Shahid Azmi

On Feb. 11, 2010, I returned to Mumbai after a reporting assignment in Hyderabad. A rare weekend off with family, it was also my niece’s birthday. I switched my phone to silent mode to avoid work-related phone calls and tried to play host to a bunch of kids who were home.
At around 10 p.m., I returned back to my phone to find 50-odd missed calls and an equal number of messages. Anticipating some kind of news emergency, I pressed on the last message from a journalist friend, who asked, “Could you confirm if Shahid Azmi is dead?”


My friend Shahid was 32. He had been killed. He had met the fate that he had so often discussed over telephonic conversations, samosas at the Army restaurant next to sessions court or our last lunch at Café Samovar, the iconic restaurant adjacent to the Mumbai sessions court. “Let’s see, how long am I allowed to live?” he would often say, casually.


Shahid was gunned down by members of a lesser known off shoot of the infamous Chhota Rajan gang–a mafia group, whose relationship with a premier intelligence agency of the country was no secret. The motive for his killing was said to be his representation of the alleged co accused in the 26/ 11 terror attacks of Mumbai.


I first met Shahid in 2008. Journalists and writers fascinated him, which is why he felt compelled to study journalism after he was released from Tihar Jail in New Delhi. Fate had a knack of being unkind to him.


In the aftermath of the communal violence in Mumbai in 1993, Shahid had escaped to Kashmir and spent a few months there. On his return in 1994, Mumbai police arrested him, charged him as a terrorist involved in the Kashmir insurgency, under the draconian Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act. The act was repealed a year after his arrest on account of its blatant misuse.
To strengthen its case against Shahid, the police charged him with a conspiracy to kill radical Maharashtra leader Bal Thackeray and Farooq Abdullah, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir. The evidence against him was a confession he never made. It was the intervention by the Supreme Court in 2001, which had him acquitted of all charges after having spent six years in jail on the charges of being a militant.

UTV Motion Pictures Raj Kumar Yadav in the film “Shahid”, directed by Hansal Mehta.

On his release from the prison, he studied law at Mumbai University. In 2004, he began practicing as a lawyer in Mumbai courts, taking up cases of civil rights abuses. Over the next few years, he rose to be a revered figure among other lawyers and the legal staff at Mumbai courts. They mostly addressed him as Shahid bhai, the brother who could do the impossible.


His childlike face hid his burning desire to reach out and offer some sense of power to the powerless. He was a consumer of ideas, and that explained his insatiable love for reading; his cabin was stacked with Tolstoys, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and Vivekananda. A copy of the Koran was placed above one of the cupboards.


“I have had my phases — I have been an atheist, a believer, a man who would fast 30 days a month and offer the tahajjud (late night Islamic prayers),” he once had told me during one of our courtroom conversations. “Jail made me religious. They mock you when you fast and refuse to give you food at dawn for Ramzan.”


When he was arguing the case of an alleged Maoist rebel sympathizer, I could barely hear him during the trial; he was so soft spoken. But I could see the judge listen in rapt attention. This judge wept bitterly when I met him after Shahid’s assassination. Such was the impact Shahid had on most lives.
As I began to interact with Shahid, I sensed a growing disillusionment in the man who would bring hope to hundreds of people. He was bogged down by the silent witch hunt carried out against him by small-time underworld dons at the behest of intelligence agencies that benefited from putting an end to his efforts to represent those accused of being terrorists. In a legal career that lasted seven years, he secured seven acquittals, a rare feat especially in cases that police and intelligence agencies believed to be foolproof.


Shahid fought high-profile cases like the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case. He secured acquittals for several accused in by convincing the courts that the accused were wrongly booked under the controversial Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act, which allows confessions acquired in police custody to be used as evidence against the accused.


While addressing students of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, he would remark, “Injustice was not just in criminal cases; it was everywhere.” He was a guest lecturer on human rights at the Tata Institute. He had grown up in a poor family near the premier institute and aspired to study there.
Those days, I had been reporting on Faheem Ansari, an Indian man who had been arrested for alleged involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. Convinced of her husband’s innocence, Mr. Ansari’s wife, Yasmin, had been running around to get legal assistance for her husband, but had little resources. When she got in touch with me, I recommended several famous human rights activists and lawyers. They shared her belief that Mr. Ansari might be innocent, but justice had to come at a cost. Their fee was in the range of 300,000 to 500,000 rupees ($4,900 to $8,200).


Around that time, Shahid was gaining prominence for securing acquittals for those wrongly arrested in the 2006 Mumbai blasts. Yasmin met him and discussed the details of her husband’s case. Shahid agreed to represent her husband. A few months after Shahid’s murder, a Mumbai court acquitted Mr. Ansari.


At Shahid’s funeral, as Yasmin sat next to me, she asked me gently, “Why did Shahid bhai have to die?” I did not have the heart to tell her that this was a destiny Shahid had embraced.


I met Shahid a week before he was assassinated. He had just returned to Mumbai after meeting the Maoist rebel leader Kobad Ghandy in prison. Dozens of students in the interiors of Gadchiroli and Chandrapur in Maharashtra had been arrested on charges of being Maoist insurgents. And what was the most prominent evidence against them? They had stacked books on Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar azad, both revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement.


Last week I saw Shahid again—in Hansal Mehta’s biopic, “Shahid” which tells the story of the slain lawyer’s life. Rajkumar Yadav, the actor who plays Shahid, brilliantly essayed his role. It is a brave and worthy tribute to his work and courage.


