In Which Urjit Gives It Those Ones

Urjit Patel had the unenviable task of stepping into the shoes of Raghuram Rajan, the rock star economist who had wowed both the banker class and the laity. He had also set a tall order of standing up to the ruling establishment and fight for the interests of the Reserve Bank of India. 

And Patel began on a note that couldn't have been more lacklustre. Barely two months after he took over, the Narendra Modi government came up with its most controversial decision to take away nearly 86% of cash in circulation. He appeared to be a man who was totally clueless about what was going around him.

Ideally such an announcement should have been made by RBI governor, but the Prime Minister chose to take the centrestage and delivered his famous 'Mitron' speech.

As the collateral damage unfolded - dry ATMs, long queues in front of banks and widespread distress, Patel made himself scarce as a Great Indian bustard. The then Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das and current RBI Governor performed the unenviable task of announcing ad-hoc changes in rules regarding deposit and withdrawal of money from banks.

Patel soon earned the sobriquet 'Invisible Man' and became the favourite muse for meme makers and became a butt of ridicule on social media. He came across as a person who could not handle the glare of TV flashbulbs and his parroted response 'we are still counting', when queried about the amount of demonetized currency notes deposited in the banks, helped him move up a few more notches in the meme makers' popularity charts.

Amid all this hilarity nobody noticed when Patel turned the corner. It is difficult to pin-point when Patel's seemingly limitless malleability reached the end of its tether, but appointment of S. Gurumurthy as non-executive director certainly was one such trigger.

Ties between the government and RBI grew frostier with every bi-monthly Monetary Policy Meeting to decide on interest rates. Things reached breaking point when Patel realised the government had sets its eyes on RBI reserves and was planning to hang the Damocles sword over him in the form of hitherto unused Section 7 of RBI Act.

Even then no one thought Patel may actually quit, but this reclusive Gujarati thought it was an opportune time to leave as he did not want to add a new blot 'allowed dilution of RBI autonomy' in his CV, in addition to the existing one - 'presided over demonetisation'.

Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

Jawa: Back From The Dead

For the bikers in the frugal licence permit raj era of 1960-70s, when 'Be Indian buy Indian' was the norm, owning a Jawa was nirvana on two wheels. Though entombed nearly four decades ago, this Czech pedigreed bike continues to remain in the recesses of the memory of 40-plus generation.

On the other hand for a millennial the name only means a computer programme (albeit with minor spelling change of 'v' instead of 'w') and voluminous books to master it adorn the shelves of second-hand book stalls.

Back then the motorcycling world was ruled by a triumvirate of Jawa, Royal Enfield 'Bullet' and Rajdoot. Jawa and Royal Enfield were considered classy, while Rajdoot was for the plebeians and country bumpkins, and looked down upon.

Jawa and Bullet had its legion of followers. While the former had a sleek look, the latter with UK pedigree had an erect ramrod stiff exterior. While Jawas were patronised by college students and young urban professionals, mainly medical representatives, the latter by those who wanted to wear their machismo on their sleeves. 'It takes a man to ride a Bullet' ran the print ad catch line.

Both had their own unique quirkiness. While Jawa had a kick-starter, which doubled up as gear after ignition, not found in any other bike, Bullet had brake on the left and gear on the right, and it migrated to 'standard' format much later in 2007.

To the credit of Royal Enfield management, they stood the test of time and through their upgrades and new models remained in the business. It weathered the storm of 100 cc bikes and later the entry of global names such as Harley Davidson and Triumph.

Whereas Jawa later gave way to a new avatar Yezdi and that too got mothballed in the 90s, under the onslaught of fuel efficient 100 cc bikes.

Most Yezdis faded away to scrap yards, while some aficionados kept them running with a missionary zeal, despite facing challenges like scarcity of spare parts. For the millennial crowd an occasional bike rally by Jawa-Yezdi Motorcycle Club provided them a nodding acquaintance with the classic their uncles once rode.

However last week Mahindra and Mahindra, under it subsidiary Classic Legends, decided to bring back this iconic bike from the dead. The move has rekindled the euphoria among many cutting across age barrier, evoking a mix of nostalgia and futuristic feel.

While old timers were happy the manufacturers have taken care to retain its retro looks, especially the iconic petrol tank, the younger generation was drooling over the fact that it had high tech features like liquid cooled engines, used in high performance bikes.

There are three models on offer – Jawa, Jawa 42 and Perak. All with eye-catching colours, and the bobber design of Perak has left many bike lovers pining for a test drive.

Once again the old rivalry is back. Considering the pricing and specification of its models, Jawa is once again pitted against Bullet. However, Jawa has a lot of groundwork to do in terms of establishing dealer and service network across the country.

Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

#Me Too Maelstrom Mauls Many

Five years ago, when Tarun Tejpal, the editor of Tehelka magazine, was caught pants down for his testosterone fuelled antics with a young colleague and later faced the full glare of social media, I had thought that lucky were those editors and journalists who had carried out similar acts in the pre-internet and typewriter days.

Names of M.J. Akbar and some others (still not outed yet), who were part of press club folklore, came to my mind. During my student days in the late 80s and early 90s Akbar was a big name in journalism and his column ‘Byline' was something we all looked forward to in the now defunct Sunday magazine of Anand Bazar Patrika stable. I also happened to read his book Riot After Riot and a biography on Jawaharlal Nehru (Nehru: The Making of India). All this gave me an impression of him being a man of great erudition.

But later in a baffling fashion he chose politics and my respect for him went down a few notches, as I thought it was a great loss for journalism. However during my rookie sub-editor days in Mumbai I got to know that the prodigal was returning to journalism and starting a new paper Asian Age.

When the recruitment happened, the grapevine had it that only 'fast' girls were getting recruited and all key position were occupied by women with very little experience. My respect for him dived many more notches. However, still the general perception was that although he was a 'ladies’ man' he was 'good at his job'.

That was also the time India embraced economic liberalisation and newsrooms also witnessed drastic changes. The editor's age profile became much younger and there were more women joining the profession. The look and feel of newspapers also changed, thanks to better printing technology and headlines became catchier than matter of fact.

The presence of higher number of women and younger workforce was a mixed bag. On one hand it brought about greater gender sensitization (use of misogynist Hindi expletives came down) and the blooming of office romances. But some of the superiors, deeply entrenched in patriarchy, took advantage of the power they enjoyed to treat their junior women colleagues as a fair game. They used this by dangling carrots like dinner invites, junkets and out of turn promotions. Those days sexual harassment redress mechanisms were not even thought of.

Newspaper offices then were closed places and nothing spilled over to the public domain. A Tejpal type incident those days would have been swept under the carpet or settled with mere apology or a transfer.

Managements used to close ranks and observe an incestuous 'code of silence' so that the publications name is not sullied. Even rival newspapers too adhered to this code, keeping in mind the glass houses they all were in. In those pre-cellphone/internet days even gossips never used to travel beyond the confines of office canteens or press clubs.

Internet and social media changed the rules of the game as it now 'follows' us everywhere and now it has also proved that in addition to making contemporary events go 'viral', it can even exhume issues that happened two decades ago to haunt the perpetrators by 'calling out'.

In India #me too fire got noticed nearly an year after US. It has simmered for long and took its own sweet time to become vigorous enough to singe people's reputations. But once actor Tanushree Dutta lit the fire, it has been relentless like the French guillotine and many reputations fell by the wayside.

While some were quite obvious as they wore their playboy selves on their sleeves, but names like Vinod Dua, Jatin Das and others evoked shock and disbelief, as they were considered quite progressive and respectable.

It first started with the film industry and later spread to the English journalism, thanks to a journalist named Sandhya Menon. The first to get caught in its cross hairs was K.R. Sreenivas, the resident editor of a prominent daily, to be followed by some Kolkata and Delhi based journalists.

While their ex-colleagues were coming out with unsavoury details about their peccadilloes, I again wondered whether this #me too will address the elephant in the room or be rest content with having a tilt at bit players.

Finally, the much anticipated happened. Akbar got outed and as expected it opened a Pandora's box. And I must admit that despite being aware of his Casanova ways, the Tweets left me shell shocked. They were far more toxic than the above-mentioned press club gossip, which at the most made him appear as a flamboyant editor with a glad eye for women. 

As per the disclosures, he was a sexual predator on the loose, with no one to question or curb him and he got away with all this for decades. Journalist Saba Naqvi recalling her stint in the Telegraph and without naming Akbar summed him up very well, “He behaved like a village Thakur who set off to claim any young thing that caught his fancy."

Amid all this hoopla there are allegations of witch hunt and not adhering to the due process. While the former cannot be ruled out as a few innocent men may get pilloried for no fault of theirs, the latter point does not hold much water. 

In many disclosures the victims had stated that they had approached sexual harassment redress committees, but no action was taken. At the most the erring employees were transferred, which is just a change of scene for them. The infamous ordeal of Rina Mukherjee a journalist with The Statesman is a case in point. She was terminated for filing a sexual harassment complaint against her news coordinator and had to fight a long drawn legal battle spanning more than a decade.

It is a well known fact that at many media establishments sexual harassment redress committees are mere sinecures of little consequence. So far no media company has taken any drastic action like say Infosys took against Phaneesh Murthy in 2002, when he got embroiled in a sexual harassment case. 

Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

In Praise of Macaulay

English language is a favourite punching bag for the country's political class, as it pays them rich electoral dividends. While those in the cow belt dub it as a vestige of our colonial past, often to mask their obscurantist agendas and insecurities, those in the south of Vindhyas and eastern India see it as an impediment or even a threat to their native tongues.

But at the same time they ensure that their immediate kith and kin study in the best English medium schools and later acquire foreign degrees.

The latest to fire a salvo against English was Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu, who termed the English language a ‘disease’ left behind by the British and stressing that Hindi was the symbol of “socio-political and linguistic unity”. The occasion happened to be 'Hindi Divas'.

He lamented that the Constituent Assembly (which framed the Constitution) had accepted Hindi as one of the official languages of the country, but its wishes have not been fulfilled. Interestingly, the same assembly had also adopted English as an official language at the same meeting.

Later at another meeting he clarified that “English mind” is an illness, and not the language, and stated the country should be proud of its rich heritage.

For the political class irrespective of the party or the ideology they profess, English is a red rag that charges them up. They see Thomas Babington Macaulay, the man who played a major role in bringing in English education to India, as an evil incarnate.

Though Macaulay had a very narrow utilitarian intent to promote the language among the elite Indians to build an English knowing clerical class, the fallout it created was something nobody had foreseen.

It did develop an elite class in all parts of the country, especially urban centres, but in the linguistically diverse India, English soon emerged as a link language and also a means to acquire global knowledge in science, mathematics, law and all forms of modern scholarship.

Though we may not like to admit it but the seeds of nationalism, social reform and even freedom struggle were also unwittingly laid because of English language.

The formation of Indian National Congress in 1885, in which Scotsman ornithologist turned civil servant Allan Octavian Hume played a major part, became a platform of the political fight towards India's freedom.

In the early days Congress party was a gaggle of lawyers drawn from the length and breadth of the country and they all conversed and even made speeches in English.

This is how an Ismaili Koja Muslim lawyer Mohammed Ali Jinnah became friends with Maharashtrian Brahmin Gopal Krishna Gokhale; a Gujarati Baniya lawyer Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi got acquainted and later became related to Tamil Brahmin lawyer S Rajagopalachari.

It is the same English education that helped Dr B.R. Ambedkar fight the deeply entrenched casteist oppression prevalent during his period and become one of the most influential and inspiring figures in general and for the underprivileged classes in particular. That is how the idea of India took shape. All this is part of our history and cannot be wished away.

And now cut to the last decade of twentieth century. While US technology giants were scouting for locations to outsource their work, what worked in India's favour? It was again the knowledge of English language, though the constant attacks on the language had taken its toll in terms of standards.

Cheap and well trained manpower was also available in China and many other countries, and they had far superior infrastructure, but it is the much maligned English education that swung deals in India's favour.

US company officials were ready to overlook potholed roads and crumbling infrastructure to set up base in India. Now the Chinese are burning midnight oil to master English language and wrest the lone unique selling proposition (USP) India enjoys, and our above-mentioned political class is working overtime to hasten that process.

Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

Soccer World Cup: Indian Fan's Dilemma

The month-long sporting extravaganza, often described as greatest show on earth, has drawn to a close and fans of the 'beautiful game' look as bewildered and dazed as if they have undergone a roller coaster ride, with the ride operator failing to switch off in time.

Unpredictability and uncertainty is the beauty of any sport and reputations are not always sacrosanct. But during this soccer world cup, to use a medieval metaphor, the old order was hanged, drawn and quartered, and hardly any reputation escaped the guillotine.

It actually did not come without a warning. Even before the World Cup began there were faint signals of things to come, but not many were discerning enough to see it.

Soccer giants like Italy, which has lifted the cup a couple of times, and three-time finalists Netherlands, failed to qualify. Remember these were the teams which had once provided legendary footballers such as Roberto Baggio and Johan Cruyff.

However since other European football powerhouses such as Germany, Spain, France and England had made the cut and so had the South American giants such as Argentina and Brazil, it gave everyone a false sense of complacency.

For the Indian fans, who may never get to see their home team qualify for World Cup in near future, their favourites kept shifting as this World Cup was fraught with too many uncertainties, and its trajectory would make many of our turncoat (ayaram gayaram) politicians proud.

Before the tournament it is always Argentina or Brazil. These two countries form the default setting for every Indian soccer fan before any world cup.

It is that inherent sense of third world solidarity coupled with the attacking soccer played by these South American powerhouses. In the present edition of World Cup the demi-God status enjoyed by Lionel Messi and Neymar Jr in club soccer was an additional factor.

