All Aboard The Slave Ship
(This is not an original article from me and its source can be seen here)
Dear Citizen of Youngistan,
Hi!
You are the talk of the town these days, so, you know, I wanted to talk to you.
You are a student. You seek to be highly educated, but you turn a
blind eye to the academic terrorism that routinely cripples and kills
poor students in universities. You never acknowledge the privilege of
exclusivity. You strut about with the confidence that you will never
slip below the poverty line. You never know the pain of exclusion. You
would have never lost your home in a slum demolition drive.
On the other hand, you know, with self-assured grace you make up
India’s fanciful, much-advertised youngistan edge. You flaunt the fact
that you are one of the 120 million youth that your country will add to
its workforce over the next decade. You forget that this workforce,
devoid of any working class consciousness, shall only serve to launch
the latest edition of slave trade. Welcome aboard, dude! The Slave Ship
is waiting for you. If and when India’s economy goes into freefall mode,
you will be the first to flounder. Just remember that.
You also like to imagine yourself as a sexually restless youngster.
Sadly, diktats and death threats make you seek shelter in matrimonial
websites with drop-down menus listing 450 sub-castes. You blame this
casteism on parental pressure. In your hallowed opinion, caste should be
annihilated. You say that this is possible only by discontinuing
affirmative action policies for adivasis and Dalits. You have anecdotal
evidence to prove that reservation equals ruin.
You also think that India’s biggest problem is a boatload of
terrorists from Pakistan. You have not heard of Khairlanji or Gadchiroli
or Koodankulam; they are multi-syllable names of places that have never
managed to sneak into your sublime conversations. Ultra-ambitious, you
only enter lands that require your passport, your visa and your
commercialised skill-sets. You are India’s shining, swaggering export.
You have sold your soul for a song. You have sold your song for a
sophisticated accent. You have sold your sophisticated accent for a
sanitised silence.
Most of the time, you do not even speak your mother tongue. You only
learn the languages that pay: C++, Java, Python, English. In spite of
your mastery over two-and-a-half languages, you choose to remain
voiceless. Abjuring violence in the way of old souls, you renounce every
aggressive drive to assert yourself.
Maybe you earnestly believe in the development panacea. Maybe you are
bamboozled by its seductive, saleable divinity. You don’t realise that
government-style development is a devil that walks backwards, drinks
blood, feeds on corpses and fattens on millions of tonnes of bauxite and
iron. It goes by multiple aliases: Essar, Vedanta, Posco. Like its
cross-cousin democracy, development is widely believed to be a rumour to
keep rural masses in a hysteric state.
And perhaps, like your home minister, you take pride in being a
patriot, unaware of the atrocities of your army in Kashmir and the
Northeast and Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and far-flung African countries.
You are blase about how your tax money ends up being used for mindless
militarisation projects. Since “our republic cannot bear the stain of
killing her own children” (as the Supreme Court observed in the fake
encounter case of Maoist spokesperson Azad), the state has efficiently
come up with an arrangement of convenience in which the children pay for
each other’s bullets. The republic remains stainless and squeaky clean.
You end up with blood on your hands. Perhaps you sponsored the bullets
that killed seven Dalits in a police firing at Paramakudi last month.
Unrest simmers all over society,
but as you are extremely busy hanging out in some shopping mall, you
have no time to tell your government to behave. How can you talk to
power when you do not teach yourself the truth? You do not know who or
where the dam-displaced are. You have never shed tears for the victims
of Operation Green Hunt. You do not bother to know that hundreds of
Tamil fishermen from your country were shot dead by the Sri Lanka navy
even as the Indian coast guard roamed the seas. You know next to nothing
about India’s flawed foreign policy, not even the fact that your
government supplied arms and strategic advice as it actively colluded in
the genocide of one hundred thousand Tamils in Sri Lanka in May 2009.
You buy the lie that everyone who died in Mullivaikkal was a Tiger and a
terrorist. Why, even the discovery of more than two thousand
bullet-ridden bodies of Kashmiri youth in mass graves does not drive you
to despair.
Would you care to understand the pressing need for plebiscite in
Kashmir, or the separate statehood for Tamils in Eelam? You have no
sympathy for states that seek to break away. You are taught to think
that Telangana spells trouble. In your limited worldview, secession is a
swear word, self-determination is suicide.