Read this article about Shahid Azmi and have represented it here with due credits to the original author Rana Ayyub*.


*Rana Ayyub is a Senior Editor with Tehelka magazine.  

Excess Baggage

Lend a helping hand! Some luggage are tough to carry and helping hand makes life so much easier…. So went the classic Hindi lyric featured in the 1957 movie ‘Naya Daur’. The movie focus was not relationships but nation building – a common motif in the 1950s and 1960s – early days of independent India, but this theme could work for relationships as well.

 By the time you are 30, you would have had your fair share of emotional baggage from various life experiences. Some carry a light case while others have heavy baggage containing issues from unhappy childhood as well. In a society which is moving towards low attention span as well as low emotional capacity, which means, people are more willing to break away from relationships than deal with partners’ emotional baggage. It’s like we are constantly evaluating our partners, friends and people around us and a slightest chink in the armor is enough for us to walk out of our relationships (romantic or otherwise). I have myself been aware of close friends (from my college circle) not keeping in touch as one of them is going through hard times and other feels these hardships have turned him needy and it’s difficult to have a conversation with him.  I remember feeling the same... whenever we get together; this individual would bring up the topic about his hard times and would mope about it. We would feel terrible about it, almost guilty that we are having a good time with our life; but then we would try to cheer him up and take him clubbing. For those few hours every month or once in two months, he would have fun and forget all about his problems. We don’t claim we were doing him a favor, because for us he was still the 17 year old kid from college we used to hang out with. Our regular meets and reminiscing about college days were acting like stress valve to our friend - useful to blow some steam and get back to facing life with new vigor. 

 Make no mistake, we all have had our fair share of misfortunes / bad phases / family tragedy and / or financial problems when we have found it difficult to cope up and even more difficult to face our friends. You see, what we don’t realize is that the most difficult thing in this world is to show your vulnerability to others. Mostly, people end up insulating themselves from friends and family and try to fight the bad times alone. Add to that, the burden of selfish individuals around us who feel they are doing a favor by even listening to our problems, leave alone helping us solve them. This cocktail is hazardous and toxic. It triggers a viscous cycle of depression that does not end well. In the end, they are not asking for much, just a friendly ear. It’s a blessed feeling to be able to help someone and one must thank the individual for opening up about their problems to us rather than avoid them thinking talking to them drags down our spirits. It might seem fantastic, but each one of us has done this to someone close to us at some point of time or other- knowingly or unknowingly. I myself have done this to my own mother – something I will never stop thinking about or have never forgotten. This keeps me aware of such situations festering around myself and where ever possible, I try to be of some help. Maybe, in the end it will make up for the mistakes I made earlier. That is my baggage.

Getting back to the topic, now that we are aware of emotional baggage of people surrounding us, what we normally don’t understand is that we ourselves have substantial baggage of our own. In some cases enough to put off people around us. We do not realize it mostly because we don’t hear ourselves talk. Like we critically evaluate every new person we meet to catch the trigger words that point to possible emotional baggage, I wish we took time to take one hard look at ourselves and things we speak and how it comes off on others so that we realize, we are no different. If we still wish people around us should not desert us due to our emotional baggage, we must extend that benefit people around us as well.

So long…...

Butterfly effect

Events are largely value neutral. There are no bad or good events in life. It is all about what perspective we have towards them and how we mold our life around them that makes them seem good or bad. Similar events in the life of different people bring out different results and many a times we are astounded by the variety in the repercussion of similar events of different people. Consider an event of losing ones parents at a tender age – it can either make you a mentally strong person who can take on the world or the same event could break you down or make you take on substance abuse to cope up with the loss. Again the event is the same, different people react to it differently. There is a whole theory built upon how seemingly unimportant events lead to important events and change course of ones’ life. This is called as ‘chaos theory’ or “butterfly effect”. Many thinkers suggest that there is a set goal for every ones life and these events just help us draw a path towards the eventual goal. Some path are easy and some not so much but each event is strictly value neutral. Ever thought how your life would have turned out if any significant event had gone the other way? Would you still be where you are; doing what you do; would you still be with whom you are? Fascinating isn’t it?

Roopam was a regular 12 year old girl – bubbly and always paying pranks with the neighboring kids in central Mumbai. One day while she played with her nephew (brother’s kid) there broke out a childish altercation between the two and being the elder one, she slapped him hard across the face. That night, her brother and his wife confronted her and were livid with her behavior. During the course of the dress down, her sister in law made it clear that being an adopted child, she should be more careful about how she behaved and never forget that she is living on their charity. That information was too much for a 12 year old kid to understand and assimilate. It completely crumbled her world. All this while, she believed that the house and everything inside belonged to her, all of sudden she felt like an outsider in her own country.

Then came another rumor that her elder sister Rupali – a theatre artist was in fact her mother. Roopam was a love child who had been given to her grandmother’s care as she was not wanted by her mother. Her mother, Rupali got married to a small time film producer when she was 3 years old and had moved out. During her tender age, she liked to believe that Rupali was her mother. Being born to a beautiful actress made her happy. However, this was not the only rumor doing the rounds; some people said she was left to die in a garbage bin from where her mother picked her up. Yet another story doing the rounds was that she was result of a rape by a wealthy man. Even though she was living in decent surroundings that by any stretch of imagination could not be called a slum, the fact that everyone believed that she was an unwanted child hurt her a lot.

Even though her mother never brought up the topic of her biological parents, the fact that she got to know about her being an adopted child made her an introvert and a loner. Her mother loved her immensely and would often scold her for sitting quietly in the corner moping at a time when she should be playing outside. After her father died, their financial situation deteriorated rapidly. For a while, her bother tried to support her and her mother financially but he had his own burdens and pretty soon they were pawning off pieces of mother’s jewelry to get by. That phase didn’t last long either. Roopam felt miserable that she was not able to help the woman who raised her as her own child in times of desperate need. One day, a friend told her that people have private parties in which they invite dancers – who are paid very well. Roopam had learnt Kathak (an Indian dance form) as a young child and was very good at it. She took up the offer to dance at private parties at the age of 13.

  

These parties were her safe space. Roopam was always accompanied by her mother to these parties and most of these parties were in farm houses or penthouses located on top floors. Rich men were her patrons and they often brought along hookers or mistresses. Roopam was perfectly legit and began earning a lot of money. She had a sense of satisfaction that she was running the house hold. This went on for 4 years. One day, when she was dancing at a party as a 17 year old, one of the patrons came up to her and lifted her in his arms. She started screaming and trying to get out of his grasp but he held on. Everyone around her were laughing and having a good time. Even her mother did not come to her rescue. The man then let go of her and went and sat with the hooker he brought along. Roopam had learnt a lesson that day; the job was not as secure as she thought, nor was anyone going to stand up for her if need be. She got to know a few hookers at these parties who seduced her to get into the profession. Before she turned 18, she was hooking for rich men who liked young girls. This went on for another 10 years and brought in more money than she could have imagined. Due to her connections with rich men, she was never harassed by the police authorities.

One day her brother in law killed her sister and his children before committing suicide. He had run into financial difficulties and his films were doing badly. This event came as a huge shock to Roopam and she gave up hooking. It was not clear to her as to why. Probably she hated the city or ran in the same circles as her late brother in law.  She took up a job as dancer in Dubai and moved there. The job was very good. She earned 10 times of what she earned and did not have to hook up with clients. Every month she sent a good amount home to meet her mother’s expenses and also started saving. Then one day, her mother was diagnosed with cancer and she had to move back to take care of her. Roopam did not like the dance bars in Bombay as they were mostly dingy places and often had police raids. Many times she thought of going back to hooking for money but something stopped her. One fine day, the Government brought a ban on dance bars and she was out of work. So many girls whose livelihood depended on that income were forced to get into prostitution but Roopam did not. She had a considerable saving and she used the time writing about her experiences. One day, one of her former client who was making a movie, called her up and asked her to work for him as an assistant director. The money was not great but she used the opportunity to build network in the film industry and tried pitching her scripts. One fine day, one of her scripts was liked but the director asked her to flesh in more details so that a proper movie could be filmed. Roopam had finally arrived in the glamour industry – the world that always fascinated her. She went on to write many movie scripts and is currently a very successful script writer in the film industry. Roopam admits that she always wanted to be here and even though the path she took was a tedious one, the experience helps with her writing job and she can bring in that X factor into the script.

If we look back, we could think…what would have happened if Roopam has not found at age 12 that she was an adopted child? What if….. she had not taken up dancing? What if…. She did not get into prostitution? WHAT IF…  We always feel that events in our life mold our personality and many times make us give up on life and seek to end it. We blame events. Roopam was meant to be in the film industry no matter what, so even if she faced a lot of tough events, each one helped her move towards her goal. Each one of us is destined to achieve few goals in our life time but many a times we blame insignificant events to give up on life not knowing that each one of these events are helping us reach our eventual goal.

Credits: Events in the story are based on the life of Shagufta Rafique who recently gave an television interview about her experience as a dancer working in a bar. Liberal dosage of fiction has been intertwined with few real life events. I thank Shagufta for her candor during the interview without which this post would not have been possible. 

So long……

That big O

“Shhhhhhh… not so loud” was the immediate response from my girlfriend to whom I dared to ask, “Have you ever had an orgasm” during our fifth date. Call me naïve; I always believed that women knew more than men when it comes to matters south of the border. This belief came from the fact that most schools have sessions for young women at puberty- preparing them for the changes ahead. “What did I say?” was my response. I was watching her cheeks flush and her eyes giving me the “how dare you” look. I agree it was a bit bold of me to ask this question to a girl I have barely known for a week but I was not trying to get into her pants, I truly wanted to know what the word meant.

Dictionary describes orgasm as ‘sudden muscle contractions experienced by sudden release of sexual tension’ but I feel this is lame. For me, orgasm must be like God. Each one has experienced it differently and has different words to describe the feeling; while it exists in theory, in reality many have not seen or experienced it. Without further blasphemy, let me get to the point. Sex is such taboo in our society that nobody, let alone our parents, tells us that it could be pleasurable. The only “talk” that most of us receive from our parents is on the eve of our wedding day when they let us know “what goes where” to prepare us for our wedding night. Sex is a “duty” to be performed by the couple to bring in another generation – this was how my grand uncle described it to my cousin getting married. I can imagine his shock at the lack of knowledge of the grand uncle. The point being, if we hardly get to hear about ‘sex’ how would we know it could be pleasurable too? This brings me back to the question I asked my girlfriend – “Have you ever had an orgasm?”

When I talk to my friends I get various responses on the subject. While the guys describe it crudely as ‘the fleeting moment between ah and aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh’, the girls are even more confused at the question. Research on this subject – that’s right, there are people who research it, shows that most women only experience orgasm when they ‘take matters into their own hands’ and in majority cases orgasm is an utopian dream that never happens. Prudes be damned! These were not the older generation women who could mostly blame a bad partner, these were liberal women who have been around the block and are not afraid to ask what they want from their partners.  Yet, the O word seems to elude women all around.  What could have been the reason that men so easily achieve and women find difficult to achieve or have given up on.

The reason could be that for men, sex lies in between their legs and for women, it lies in between their ears. It’s all in the mind stupid! If you are not in the moment or the mood, the physical activity will not be pleasurable. As one of my girlfriends put it “Men don’t get it. Women are like elevators, you can keep hitting the buttons repeatedly, it wont make us come faster”. How true.  The facts is, men cant figure a woman’s erogenous zones and feel that anything could be grabbed and pressed for pleasure. I don’t blame them; that’s how most men get their pleasure and it never occurs to them that, women are not mere service providers they need the pleasure too. Consequently, men go about their business and women fake it to boost the male ego and partly because they don’t want to look incapable of having orgasms.

Of the many women who participated in the survey, 8 out 10 agreed that they fake it each time just so their partner does not feel inadequate. They shared that they later ‘finish’ in the shower. Many women did not even know what an orgasm feels like and most of them assumed it to a tingling sensation that one feels while getting intimate. The reason this never gets discussed is because each women feels there is something wrong with her and that is why she cannot feel it.  It is embarrassing to admit it while she sees the porn star climax in couple of strokes. If only women take the time to educate their partners about “how they like it”, they might be able to enjoy a fundamental experience and it will not seem so much like a chore anymore.

So long.....

They need your time

I have said this before and I will sure say it again, the most important gift you can give to the person you love is your time. Very often we mistake physical proximity as emotional closeness and the fact that we live under the same roof means “giving time to family”.  Clearly, the concept of emotions comes to us as second language. It is not a boy-girl thing here; we are all alike in this department. The problem is we are so wrapped around the tiny world that revolves around us that very often we don’t see the telling signs of a loved one in trouble or a family member hit hard times. In a few cases, they try sharing a problem with us and we are so prompt is giving our perspective that we barely listen to the problem leave alone the depth of its manifestations. As a result, when you actually realize that you have been overlooking a serious problem, it would have already caused irreparable damage.

Chuck is a successful lawyer working for a big firm in central London. Life is going good. He is married to a beautiful woman, Jill and having two kids. He is a hardworking guy who brought many prestigious accounts to the firm and was the “go-to” guy in firefighting situations. He was recently made senior partner and there wasn’t a thing he would want to change about his life. There is a saying – “if everything seems to be coming your way, you are possibly in the wrong side of a one- way”, it proved to be true in his case. One day all of sudden, Jill starts showing signs of nerve damage as her hands get into involuntary spasms during driving the car and she crashes into a tree. Though she is unhurt from the accident, it becomes a major suspense to doctors to explain the spasm as there is nothing physically wrong with her.  After undergoing all possible medical tests, doctors’ advise her to consult a psychiatrist. Chuck scoffs at the doctors and tells them that they are trying to cover up their incompetence by implying there was something mentally wrong with his wife. He takes Jill home and advises her to relax as this could be a mental fatigue. Chuck has a younger brother, Adam who works as an office clerk in a bank at Manchester. Adam is not as successful as Chuck nor has a bright career as him. He is more of person who has always lived in his elder brother’s shadow. Adam is not married and lives in a tiny apartment. The one thing that keeps him going is the fact that he has an elder brother who expects him to succeed in life. 

Adam is like the forgotten / unwanted relative to Chuck who drops by every Christmas and spends those 10 days with his family. Chuck has his own circle of friends and he would ensure that he does not take his family or his brother to his office parties during Christmas. It was not because he kept his personal life separate from his work life; it was mostly because his family weighs him down. Chuck was the hot shot, high flying lawyer of the firm and he felt that showing up with a family would make him look like any normal person. It would rob him of his sheen. With Adam, Chuck was even worse. Chuck felt ashamed of moderate successes of Adam’s life and would never let anyone at work know that he had a brother. He had carefully built this enigmatic approach to his private life. One day, Adam gets fired from his job and is so overcome by emotions that he calls his brothers office to find some solace and support. After many tries, he cannot get through to his brother who is caught up in meetings all day. The next day, he shows up at Chuck’s office to have lunch with his brother and talk about his problems. Chuck is furious at Adam for having shown up unannounced and refuses to talk to him in the office. Not wanting to create a scene, he asks Adam to wait in the cafeteria till he finishes his meetings and then they could have lunch together. Adam is happy to wait and is proud of his brother who always could be depended on.

At lunch, Chuck shows up with a frown and admonishes Adam for coming to his office and creating an embarrassing situation. When Adam tries to tell him that he wanted to talk about his problem and that he tried calling but could not reach, Chuck makes a big speech about how important his time is and success does not come easy or by asking people for help but comes from working hard to achieve it. In the end, Chuck writes a 1000 pound cheque to Adam and asks him to leave without embarrassing him further. When Adam says, he doesn’t need the money, Chuck gives him a hard look and tells Adam that he has always been a disappointment to him and the money was just to help him cover costs till he got another job. Then he walks away, leaving Adam with a cheque and lots of hurt feelings. Back home, Jill’s muscle spasms were getting worse and hampering her from doing basic tasks. Chuck tells her that he would not mind taking her to a psychiatrist if she stops behaving so neurotic that she has to fake problems to seek attention. Jill is put under psycho analysis to get to the root of the problem that is acting out in form of muscle spasms. After months and months of psycho analysis, the psychiatrist is unable to make any headway and one day invites Chuck to inform him that Jill is trying to actively block him from helping her out. He also informs Chuck that there is some deep routed anger or insecurity that is causing her to behave this way and advises him to talk to her about it since that was the main symptom to be treated if she has to get better.

Chuck plans a holiday with his family and decides to have the talk with Jill on the holiday and in a relaxed atmosphere. Couple of days prior to the holidays, Chuck’s firm lands a huge account and Chuck is advised by his managing partner to entertain the client during the long weekend. Chuck informs his wife about the change of plans and she flies off the handle as she was looking forward to the holiday. Chuck tells her that the holiday could be re-planned but the client was important to the firm. A week later he receives a call from the psychiatrist that he has finally understood the problem with Jill. Jill used to be a much sought after model, working for an expensive brand when she met Chuck and they got married. After marriage she moved to London to be with him. She had to give up her career and all the perks that came along because she wanted to give her time to the man she loved. Initially it all looked good, but she soon realized that she was not a priority for Chuck. Chuck had a feeling that being the man he had to provide for his family and grow in his career, he expected his family to understand this and adapt. Jill could not adapt to being second priority and would constantly make plans with Chuck which he cancelled more often than not to cater to the pressing demands of work. Jill could not explain to him how much she yearned for his attention and constantly felt guilty for seeking his time. The problem was simple; she needed his attention and time while he didn’t have the time to give. Being unable to communicate this and him unwilling to pick on the hints manifested the problem to such an extent that her mind was playing sick to seek attention. The psychiatrist advised Chuck to make Jill feel wanted again if he ever wishes to see her get well. The disease was in the mind and the solution was simple.

That evening, Chuck received a package marked “private and confidential”. Upon opening, he found a note from Adam – “I am sending you the good things and taking away the bad thing”. Enclosed were all the childhood photos and small gifts given by Chuck over the years. He was surprised that they were so carefully stored by Adam. At the bottom of the box was the cheque – which was written by Chuck a few weeks ago on the back of it were these words –“I just wanted to talk to my brother…..”  Chuck was suddenly overcome with emotions; he had always neglected his family and given precedence to his work. He owed his family and Adam an apology and to try to make up for the lost time. When he tried to reach his brother at his residence, he was informed by the landlord that Adam had committed suicide 4 weeks ago and while cleaning out the apartment; he had found a package marked to Chuck which he sent out couple of days ago. Chuck was trembling, overcome with guilt and emotions about how he treated his brother whose only fault was seeking time to talk to his elder brother about his problems. Chuck did not even get a chance to say a good bye to his brother Adam who always looked up to him.

Credits: Few events mentioned in the post have been picked out from the series “Mad men”

So long…..

The clique

Pollsters and opinion makers be damned! India is going through a strange phase where anything you say or do makes you a Sanghi or a Congi (derisive for RSS affiliate and Congress affiliate). Social media and main stream media (electronic and print) space for independent opinions is shrinking, and how! People have stopped voicing their opinions for the fear of being targeting or attacked personally. To be fair, the voices of the “sanghis” are more prominent as they have stolen a march over the “congis” in media management, I hope then when “Congis” play a catch up they don’t forget the words of their VP “keep the debate dignified and stick to facts”. One cannot have both sides barking at each other and most debates taking a turn south.



To make a good case, first convince yourself that you are a true son of motherland, and then convince yourself that the whole world is out to get you and you have to fight the whole world to achieve greatness. Also convince yourself that nothing about you is worth changing because – let’s face it- you were the last perfect creation of the maker. Now you have a potent and lethal combination of delusional and crazy – somewhat effective – but largely authoritarian politician. Let’s name him Modi. This man once believed that states should be allowed to make own laws as state legislatures are evolved enough and don’t need a ‘big brother center’ to make decisions on its behalf. Yet for some strange reasons, he does not believe that individual local bodies are smart enough to look after their interests and need the state government taking all the decisions. Contradiction? Hell- no!!! If you listen to him, you would see the logic and probably he would convince you that all these are necessary contradictions in a country like India. You see, the man can sell you anything. For long he convinced most of us that the Sun rises and sets due to his good governance model. It is a necessary quality in a politician to be able to sell ideas, but going to extremes makes the citizen feel foolish. The man has to know limitations. Some humility can go a long way in the making of a good leader.


On opposite end, we have a likeable, soft, visibly pampered and mostly untested politician. Let’s call him Rahul – ‘naam to suna hoga!’. Now, Rahul believes that he alone cannot make everything happen, it’s a rare admission of limitation by any politician. He also openly says that a country as large as India cannot be governed from Delhi; it needs to be decentralized to its villages and town local bodies – which make him a believer in federalism. He says, India is so uniquely divergent that the only way it can grow is by not trying to look for a “one size fits all” solution and rather give each region the power to decide what is best for it. Except for currency, armed forces and national flag nothing is supposed to be common within all constituents of India. He is neither all powerful nor claiming credit for all that goes good. He believes that career politicians are meant to win elections and technocrats are meant to run the Government efficiently. He is as un-Modi as anyone could possibly be.


If you look at the followers – or clique of both these personalities, they are largely similar. They feel their leader is the best (that’s a given). They believe the opponent is evil (duh!!) and they spend a large time talking derisively about the opponent than taking about their own achievements. Like I said, largely similar; however, the similarities end here. Modi followers are loud mouth, brash and invective. You see they have bought in the fact that the universe is conspiring against their leader and it becomes their job to fight the universe. So heightened is their sense of belonging that they more often attack their own party men who are trying to talk some sense into them. Rahul followers are exactly the opposite; they are polished elite with sound command over language and facts and are condescending to the opponents. You see, to them their leader is born with divine right to rule and they find it absurd and laughable that anyone could hope to take away that right. They are not loud or call others names but would make your head spin when they use minimal words to make maximum damage to opponent’s reputation. The fight among these cliques is worth watching, Modi followers forever froth near the mouth and making angry intonations and Rahul followers smiling and hitting the opponents hard with erudite ease. Another common element between these seemingly different people is the absence to tolerating independent voice. While anyone critiquing Modi becomes a “Congi dog or pig” almost immediately; anyone poking holes in Rahul’s theories immediately becomes a “sanghi terrorist”. It’s amazing how independent voices are being silenced by making personal attacks and abuse hurled just because that person managed to get his/her opinion about the opposing theories of governing India. Latest casualty was noted author and Nobel laureate – Dr. Amartya Sen – his personal life was abrasively discussed and a noted editor recommended that his Bharat Ratna (highest civilian award in India) be taken away. All because he said, in an interview that Modi is not his choice for being the Prime Minister of India. So much, for having freedom of speech enshrined in our constitution.


Post script: We have heard Rahul talk sense to his followers on many occasions to keep the engagement civil but we are yet to hear Modi tame his followers. In fact he eggs them on many times by using his speeches to make personal attacks himself.


So long…..

Food for thought

July 2013 – 65 years after her Independence, India finally enacted an ordinance (decree promulgated by the President upon advice from his council of ministers) to provide food as a matter of right to all her citizen. This is in tandem with the rights based approach that the present Government has been trying to enforce. Consequently, Food Security Bill (FSB) can be spoken in the same breath as MNREGA – aka right to employment and RTE – right to education to all children below the age of 14. Needless to say, we have market economists estimating the amount of money gone in the drain in a bid to make India hunger free in next 3 years. We have figures from a conservative 1.2 lakh crore to a much ambitious 6 lakh crore being touted as the “real cost” of this ambitious project. Then we have every person who has an opinion asking “can we afford this” with the fiscal deficit and all. Then we also have politicians terming this as “feel good” before the general elections to the Parliament of India scheduled in May 2014.



Each of these stories have a certain merit and we may want to delve into that in a bit, but can we deny that the FSB was need of the hour in a country like India where the top three reasons for mortality is hunger, lack of health care and malnutrition (not necessary in that order). As we are discussing the pro / cons of this bill we have so many women undergoing miscarriage / so many kids malnourished beyond repair / so many people dying on streets due to hunger. Access to nourishment should have been obvious choice to all citizens but we are starting with access to grains – yet most of us feel that these are doles and it won’t help anyone. Most of the intellectuals throw “teach a man to fish” argument to make their point. I am using this space to make a case for the FSB and why even the 6 lakh crore would be money well invested / spent – based on your bent of mind.


First, we have to address the costs argument. India has one of the largest public distribution system (PDS) and it has been in place for around 5 decades now. We often hear that there is rampant pilferage and re-routing of the food meant for distribution to local brewery or retail market and having just second and third quality grains made available in fair price shops for the consumption. Make no mistake; the main reason for having these fair price shops in the first place was to make nutrition available to the masses who could not afford retail purchase. When we re-route grains meant for fair price shops, we are actually staling from the poorest of the poor and providing them second / third quality grains – in a bid to make them realize that they are living on charity. In each of the 29 states on India, there is massive corruption in the PDS and crores of rupees meant to nourish the masses are siphoned away by few individuals both within the administration and outside and the end consumer is left high and dry. It would be a fit case to abandon PDS long ago, but for various considerations the PDS system continues. Maybe there are too many livelihoods dependent on pilferage and siphoning. It has become a mafia of its own and successive state governments either actively participates in the plunder or at best look the other way while this is happening. Yet, we have never heard any politician say a word against the PDS or dismantling this creaking system – mainly because in some form or shape its touching lives of millions and we could always improve to plug the leaks. I must say that in the past 10 years, around 10 -12 states were using the PDS exceedingly well and implementing the schemes in letter and spirit. So there is a light at the end of this 5 decade long tunnel. I am arguing a case that it should be mandatory to cost the bills and show revenue streams to cover the costs – we are presently opaque in this regard. However, the costs should not be an argument to scuttle bills that touch millions of lives for basic necessity like food.


The FSB will use the existing PDS system to provide a fixed amount of grains at a fixed price per person / month. This would be a right – meaning administration will have to beg / borrow or steal but cannot refuse grains to people demanding it. It would, in a way, force the administration to keep a tab on the pilferage and siphoning. You can no longer hide behind the argument that we have grains shortage or bad storage. It’s a right and if you don’t have grains, you will have to reimburse costs for the purchase. Unless the Government wants to plunder, it will be forced to keep a check on the facilities. Not only grains, FSB ensures lactating mothers and children under 14 cooked meals as form of nourishment. This would mean bundling existing schemes – which are run separately and delivering it to the benefit of common man. It would not be fool proof but it could be improved upon gradually and we need close monitoring and regular audits.