As the tournament progressed and it became apparent Argentina cannot go far, the Indian supporters backing Messi ported themselves to Brazil and even Uruguay.

I remember an Argentina fan lamenting how could a 'lowly' Croatia humiliate his favourite team in such a manner. Surely it is 'fixed', he demurred. 

Soon by the end of quarter finals Brazil and Uruguay too fell by the wayside and many purist fans of South American teams officially proclaimed "the world cup is over for us".

Some kept faith and latched on to England, after humbly swallowing the fact they were our former colonial masters. Familiarity with English Premier League clubs made them throw their lot with England.

To be fair Harry Kane and his men played much better football than the English teams of David Beckham and Wayne Rooney era, but their best was not enough against Croatia in semi-finals

Now it was the World Cup finals and guys such as Kylian Mbappe and Antoine Griezmann of France had become quite popular. And by now some of the Indian fans had mastered how to pronounce tongue twisters such as Modric, Rakitic and even Mandzukic, and begun to respect the killer instincts of these magical men in red and white checks.

Some rooted for the favourites France and many for the underdog Croatia, who had made it to the finals for the first time. Phew! Thus ended the chequered and shifting loyalties of Indian fans this World Cup.

And now it is Ghar Wapsi time - back to Brazil/Argentina and Messi/Neymar fandom.

Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

Social Media, Anti-social Fallout

The verdict is out. Social media is the stealthiest thief of time of this millennium. And the way it beguiles you to part with your precious waking hours, is probably the biggest daylight robberies of our times.

With eyes languidly transfixed on screens of computers and now increasingly smartphones, we keep scrolling up and down for something ‘interesting’ on social media platforms.

This happens immediately after waking up, while having breakfast, waiting for cab (if driving self when stuck in traffic jams or while waiting at traffic signals).

At office it hinges primarily on two factors - How strict your boss is? And how nosey your systems administrator? While at home it is the threshold of patience of your spouse and family members that matters. How much can they take it, as you remain glued to the screens quite unmindful of pending grocery purchase list, utility bills and the ticking time bomb on the domestic affairs front.

Eyes remain hooked to the screen to check who is ‘online’ with green spots next to their names. Messages are sent followed by a delivery tick mark. The wait for the ‘seen’ blue tick begins.

Once that happens, the wait for reply gets underway. Nerves are atingle once the three dots of typing awareness indicator starts dancing in a wavy motion on the screen. It is often followed by a reply, but sometimes the three dots keep dancing in what seems like eternity, with respondent either typing a long message or typing and ‘backspacing’ repeatedly.

The motivation to remain hooked on to screens is as myriad as human emotions, especially those related to the seven deadly sins. How many ‘likes’ or comments my latest selfie pout or hair cut has elicited. It has been nearly two hours since I uploaded that photo of me in that new dress, why no comment from my BFF yet? I put that photo of mine at Pattaya beach and guess what? 250 likes in half an hour!

At a more impersonal level the much polarized political atmosphere provides enough fodder to remain glued to the smartphone screens.

Rahul Gandhi, secularism, Narendra Modi, Arun Jaitley, JNU, Arvind Kejriwal, Kashmir, job reservation and above all Jawaharlal Nehru are some of the keywords that provide more than enough grist to troll crowd. Trolling ranges from downright abuse in unprintable words to rape or murder threats. A common thread running among all trolls is a deeply ingrained misogyny. Film actresses and women journalists with anti-establishment views are a fair game.

Another toxic misuse of social media is peddling of fake news, often described in polite terms as alternate facts. It started off as a mischievous phenomenon often to push forth or reinforce one’s own prejudice or to cast aspersions on rivals. Often beginning with a disclaimer ‘forwarded as received’ it used to end with a punch line ‘if you agree then please share’.

Some of the recent success stories of fake news gone viral in India include the one regarding the presence of a micro-chip in Rs 2,000 note, Mark Tully praising Narendra Modi and of course a wide phalanx of news to pillory Jawaharlal Nehru – accusing him of being a drunkard, womaniser and blaming him for almost every ill plaguing the country.

But now fake news is no longer an innocuous prank. It has mutated into a scourge and is even causing loss of lives. The current WhatsApp fuelled rumours regarding child lifters is a case in point. Dozens of people have been murdered across the country based on description and photos of ‘child lifters’ circulated on WhatsApp.

Media pundits often used to say that mass media promotes narcotising dysfunction among its readers and viewers. In simple terms people are so badly inundated with news and views on a particular issue that they become apathetic to it.

But present day social media is turning this premise on its head. It is often whipping up frenzy among a section of people to mobilize an ill-informed mob to carry out murderous assaults.

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An Ode To an ATM

I was seen as a game changer. I relieved Indians the tyranny of trudging to a bank every time they needed cash, be mindful of banking hours and holidays, and sometimes even the mood swings of the hassled bank teller.

Though the expansion of my name stands for automated teller machine (ATM), the HSBC slogan ‘Anytime Money’ gained greater currency in people’s minds.

In 1990s I was patronized mainly by the uber rich metro based yuppies with fat bank balance, but now my card (or cards) can be found in every second wallet and my footprint extends to small towns and even rural areas.

The clientèle has also become very diverse, ranging from ultra tech savvy to nervous novices - teens who just got the first ATM card issued in their name or elderly pensioners, who have been using bank withdrawal slips and cheques all their lives, trying to make a switch. The latter category often seeks the help of security guards or is chaperoned by ATM savvy relatives.

In short I have become so much a part of their life that an ‘ATM out of order’ or ‘no cash’ board is enough to trigger a panic attack among most of them.

Over the years I too have undergone many makeovers. Earlier I used to gulp in the card for authentication and gulp out only after the transaction got over. The worried look on the faces of customers after I gulp in their cards used to evoke in me a range of emotions - from amusement to concern.

The duration a card spent inside the machine used to be directly proportional to upward movement of anxiety levels among the customers, as there used to be numerous cases of cards getting stuck within machines. This had to be followed up by numerous visits to the bank and a brush with its bureaucracy, which many customers had long unlearned.

Another nightmare is of course the ghost transactions. The money does not come, but you get a text message of money being withdrawn. Until this anomaly gets corrected in statement, the anxiety levels refuse to come down.

When demonetization was announced the whole nation queued up in front of me, though I had very little to offer. It was as if the Indian public has been sent on treasure hunt trying to spot an ATM with cash in it.

Almost everybody became aware of the ATMs located in their own localities and even far flung ones, including those put up by nondescript cooperative banks in small lanes.

I was not equipped to handle the new series of Rs 2,000 notes and the humble Rs 100, which was generally looked down upon, suddenly became the much sought after currency.

It really took a while before I could handle the new Rs 2,000 note. But the new note was frowned upon by shopkeepers as they found it difficult to dispense change as the availability of new Rs 500 note was still very low.

Till the supply of Rs 500 stabilized, Rs 100 continued to relish its unexpected second coming, a throwback to pre-1980s, after which the inflation took a heavy toll and it lost out to peers with greater purchasing power.

Of late the governments and bankers have been pushing for cashless transactions with swipe machines and point of sale devices becoming commonplace enough to be found in neigbourhood kirana stores. It has also caught the fancy of millennial and yuppies.

But still cash cannot be wished away. The latest RBI data says that the currency with the public has reached a record high level of over Rs 18.5 lakh crore, more than double from the low of about Rs 7.8 lakh crore it had hit post-demonetisation in late 2016.

As long as cash is around, so will I. Unless of course some new high tech invention happens, courtesy artificial intelligence.


Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

Biplab Deb Uninterrupted

When Tripura voters inked their index fingers on February 18 to elect their public representatives, little did they know they were in for exciting times.

Decades of Marxist rule had made them averse to continuity and they were sick and tired of their fellow countrymen post pictures on social media of their chief minister Manik Sarkar as 'poorest CM' and patronisingly talk about his austere, Gandhian ways.

It was like having to make do with a daily 'healthy' diet of rice gruel or oats, while the rich aroma of biryani wafted into their homes from neighbourhood during lunch and dinner times.

It was becoming a bit too jarring and they thought they would rather have a more Epicurean leader who would bring 'development' to their sedate and dour existence. 

Although Tripura has a high literacy rate, the state lacks job opportunities and hence the problem of unemployment is very high. Moreover for the educated class there are only government jobs to aspire for, as there is little private investment. 

The images they used to see on television screens of technological strides made in distant metros of Delhi, Bangalore or Mumbai, symbolised by spanking steel and glass structures housing technology parks and shopping malls, was too alluring.

Hence when Prime Minister came calling and during his campaign tour dangled a new acronym 'Hira' - "H for highway, I for Internet way, R for roadways and A for airways", many began daydreaming that an El Dorado was around the corner.

Few days later the verdict came. And needless to say it was stunning. It was as Oscar Wilde once said "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

The early days were quite heady. The symbols of previous regime, the statues of Karl Marx and other Communist vestiges were pulled down with gusto.

A tall, youthful looking chief minister Biplab Deb, the youngest one in the state, with a sartorial taste that would make costume designer of Dharma productions proud, was sworn in.

This former gym instructor was always seen in his customary ethnic chic wedding guest attire, right up to dupatta. He gave the impression that at any moment he may shake a leg or two to a wedding song we see in Sooraj Barjatya or Karan Johar films.

It was a breath of fresh air for Tripura voters, especially the young ones, who were tired of chief ministers who looked like ancient pensioners and failed in providing them jobs.

True to his flamboyant style within one month of swearing-in he made a blockbuster opening.

He claimed that internet and satellite communication existed in the days of Mahabharata. "Internet and satellite system had existed during the lakhs of years ago. How could Dhritarashtra see through Sanjay's eyes? There was technology available at that time... Internet was there, satellite communication was there."

To be fair this is not the first time a politician has tried to airbrush our ancient puranas and myths to make them look advanced and tech savvy. This trend of waxing eloquent about our glorious past, which was later 'ruined' by Muslim and British invaders, has always been there among the political and intellectual class. But of late it has seen a spike with leaders of Biplab's own party in the forefront.

They have been spinning yarns regarding ancient India's technological strides in areas such as aviation and plastic surgery. However this was probably the first time someone has credited our ancestors with a large footprint in digital technology.

Barely had the social media and twitterati done with cracking up over Deb's remarks, through memes and one-liners, he fired his next salvo. This of course revealed his exclusivist mindset honed up during his long drawn association with RSS.

He remarked that Diana Hayden is not an Indian beauty, while Aishwarya Rai is, thereby revealing his aversion for brown skin and minorities. This ruffled many feathers among the feminist and anti-fairness cream activists.

Next he waded into another controversy while commenting on the vexing problem of high number of educated unemployed, who had in fact rallied behind his party during elections.

His first remark sounded like a trite PJ. What should civil engineers do? Join the civil services. Mechanical engineers do not fit the bill and hence should not venture into it.

At a different event he chided the youth for running after politicians to get government jobs and advised them to seek self-employment instead. Nothing wrong in that, but the choices he offered made many cringe – rear cows or sell paan.

Barring his own party men, who were left red faced and seething, his remarks vigorously tickled social media’s funny bone.

Then came the parting shot against those trying to attack his government. "When I was young... people used to say if it's government property, you can do anything you want with it... just as you do to a lauki. A vegetable seller brings fresh lauki to the bazaar at 8 am. By 9 am that lauki gathers so many nail marks, it cannot be sold. You either have to feed it to a cow at the bazaar or take it back home. My government cannot be like that, no one can leave nail marks on it. Whoever leaves nail marks, their nails will be cut," he said.

For Tripura residents it's truly nail biting days ahead, wondering where next will their boisterous leader train his loose cannon.

Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

Rape, Protests and Whataboutery

Rape has once again ceased to be a statistic. In our country it happens once in a few years and in its wake brings in a widespread convulsive outrage, which spills on to the streets.

Keyboard warriors call for eye for an eye retribution and as a template cite methods used in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, whom they otherwise look down upon. Some end up betraying their latent patriarchy, while others, especially the political class, end up with their foot well entrenched in their mouths.

Last time it was the infamous December, 2012 Delhi gang-rape, often referred to as Nirbhaya case. As the incident happened in the national capital, it instantly caught the eye of national television. Egged on by saturation TV coverage and continuous buzz on social media, the outrage was instantaneous.

Delhi's wintry smog laden streets got filled with protesters and the government of the day had a tough time dealing with them. Footage of policemen using water cannons and canes to control the restive mob became a staple fare of almost all TV channels.

In Delhi even those who had never taken part in a protest in their lives got busy preparing placards and heading to protest venues. All this put the government of the day on back foot.

Newspapers were forced to report every rape case that came their way and that too provide a good display instead of relegating them to 'in brief' sections.

Dinner table conversations started veering over the topic and parents of teenage children had tough time answering queries like 'what is rape?' or how different it was from molestation!

The pontificating anchors pointed out the victim was just like us, called her 'India's daughter' and cautioned us that it could happen to any of us and they whipped up a sentiment of blood lust among the masses. The culprits happened to be from the fringes of society with no political or social clout, the very riff-raff detested by the middle class.

They were put immediately behind bars and going by the standards of Indian judiciary the trials were speedy enough. The government also formed the Justice Verma commission, which recommended many changes in laws related to sexual assaults.

Gradually the outrage died down and the daily rapes retreated to its realm of statistics and police record books.

...

The current outrage, in contrast, is a slow-burn one caused by gruesome rapes in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir and Unnao in Uttar Pradesh, which acquired limelight months after the actual incident. In the interim period they remained on life support on social media through the posts filed by activists fighting the cases.