And because you are impatient, you are in no mood to hear the stories of
these struggles. You cannot make up your mind, NDTV and cnn-ibn do that
for you. Therefore, you bleed before every heart-breaking,
hair-splitting reality show and news bulletin. You cheer for Anna Hazare
and glorify every Gandhian impostor. You are a self-anointed crusader
against corruption. Your militant attire is Fabindia chic. Your
deadliest weapon is candle-light. Your agenda is available online. You
want to bring back the black money your politicians made, but you lack
the guts to permanently put them out of business. Your soft-pedalling
will ensure that you are saved. So, you will never share the fate of
anti-mining activists killed in fake encounters. You will never be
forced to disappear. You will never be a half-widow. You will never be
killed in a police firing because your stylised protest will never
provoke the state. You will never be tortured, raped, maimed or murdered
in custody because you will never stand up for the bloody things that
count. You will never realise what it means to pay with your life. Your
craving for safety is the curse on your country.
You are seen only in stage-managed shows where you are called upon to
exhibit sound and fury like a fashionable scarecrow. Caught up in
consumer culture, you don’t care to educate, agitate, organise. You
leave it to the corporates to choreograph your consensual dissent. There
is Team Anna’s dream merchandise, and for every metro, a franchise to
rerun the same lacklustre demonstrations. When will you learn to attack a
system in order to alter its agenda? When will your protest be proof of
your pent-up anger? Will you come up with an activism that cannot be
appropriated? No other country awaits a revolution as eagerly as ours,
no other country needs one as desperately either. This revolution is not
somebody else’s business. Where is your characteristic killing rage?
Where is mine, for that matter?
I writhe in guilt as I write to you. My searing anger at you is
merely an exercise in self-flagellation; I lay no claim to a moral high
ground. Sometimes, I am afraid that I am you. My dreams explode but my
callousness kills me. I see in you every weakness that shows up in me. I
write to you because I believe that you could be the stronger one.
Perhaps you will heed the call to arms, some day you will don combat
gear. Some day you will step out of your selfish skin and speak up for
the people. Some day you will wage war against every injustice and
uproot every oppression. Some day your sacrifice will set us free.
Out of habit, don’t look for the ‘Like’ button as you finish reading this. Look for liberation. Learn to fight.
Tired but still not retired
After his rousing welcome on his way to the center of ‘The
Oval’, the batsman mapped the field, took guard and lifted his head to sight
the bowler at the other end of the 22 yard. There, William Eric Hollies was getting
ready for his glide to the popping crease. The mundane wrist-spinner was no awe
inspiring, neither on verge of any record equaling scalps nor flaunting any
impressive bowling stats. However he himself was oblivious that the following ‘roll
of his arm over the shoulder’ would catapult him into cricketing history. For he
was to castle the person who was on verge to etch his name in cricketing ‘hall
of fame’.
That batsman being ‘The Don’. Sir Donald George Bradman was
playing his last innings, with just four runs needed for him to catapult him in
‘100 runs average’ club. Thus he was almost destined to be the first and thus
far the only one to average above 100 with significant number of tests under
his belt. As destiny would have, it wasn’t to be. Bradman pushed forward to the second ball that
he faced, was deceived by a googly, and bowled between bat and pad for a duck.
An England batting collapse resulted in an innings defeat, denying Bradman the
opportunity to bat again and so his career average finished at 99.94.
That elusive 3-figure mark or not, Bradman is acknowledged to
be the greatest batsman to walk the earth. For his charisma would have heightened
no more, had he dispensed the piece of leather to the fence in his last innings.
In fact I believe that ‘ghost of 99’ has just added to his laurel. He could
have extended his career by another series if he wanted to and thus achieved
the coveted mark, but would he be respected as much then? My answer is a big ‘No’.
Sometimes calling it a day on a high is much more remembered than dragging your
feet to get past some psychological mark.
The genius of a person as per yours truly is certainly what
that individual has achieved over his career span and not what milestone he has
stopped at. At times, one can achieve much more and hog more limelight by ‘intentionally’
stopping short of something. Remember Mark Taylor? He made headlines in 1998
when he declared while on 334 against Pakistan so that he wouldn’t usurp the
great Don Bradman, thus paving his way in history. I doubt there would be even
a handful who remembers Matthew Hayden’s record 380 against Zimbabwe over Taylor’s
act of ‘respect’. Mark Taylor definitely could have rode past the Don’s score
to become the highest individual scorer for Australia, but his legacy would have
lasted only until some other mortal surpassed him.
Pardon me for sacrilege, but unfortunately we Indians have failed to hang our shoes at the right time irrespective of field of work. Be that grumpy octogenarian politician still wanting to be the prime-minister, those wannabes actor sons desperately hunting for that one box-office hit or that ‘godly’ cricketer still hunting for the elusive century of centuries, all of them have stretched their luck a bit too far. In the process all they have achieved is to just take some sheen off their illustrious career.