Let me take up the argument of FSB being a vote catcher or fiscally poor bill. Sure, any bill that ensures food or jobs or healthcare or homes would be a vote catcher and this would be the case anywhere in the world. The question would be, would we make a positive impact or just get votes? On that, my considered opinion would be to err on the side on benefitting the masses. It is not a dole; it’s a right and should be considered as one. No longer would we depend on the charity of fair price shop owners. About being fiscally unsound, any expense made by Government is called fiscally unsound so long as it would not get a return on investment. But again, Governments are not limited company running behind profits- they are societal trust meant to redistribute wealth earned in form of taxes to benefit the masses - the good of the majority. In any given year Government forgoes revenues worth upward of 4 lakh crore in form of many various incentives – be it free electricity, free land , tax holidays etc. given to corporate India and yet every day we hear new scams that involves these very same people who are trying to get out of turn benefits from same Government. Meaning, there is no end to corporate greed and yet we don’t seem to talk about it a lot. We count it as a necessary evil and offset it to the employment / revenues generated by these corporates. These are also sunk costs to the Government and have a per-capita impact on economy. Our economists enjoy counting every cent spent on the poorest and give a go by to the million showered on the richest. If we can sustain revenues forgone to corporates, we can always sustain the costs of FSB which is a basic need, especially when we have poor performance on nutrition indices. So long as we have even one person dying on the road due to hunger, we need a FSB that provides them a right to life – basic right ensured in our constitution.


So long……


PS: Author is not against corporate India and does not imply that all of them are corrupt. Instances are used to make a case for food security bill.

Water - the elexir

Paani da rang vekh ke… aakhiyan de anju rul de……. This is quite literal in the rural regions of India during the summers. The quality of water available is so bad that it’s not even fit for bathing let alone drinking. “The next world war will be fought for rights to water…” ominous words coming from Kofi Annan ex- sect general of the United Nations in the year 2005 did not ring a bell to most. After all, who of us would take water conservation seriously? For most people, the fact that 71% of earth’s surface is covered with water is a major point in the subconscious mind while they expend this natural resource. How often have we seen a tap / pipe leaking by the roadside and even bothered to stop and think of the amount of water that goes wasted, unused? Frankly, we don’t. For we know, come monsoon the nature is going to return the bounty to us in form of rain and all that we waste will get replenished in one go



I would not want to use this medium to profess but to give some perspective to the readers, even though 71% of the surface of earth is covered with water, less than 1% of this is potable – meaning fit to be used by human beings. Almost 2% would be the upper limit for water fit to be used by living beings. Meaning, all the animals, most of the plants and human beings have to subsist on 2% of the water available in nature. Given the rate at which the population is growing and the rate at which we are wasting water, in the near future we will run out of water fit for consumption. We could always think of desalinating the sea water and make it fit for consumption, but the cost involved are so large that we will have to ration the supply of water and probably sell it at a premium price. The problem is, I can’t stress enough on how dangerously close we are to a disaster and how less we are informed about the consequences. Every day we see people waste water mostly because they are not aware of the costs involved with this wastage. I would like to use some time in suggesting ways to conserve water for us and for future generations to come.


Afforestation: Trees are a natural way of conserving water and increasing ground water level. During the rainy season nature showers us with a bounty of water and most of it ends up in the drains and goes unused. If we plant enough trees in our locality and build communities which insist on green cover, we contribute in conserving water by the way of building ground water level. Most communities use underground water by drilling bore wells going as far as 300 ft. in search of water. We are paying a huge price by plundering the water table willy-nilly. Municipal heads and communities have to ensure that bore wells are not used for construction of high rises and for domestic use we don’t drill beyond surface water (about 30 ft.). Communities can invest for rain water harvesting so that they could use rain water for consumption post natural filtering process. This would reduce the dependability on ground water by 30-40%. Imagine the amount of water conserved within a city or a nation if we enforce these green laws seriously.


We could use simple change of habits and conserve up to 50% from our daily consumption of water. Using a bucket and tumbler for bath rather than shower saves about 3 buckets of water per shower, using bucket for washing utensils, rather than washing directly from tap, using the stop flush instead of flush tub saves up to 8 liter of water per use. Ensuring we double check the tap leakage and mend our faulty plumbing regularly saves more water than we can imagine. Simple things make large changes and we must always remember the adage “little drop of water makes a mighty ocean”. Let us do our little bit every single day at our homes to make a difference to this world. In our office space, the less we comment about it, the better. The lack of ownership of the office space makes us splurge on the resources and the various facilities that are mandated by corporates to its employees ensure a steady availability of these resources- despite the splurge. We could save on power consumption, save on water wastage from taps and water coolers, save on the water we flush in sinks to wash our coffee cups. Any mid-sized office space wastes about 1000 – 5000 liters of water (this is capturing the waste not the use of water). Imagine the amount of potable water a city like Pune or Bangalore with huge office space wastes in a single day.


The next time we splurge, lets us remind ourselves that while we are wasting water, scores of people in rural India are passing days looking for tankers to supply them water even for daily usage, let alone for drinking. While, it’s not my case that we should not live in comfort, but we could always look out for the less fortunate who do not have access to basic services which everyone deserves. The next time you ask, “Why should I save if I can afford?” remind yourself that you have to save because we can afford to save.