Both cases were different from the Delhi rape in one aspect - the alleged perpetrators were influential people with political and social clout.

Moreover since both places were located far away from the myopic TV cameras of our news channels they got little attention and the cases dragged on for months with the perpetrators almost succeeding in burying them.

In fact the clout enjoyed by the perpetrators at Kathua was so strong that there were street demonstrations in the district to defend them. They even unfurled the Tricolour and invoked religious symbols to defend the perpetrators. The accused included a temple priest and few police officers.

Even more appalling was the conduct of the lawyers who actively protested the filing of the chargesheet by the crime branch against the accused.

In Unnao rape case the accused happened to be a BJP MLA and hence the matter was in deep freeze from day one. The tipping point was reached when the Unnao rape victim's father died after being in police custody. Around the same time the contents of Kathua case chargesheet was published in a Delhi newspaper.

For national media this was its Rip Van Winkle awakening. TV channels could no longer remain in their cosy self-censored bubbles and ignore the protests breaking out in every corner of the country, mostly orchestrated through social media.

But having been embedded with the establishment for the past four years, they were not exactly comfortable in attacking it. Soon whataboutery crept in, where were these protesters when rapes happened in Assam, where is the money collected through social media campaign going.

One channel began an innuendo campaign against Deepika Singh, the valiant lawyer who has taken up the Kathua case against heavy odds, alleging that she was pocketing the money.

Moreover, the moment Prime Minister broke his silence expressing displeasure over such 'incidents', TV channel displayed the same kind of euphoria that a child shows after he gets back his favourite toy, which he had thought was lost forever.

For them it was a early ghar wapsi after a brief flirtation with anti-establishment hashtags.

Image courtesy: Facebook

Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

Nirav Modi: The LoU Guru

While the country was smitten by the pre-Valentine wink of Priya Prakash Varrier, a débutante Malayalam actress, her 15 minutes of fame and court cases in tow, a Diamantaire (honestly I was hearing the term for the first time) did the same at India's banking system and law enforcement machinery, whose snores were quite deafening.

Nirav Modi, hitherto known only to uber rich diamond jewellery buyers, has now become a household name and hot topic at dinner table discussions and esoteric terms like LoU, Swift code becoming more commonplace.

His uncle Mehul Choksi was not well known but his Gitanjali Diamonds and Gili were a regular fixture at newspaper ads and advertisement hoardings dotting the cities.

The TDS weary, Aadhaar tethered middle class were left gawking when the king size life of Nirav Modi unfolded on their LED TV screens. The repeated footage of this baby-faced man in the company of gorgeous women dripping in diamonds wowed many hearts.

The man planned his flight well in advance and cocked a snook at the Indian law enforcement agencies. It would have been business as usual had the erring Punjab National Bank official not superannuated or his successor had agreed to play ball with them.

And once India's second largest public sector bank dropped the bombshell, TV news channels had to break out of their self imposed cocoon of playing lapdog and guard dog to the government of the day. These channels and their social media cells buckled up their armour with hashtags containing words such as 'loot', 'jewel thief' and the like, and got down to the wild goose chase with each channel claiming 'exclusives' of their reporters having spotted them at Hong Kong, New York and other locations.

All of them evoked just a long languid yawns as they hardly looked convincing. It was like Inspector Jacques Clouseau trying hard to look as effective as Sherlock Holmes. A while later it came to light that many well known media houses had refused to pursue allegations against Modi and Choksi, despite many red flags raised by whistle blowers.

Now the uncle-nephew duo has joined the growing illustrious group of elusive scoff laws, who are well ensconced at various foreign shores. Ironically some of them are reportedly in England, the home of our old colonisers East India Company. 

Remembering 1993 Bombay Serial Blasts

March 12, 1993: It was just another Friday. But as the Churchgate bound local reached the terminus around 6 pm, there were only a handful people on the platform. Normally when a train enters the Churchgate station during evening peak hours the platforms will be packed with people, easily numbering thousands, waiting to pounce on it.

Those inside the incoming train follow an unwritten code of either sitting tight on their seats or huddle on the side of the doors to brace for a stampede from incoming passengers. Even before the train comes to a complete halt the intrepid and nimble footed ones on the platform perform some dare devil jumps on to the train and make a dash for a seat.

Once the train stops there is a flood of commuters darting towards empty seats and comfortable standing positions on the aisle, with some ending up with broken spectacles or bruised knees. After the commotion tapers off, those wanting to alight at Churchgate gradually get up and wade through the crowd towards the door.

However on this day the train passengers were spared of this drill of ducking kamikaze assaults. But as I alighted the train, the eerily empty look of a normally bustling station was not very welcoming. A thought crossed the back of my mind "Has another communal riot started".

