When people are being reasonable, it tells you a lot about how they think. When people are being unreasonable, it tells you a lot about who they really are.
Our irrationality reveals our character.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Nexus, Ties and the Radia Tapes
So where are all the strident, vociferous TV news anchors when you need them to do unto themselves as they've been doing to others?
Admittedly, they've been doing a great job of snooping around in the corridors of power and unearthing scam after scam, blowing the lid off scandal after scandal and exposing corruption and nepotism in high places. However, the absolute and total black-out of coverage (conspicuous by its sheer absence on what could have been prime-time news) on the nexus between certain media personalities, certain PR agents, certain businessmen and certain politicians over the last week or so is astonishing. Do we have to get our updates on this topic from the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal and the Huffington Post and ... even Wikipedia?
Seems to me that India's free-thinking fourth estate has become an unreal estate -- a murky realm of toxic land-fills, where the truth about prominent news anchors and their shady ties with politicians and businessmen lies buried deep. As deep as the proverbial ostrich might bury its head in the sand when faced with adversity.
And we thought they were here to bring the truth to the people of India because we deserve to know the truth.
What a shame!
Monday, November 15, 2010
Probes and Probity: A Note to the Congress
Dear Congress,
Enough already! Your moves over the last week or so, to demonstrate your commitment to probity in the wake of the 3 recent scams, are way too sluggish and your lack of alacrity way too palpable to fool anybody but my 6 year old.First, Suresh Kalmadi, for many years the chief spoiler of sports in India and more recently, head panjandrum of the Organising Committee that oversaw the preparation for the Commonwealth Games and overran the original budget by a factor of between 10 and 15. Do you really think you've done the nation a favour by getting him, stubborn as he was, to resign from his position as secretary of the Congress Parliamentary Party? What is the connection between this position with his role in the CWG scam? What difference did his resignation from this position make to anything or anybody? Where did all that money go?
Second, Ashok Chavan, shameless usurper of entitlements bestowed by the nation on bereaved families of soldiers killed in the Kargil war. Do you seriously think we're going to be satisfied with his resignation from the post of CM? How is his stepping down going to change anything? When will those families get their apartments back? Or get equivalent compensation?
Third, A Raja, who imagined he was really a raja and so in his delusion, mistook the national treasury for his own personal till. Do you honestly believe you've achieved a lot by coaxing, cajoling and coercing his bosses to get him, stubborn as he was, to resign from his position as Cabinet Minister for Communications and IT? Isn't that futile, given that his bosses are still hanging on to the same portfolio, as though it was their birthright, and will in all likelihood merely replace the hands that have been milking the telecom cash cow up until now, with a fresh pair of hands? When will all that money be recovered and restored to the exchequer?
The order of magnitude of each of these scams is reportedly anywhere between, in US dollar terms, a hundred million to several billion. This is not small change we're talking here. And the people of the country have adequate reason to suspect that the individual made to resign in each case, corrupt as he himself may be, represents just the proverbial tip of this iceberg of corruption.
Your Standard Operating Procedure, when faced with public outcry against corruption, is to announce that you will launch a probe. In fact, you launch many probes, trying to make it look like more probes means greater earnestness in getting to the bottom of things. You know fully well that more probes actually make the process inefficient, with different agencies bumping into one another at every step and fighting territorial wars among one another. Clearly, this is what you want then: for the truth to get lost in the chaos of multiple probes and jurisdiction issues.
In any case, you should understand that probes do not ensure probity. Especially if the probing agency's probity itself is in question. You should recognize that the public has lost its confidence in the integrity and/or efficiency of any investigating agency in the country that you may call in to conduct a probe. The need of the hour is a complete overhaul of a corrupt culture that has been carefully protected and nurtured over all these years by people in power. Clean that up now! Stem the rot! Get all the guilty to book -- there are several culprits behind each of these three mega-scams of the season. And several more behind the scams that are not in the limelight at the moment. We want to see these fraudsters in prison, serving sentences that keep them away from civil society for a long, long time. Not merely removed from their incumbent posts for a few months, and then allowed to come back and continue to feed off the country's resources like vampires off their victim's blood. Frankly, given the nature, extent and significance of these offences, I think the guilty need to be charged with treason, not just fraud. These are crimes against the nation and its people, not just rounding-off errors in the GDP.