One might feel motivated to go on and on, but then you are no ‘lifeless’ Duracell bunny and life isn’t a 100m dash. It isn’t where you zip off at the sound of the gunshot just to halt on feeling the satin ribbon across your chest. In fact it is like a relay race which boils down to swiftly and smoothly passing on the baton to your compatriot, who would thus carry your legacy forward. You may have been a ‘torch-bearer’ of the team for long, a father figure to many, but when a child looks up to his father ‘his idol’, he expects him to emulate him one day. And though one has been at the forefront spearheading his folks still believing he has the zest left in him to lead, it is for him to sidestep and let the urderling step into his shoes at the most opportune time. With all the achievements in ones kitty there comes along most important responsibility to make way for the generation next.
Pardon me for sacrilege, but unfortunately we Indians have failed to hang our shoes at the right time irrespective of field of work. Be that grumpy octogenarian politician still wanting to be the prime-minister, those wannabes actor sons desperately hunting for that one box-office hit or that ‘godly’ cricketer still hunting for the elusive century of centuries, all of them have stretched their luck a bit too far. In the process all they have achieved is to just take some sheen off their illustrious career.
One might feel motivated to go on and on, but then you are no ‘lifeless’ Duracell bunny and life isn’t a 100m dash. It isn’t where you zip off at the sound of the gunshot just to halt on feeling the satin ribbon across your chest. In fact it is like a relay race which boils down to swiftly and smoothly passing on the baton to your compatriot, who would thus carry your legacy forward. You may have been a ‘torch-bearer’ of the team for long, a father figure to many, but when a child looks up to his father ‘his idol’, he expects him to emulate him one day. And though one has been at the forefront spearheading his folks still believing he has the zest left in him to lead, it is for him to sidestep and let the urderling step into his shoes at the most opportune time. With all the achievements in ones kitty there comes along most important responsibility to make way for the generation next.
Goan dy'Nasty' Politics
It’s that time of the year that every Goan must be looking forward to. After experiencing a tumultuous decade on the political arena in the 90's, the new millennium had dawned with relative stability. Baring a few unsuccessful attempts at toppling the government, the last five years had been uneventful; and I am saying this only in context to ‘the great political musical chair’ that we Goekars are used to. Blame it on the complex arithmetic of seats, incompatibilities of some of our political heavy-weights, the divine blessings of ‘Daam-baab’, or his turning nelson’s eye towards the misdemeanors of some cabinet colleagues, Digambar Kamat has been able to add his name to the Hall of fame of full-term chief Ministers of Goa. Quite an irony that he would find himself in the league of the visionary like Dayanand ‘Bhausaheb’ Bandodkar.
But with election dates declared, the Goans can enjoy what they have missed for past half a decade. The mad rush of the aspirants seeking tickets, their claims and counter-claims, the corner meetings and canvassing will be running thick and fast. Not to miss the ‘Chicken aani Soro’ parties and the life-size figurines of fat-bellied, gold encrusted candidates dressed in ‘political’ whites. The dangling banners off the electric poles and the giant billboards will soon be a commonplace.
But this election promises to be different. Not that the usual antics won’t be there, after all they have become an inseparable part, but the scale would be at unprecedented levels. Goa as I understand has historically always been a straight battle between two candidates (I deliberately didn’t say parties). During the period post liberation it had been dual between candidates claiming allegiance to the regional parties which were steadily replaced by the national heavy-weights. These elections promise to buck the trend and may turn out to be different, if not for any pre-poll alliance. With the other national party and the usual regional parties which mushroom only during the election times raising their heads, we can expect a multi-cornered battle. The deluge of aspirants powered by funds of their mining and construction business, often illegal, means these parties won’t be left wanting for nominees. What is most interesting to see though is that these elections may be less amongst the parties and more so an election amongst the political clans.
Not just son and daughter and brother and sister, veteran politicians are readying to field their friend, PA, son-in-law and wives (plurality intended ;)). With a single seat having the potential to turn you into a king-maker, it does harm noone to have ones kith and kin by their side when the political tug of war for the elusive CM’s chair begins. If not for the CM’s seat, they can surely land up with plump portfolios or/and the chairmanship of profiteering corporations, not to mention the power, perks and the much sought-after official white ambassadors (and often Camrys, Innovas and even Hummers too) with the red beacon.
To start with the gigantic leader and strongman (figurative too) who has been tirelessly canvassing for his daughter dear. As he likes to declare “not all of his children are interested in contesting elections”. Thankfully so, lest considering his not so small family there would have been hardly any seat left for others. Not to be left behind his brother, a sitting MLA himself, has been trying to secure his political lineage by demanding a nomination for his ‘social-worker’ son. His para-dropping his pilot son into the election fray might land him more leverage in the scheme of things post elections. And if all works in their favour, they would occupy an overtly significant 10 percent of the assembly.
Another over-ambitious first time MLA from the hinterland, who has inherited political genes from his long time politician father has been trying to up their tally in the assembly complex atop the Porvorim hillock. He has been rumoured to have been coaxing his wife to contest so as to increment their already sure-shot ‘father-son’ tally by another seat. Besides he has been getting ready his own army of toadies, some imported across parties, fuelling his juggernaut towards ‘Mahalaxmi’ at Altinho. For him, getting his foot-soldiers vindicated by the electorate might be a much less a herculean task than keeping his flock together post elections, when the poachers a.k.a horse-traders would have a field day. But until then his might emerge as the single largest ‘group’, thus propelling his chances of bringing the chief ministership back home once again.
From one former chief-minister onto other, but the game-plan doesn’t differ by much expect that this ‘patrao’ plans to field both his sons. Tainted or not, he thinks both of them have toiled enough under the 'sun' for the masses and its time for their ‘sun’ rise on the political horizon. His faith in the electorate and his confidence has prompted him to field one of the two against his bête-noire and the local strongman. Perhaps he wants to kill two birds with an arrow by adding to his number while getting rid of his nemesis.
That arch-rival is no political greenhorn though. While getting himself re-elected with a thumping margin, he has also secured another adjoining constituency for his brother to add to his political muscle. Both of them have successfully struck emotional chord with the constituent voters playing the regional party card and equating their win to the existence of their beloved party. The old guard and the party loyalists thus far have, unwittingly or no, played into their hands while trying to retain the existence and symbol of the old king of the Goa political jungle.
The other regional party, or rather its modern incarnation, hasn’t been as lucky in this regards. Virtually it has ceased to exist, but miraculously pops itself out of hibernation whenever the election commission rings its bell. Time and again, it has been used, reused, misused and abused by many mean politicians for their own good, trying to extract whatever two-bits of emotional calling it still has for a certain section of the society. It also acts as a watering hole for all those disgruntled candidates who or whose wife has been denied tickets by others. A la 'Ek Duje Ke Liye' scene at Dona-Paul, this 'smarter than fifth grader' hubby had denounced another sought after ticket at the eleventh hour, to take the plunge with his dear wife in the whirlpool of elections on this party ticket. Unfortunately for the duo while the husband was able to swim ashore, his wife wasnt able to stay afloat in the sea of ballots. Barring minor jugglery of seats I reckon this husband-wife duo are ready to sound their election bugle and also hoping this time to cross the finish line together.
Extremities do exist in life. While there are some who knock at the doors of some old party to get their ‘wedded’ wife a ticket, there are others who are floating new party entirely to provide a launch pad to his wife, wedded or not notwithstanding. This maverick has very grandiose plans to field candidates, many of them ‘wedded’ to him, throughout the length and breadth of the Goan paradise. It needs to be seen as to how many of them faithfully follow his footsteps on road to the state assembly.
With the fathers doing their bit for their wards, this matriarch wasn’t to be left too far behind in propping her son. This ‘Mummy’ of all like most of the mothers has depicted highest degree of sacrifice when she offered to bow out of her seat in love of her son. It needs to be seen whether this mother-son bonhomie would help pave way for son to become another ‘Goan protector’.
Though many have been able to field their blood relatives in the fray, the unlucky ones not bestowed with more ‘social-workers’ within the family have to look beyond. ‘Blood is thicker than water’ they say, but in politics it need not be always. While some ‘witty’ doctor who though in his sunset days of political career still seeks revival of his fortune through his son-in-law, there are also others who are willing to bet on their erstwhile personal assistant. And there are other ex-MLAs, ex-policemen, industrialists and mining barons who are all set to descend in the election ring with their kith and kin. It’s anybody’s guess how many of them will be able to walk out of it... 'triumphant'.
With the dynasties warring each other and the Alemaos, Dhavalikars, Ranes, Naiks, Pachecos and Monserrates entering the battle-field with their families en-mass, don’t get surprised if the elections results is reported by the election commission as below:
Alemaos : 4
Dhavalikars : 2
Naiks : 3
Monserrates : 2
Ranes+ : 5
Pachecos : 1
Brace Yourselves!
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