The city had already gone through two waves of bloodletting after the three domes of Babri Masjid came down on December 6, 1992. As I reached the exit subway, I asked a cop whether there is any problem in the city, why there are so few people in the station.

He said a bomb has gone off and all offices have closed down. People left for their homes in the afternoon itself. 

I just couldn't get it and began to wonder how could one bomb empty up the whole of city's central business district.

Just then I came across a pavement newspaper seller and bought an eveninger Newsday, which is currently defunct. It was part of the Mid-Day stable, but used to hit the stands only by 5 pm, whereas other tabloids get printed and sold in the afternoon.

For the paper it was perhaps a big day and it had reported the blasts with a banner headline of bombs going off at various parts of the city, something that afternoon papers had missed. It was the biggest ever terror attack prior to 9/11. The 24/7 news channels and their shrill news hour debates, social media were still many years away in India.

As I went to the Air-India building side, where one of the bombs went off, the road was quite literally carpeted with glass pieces, as the glass panes in nearby buildings too had suffered damage. There were patches of blood here and there and the road was cordoned off.

Normally while going to that part of Nariman Point I used to admire and gawk at those high end imported cars and SUVs parked on the premises of these high-rise buildings. Remember those days the good old Ambassador was still ruling Indian roads. All these high-end cars parked in an around Air-India building were reduced to charred remains with their bonnets wide open and hoods blown off. Many of these cars remained there for months before they were cleared off.

Those were pre-cell phone days and telecommunication was a government monopoly. A landline telephone was a prized
possession one acquired after long waits, numerous visits to telecom office and greasing many palms.

Owning an STD booth was considered a major start up venture those days and many amassed a fortune out of it. Each booth used to have long queues, especially after 9 pm when the call charges were the lowest.

However on that particular day by 9 pm the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, which caters to Bombay area, (it had not become Mumbai then) crashed unable to bear the load, as everyone was calling their near and dear ones to talk about the catastrophe that had wrecked Bombay. Those days fibre optic cables was something you read about only in science journals, while the good old copper wires were the ground reality.

The subsequent investigation revealed that the explosives were shipped in from Pakistan through sea route and docked somewhere in the neighbouring district of Raigarh. Much larger quantities of explosives were stored there than that was used on March 12, as they were planning more such serial blasts.

Nearly 15 years later the same route was used by terrorists to carry out the infamous 26/11 terror attack on prime locations of Mumbai's central business district, thereby pointing to the fact that no lessons were learnt. 

The two waves of communal violence I mentioned earlier brought in communal fissures which later would get solidified and internalised among its people. Prior to that the city had never witnessed any widespread communal riot and probably the closest it came to was in distant Bhiwandi in 1984.

Stickers saying 'garv se kaho hum Hindu hain' (be proud to say we are Hindus) started appearing on the doors of apartments and at shop cash counters. So were red tikkas on many foreheads.

While travelling in trains the bhajan sessions became almost a regular feature, with voices more shrill than pious. Among commuters I would often overhear people derisively use the term 'landya' (for Muslims) and their association with 'do number ka dhanda' (illegal businesses).

All visible symbols and appearances of being an orthodox Muslim, such as fez cap, goatee and other sartorial peculiarities became very scarce in public places. Even non-Muslims who were sporting beards and even French beards felt that a discreet clean shaven chin was better part of valour.

Probably sensing this deep communal schism, a Parsi tea stall owner at railway station (I think it was Dadar) had put up a board, 'Yeh ek Parsi bava ki dukaan hai, Jai Maharashtra' (This shop is owned by a Parsi). During the riots there were cases of Parsis being mistaken for Muslims and getting targeted by Shiv Sena storm troopers.

While the embers of the communal violence and blasts died down, the process of ghettoisation got under way. Muslims who were feeling insecure in Hindu majority areas began to move out and vice versa. Mumbra a marshy land close to Thane creek became the new refuge of riot affected Muslims and the area mushroomed into a concrete jungle with little regard to planning and amenities.

Many housing societies in the city started embracing vegetarians only credo and it became more prevalent in upscale areas such as Napean Sea Road, inhabited by diamond traders of Gujarati-Jain origins and Marwari businessmen.

After they tasted success in turning their respective housing societies into veg only enclaves, it only whetted their zeal for food fascism. Thanks to the financial clout they enjoyed and the hold they had in the corridors of power they succeeded in shuttering non-vegetarian restaurants and meat shops in the entire neighbourhood.

The other day I heard a writer observe that Chowpatty beach is probably the only coastline in the world where you won't be able to savour fish-related dishes. The unravelling of much-touted cosmopolitan Bombay has surely come a long way.