You know what you have to do if you want my vote. I am willing to set aside my concerns (though they run deep) over having a bigoted government run this country if only it promises to be cleaner than yours. The way I feel at this time, I'll take that chance.
Have a nice day.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Haley's Comment
When Punjabi kudi Nimrata Kaur Randhawa, born in Bamberg, South Carolina to Sikh immigrants and raised in the Sikh tradition, married Bill Michael Haley, she converted to her husband's religion and became Nimrata Randhawa-Haley. And in 2004 when she changed her career (from running her mother's fashion business) to politics, she became Nikki Haley. Because (she commented to press reporters) the name Nimrata Randhawa-Haley wouldn't "fit on a yard sign" -- IMO a phrase which, other than meaning what it says, is also a euphemism for acknowledging that her original name is not American enough to win an election.
I chanced upon this factoid (and many others) as I browsed through the search results for "Nikki Haley" the other day, when news broke about her winning the South Carolina gubernatorial elections to become the first woman Governor of her state and the second Governor of Indian origin in the history of the United States. The first, of course, was Punjabi munda Piyush Amrit Jindal who, inspired by a character from The Brady Bunch, changed his name to Bobby when he was a kid, converted to Christianity and was elected Governor of Louisiana a couple of years ago. And may someday even become President.
Indians rejoiced then, when Bobby Jindal won, as they did now when Nikki Haley won. And as they always do when someone from their gene pool makes it big, anywhere in the world, in any sphere of human endeavour, regardless of how far away from their roots those individuals have moved, or how far removed from Indian society those individuals were to begin with. What part India played in Haley's or Jindal's success story is anybody's guess, but for a lot of Indians, these are the sons and daughters who make India proud.
Several comparisons have been made between this particular son and this particular daughter of India -- both are in their late 30s, both are Republicans, both converted to Christianity before actively entering politics, both are second generation Americans whose parents migrated from Punjab, India ... and finally, both dropped the names they were born with and took names that "fit on yard signs". In many ways, this distancing of oneself from one's original name and religion marks the long journey from Ludhiana to Louisiana, in a manner of speaking. And some commentators have been quite openly sceptical about the motives behind these changes .
As I continued my research that day, what jumped out at me was the need to change one's cultural identity in order to be successful, and it had me wondering about many related things.
Like, if Nikki Haley's birth name was Ela Rai and her husband's family name was Krzywoszyja, then which name would she have picked to "fit on a yard sign"? My money says she would've entered politics as "Ella Ray" and thought up a clever explanation to it.
Like, why does Nikki Haley need a concealed weapons permit? The article in Washington Post lists 10 factoids about Nikki Haley and has a paragraph outlining the story behind each of them, except for this one about her concealed weapons permit. I find that quite intriguing, since it conceals more than it reveals.
Like, how come Barack Husain Obama did not change his name (to, say, Barry O'Bama) to make it "fit on a yard sign"?
Like, why did Barack Obama have to clarify that he was a Christian and not a Muslim? Why did Nikki Haley have to clarify that she was a Christian and no longer a practising Sikh? Here's a line from a Newsweek article about her:
"Haley’s religious background surfaced as an issue during the primary, forcing her to clarify that she’s raising her two kids Methodist, that the family regularly attends a Methodist church, and that she only occasionally visits a Sikh temple, when invited by her parents."
"Surfaced as an issue .... forcing her to clarify" -- sounds like a lot of pressure. "Only occasionally ... when invited by her parents" -- sounds like an apology, if not a plea for clemency. Such a pity!
Why is it that in America -- the greatest of democracies, land of the free, home of the brave, a nation built by immigrants from all parts of the world, a nation that promises equal opportunity to all and prides itself on embracing ethnic and cultural diversity -- why is it that in such a nation it is necessary to be a Christian before aspiring to become Governor or President? Or to have a name that "fits on a yard sign"?
*
As an aside, I also wondered how come Christine O'Donnell didn't see the need to change her name to fit on a yard sign, and how come she didn't have to clarify that she is a Christian. But then I quickly reminded myself of the TV ad campaign that ran through most of last month. In her case, there was another doubt that need clarification: that she was not a witch.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Minor Observation #3
Is it just me or are most things these days shallow, hard, loud and cheap?
In the old days, things were deep, soft and rich -- because we liked them that way. These days, however, everything sounds, looks and feels like an ersatz clone of its older self. Strangely, however, the technology to produce and consume those things is vastly more sophisticated today than ever before.
And before you start calling me old-fashioned or just plain old, let me remind you that this is about fine taste, not about age or about living in the past.
Take music for instance. Sound engineering today is amazingly hi-tech but the quality of the sound sucks, inasmuch as it lacks in richness of texture, tone and timbre. And when it comes to the music, today's arrangements seem to lack in range of instruments as also in depth of harmony. The few times I hear an interesting sounding instrument, or a fragment with good counterpoint, the piece grabs my attention regardless of what I am doing -- that's how rare it has become.
The music producer's goal these days is to capture, even if ephemerally, the attention and wallet-share of a fickle attention-deficit audience that is constantly hankering after the next cool thing. And what they produce has to sound as good on a small electronic gizmo with earplugs that reproduce that sound with remarkable fidelity, as it would on a 5.1 home theatre system. Most of that music is intrinsically tinny. It has become that way simply because tinniness is what it got from how we listen to it. And there's the preponderance of heavily accentuated percussion that can really push your sub-woofers to their limit and overwhelm your eardrums -- it got that way because of how we listen to it.
Back in the old days we didn't have mp3 players and we didn't have sub-woofers. We didn't need them; we didn't need five point ones. Just a regular stereo system -- consisting of a turn-table an amp and two speakers -- was enough. Enough to be able to enjoy the beautifully orchestrated music they produced back then. Enough to recreate the deep and rich sound of an acoustic double-bass that would let you wallow indulgently in the booming resonance of its vibrancy as it filled the room and enveloped you, only to be broken by the rasp of the bow drawn sharply across the strings.
I'm not sure they even use acoustic instruments any longer. They have synthesized electronic sounds that mimic the original instrument. Sounds almost the same, they say. Almost. For me, almost doesn't quite cut it.
And before you start calling me old-fashioned or just plain old, let me remind you that this is about fine taste, not about age or about living in the past.
Monday, November 1, 2010
New Rules For Fools #1
Inspired by Bill Maher (yes, I'm a fan), a man who says funny things seriously and serious things funnily, I've decided to start a new segment on this blog. Let me inaugurate this segment with the following new rule:
Description of New Rule: If a rule has become obsolete and irrelevant and is inhibiting the growth and prosperity of society, then drop it. If parts of it are relevant and can be made to work with some modifications, then change it. However, if a good rule is being abused by a bad ruler, then change the ruler, not the rule. If you can't reform the ruler, then elect a new one. And if you fear that all prospective rulers are also going to abuse the rule, then either try to become the ruler yourself, or go live in another society, or reconcile to this reality. And if you can't change the rule, can't change the ruler, can't become the ruler, can't change your society and can't change your mind, then shut the fuck up!
Enough said. Now, back to work. Or Play. Or Playing the fool.
Purpose of New Rule: This new rule is meant as a guide to people who are confused about when to change the ruler, when to change the rule and when to change the ruled.
Description of New Rule: If a rule has become obsolete and irrelevant and is inhibiting the growth and prosperity of society, then drop it. If parts of it are relevant and can be made to work with some modifications, then change it. However, if a good rule is being abused by a bad ruler, then change the ruler, not the rule. If you can't reform the ruler, then elect a new one. And if you fear that all prospective rulers are also going to abuse the rule, then either try to become the ruler yourself, or go live in another society, or reconcile to this reality. And if you can't change the rule, can't change the ruler, can't become the ruler, can't change your society and can't change your mind, then shut the fuck up!
Enough said. Now, back to work. Or Play. Or Playing the fool.
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