So long…….

Children of a lesser God

What is it about a child that makes us all have a soft spot? Maybe it’s the innocent smile, maybe the soft delicate features but it’s mostly about children being the future. Whether its individuals or countries, we would like to invest into our future generation and make sure they bequeath a safe and secure world which they will then handover to their future generations after they have made their contributions. Children depict potential too. Potential to change status quo, potential to bring a fresh perspective, potential to surmount challenges that the present generation finds insurmountable. There is not a country in the world, even ruled by hardcore dictators, that does not invest in its children. Above all, children are a hope that our tomorrow will be better than today.

Gun violence is not new to the US. It’s generally accepted as the collateral damage of defending the individual rights to own fire arms. The process of purchasing firearms (even assault rifles) is much simpler than getting a driving license, maybe as simple as purchasing a toy gun. You do not even have to register yourself as a licensed arms holder  – maybe the most they do is ask for a ID proof to check for US residency status. In case, a gun is used for violent means, it won’t be easy to trace the owner as the weapon is not registered. In 200+ years of democracy and over 150 years after civil war, the Americans are lax about sale and purchase of firearms. It’s a astonishing fact for an Indian (belonging to India, not the native American) who will not be able to buy a handgun, let alone an assault rifle (which is illegal anyway) without providing adequate argument for the need to own one – on the lines of threat perception. Even then, they are supposed to register themselves and get ammunition on need basis. In many cases, police can ask you for account of ammunition used and in cases they deem fit, revoke your license to hold arms on account of being a ‘irresponsible’ user. This in a country where, in most cases, Police arrive late to scene of crime. In that background, US seems the wild west to most of us, where one can own an assault rifle without a threat perception and buy ammunition on the same lines as one buys groceries.

The carnage in New Town, CT changed the perception of all of this. The image of a 20 year old mentally unstable kid getting access to an assault rifle and then going on to use that in an elementary school to mow down 20 kids (aged 5- 8) and 8 teachers was shocking enough to awake the nations conscience. Everyone asked the question, how far we can defend individual freedom at cost of such impending risks. Consequently, the President of the United States came up with proposed “gun control law” that would stop sale of assault rifles to individuals and issue firearms only upon strict background checks. The response was obvious; the killing of 20 kids of such innocent age is enough to shake the collective conscience of any nation, let alone the oldest democracy. It also moved me to see the President attend the memorial services of these kids and bemoan at the loss of so many futures / so many kids whose potentials could not be achieved because of the senseless act of violence. The whole thing moved me emotionally and am sure in each house that CNN beamed these pictures, people said a silent prayer and vowed –NEVER AGAIN. I do hope something good comes out of this so that no parent will have to lose a child / teenager to mindless violence.

While all this show of empathy is appreciated and understandable, I do not understand how the people of the world’s oldest democracy can be numb to the carnage wrought by American drone attacks on cities in Pakistan and Afghanistan on a daily basis. Being an Indian, no one knows the impacts of terror better than us. We face existential threat far greater than the Americans can understand. We are hit by mindless terrorism very often, sometimes so often that our Government is perceived as ‘weak’ in the fight against terror. Even then, the worst we demand is an all-out war against Pakistan to teach them a lesson or two on civility i.e. in the heat of the moment. Facing terrorism makes you understand the value of life and we Indians would never authorize our Government to send drones to bomb cities of any country – where it is impossible to ensure that targets are found solitary and precisely. Every time a drone attack is authorized, on an average 10-15 people are ‘taken out’ along with the intended target. These numbers are conservative because in many cases, dead bodies are not found or blown up beyond recognition. In almost all cases, children ages 7-18 years are among the ones that are killed or severely maimed by a drone attack. Consequently, if these attacks go on for another few years, we would have a whole generation of Pakistani and Afghan kids who are living with a physical disability or living with a scar of having lost a loved one to these “imprecise” and may I say ill-informed drone attacks. While the law provides countries with means of providing harshest punitive action on individuals/ groups who ‘wage a war’ or attempt to wage one against any sovereign, trespassing into borders of sovereign nations using technicality of unmanned drones to strike to kill individuals on basis of intelligence reports is a measure no one should support. It’s a shame that a country known for its “rule of law” has to resort to quasi illegal means to take out targets based on lurking suspicion. What is worse is that young children are almost always caught in the crossfire and dismissed as “collateral damage” or “budding child terrorists”.

In a recent BBC program covering the impact of drone attacks, during an interview a doctor serving in Peshawar government hospital [NWFP] informed the host of a disturbing statistic. Every month, thousands of children mostly aged 7-18 are admitted to the hospital who have to undergo amputations or have suffered irrecoverable damage to body parts apart from losing family members to this violence which has continued for past 10 years. One can’t help but contrast this to the moving memorial service paid to victims of the New town massacre. The children of any country are the same – innocent / aspiring and full of potential. Only difference being in one case a nation mourns the death of its children and in other case, they are so brutalized that they are numb to all aspects of humanity. In many cases, they don’t even have anyone to shed a tear on their loss. It’s a shame that we discriminate between children, while one understands the US mourning the death of its young citizens, the ones they killed in Pakistan and Afghanistan were as innocent if not more as the ones who died in New town on December 14^th 2012.

So long….