanwhile amidst all this foot-in-mouth orgy, the apple of every cartoonists' eye Digvijay Singh was conspicuous by his absence.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Friday 7 September 2012

Scaling Mighty Obstacles

While cricket pundits were splitting their hairs over why Sachin Tendulkar's footwork is no longer what it used to be, an Indian athlete with a congenital disability in left foot had his leap-of-faith moment at London paralympics.
 

Girisha Hosanagara Nagarajegowda, a 24-year-old from Karnataka did the country proud by winning its first ever silver medal and that too in a physically demanding event like high jump. Paralympic games are a regular feature and happens after the conclusion of every olympics. But the event comes nowhere near the viewfinder of the country's media or its collective conscious. The reasons are not far to seek. Firstly the country's sports culture is nothing much to write home about and secondly the society's attitude towards disability oscillates from callous disregard to downright patronizing.
 

Somehow this year, after the country's best ever showing at Olympics, the TV cameras lingered on in London. Quite predictably controvesies soon followed and got greater visibility. An Indian power lifter Farman Basha had complained that he was not provided with an escort and even his coach was not allowed to stay with him.
 

But nobody in their wildest dreams thought India would open its account at the games. In fact few people were even aware that the country had sent a contingent for paralympics.
 

Now that Girisha has won a medal government and other agencies are doling cash awards and other trappings that come with sporting achievements. But I am sure it will be far too modest compared with other Olympic medal winners and microscopic when compared with IPL pampered cricketers.
 

Reading about his life one gets a snapshot of how miserable it is to be born poor and handicapped in our country. Most notably how these sections of population can no way access medicare. Girisha was born with a defect, which was curable. But his parents could not afford the surgery required to rectify it.
 

In our counry to be hadicapped and be able to lead a semblance of normal life is in itself a major struggle. Hence to take part in a sport like high jump is asking for the moon. Hence no adjective in the dictionary would be apt enough to describe Girisha's achievement.

Saina Nehwal's kind gesture
The badminton ace was so touched by Girisha's feat that she decided to gift him Rs 2 lakh. Hope our Ferrari/BMW driving sports stars (read cricketers) take cue from it.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat