A 'Right' response?

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The Sangh siding with the 'Hindu terror' accused is deeply disturbing news. Notwithstanding the political overtones of such a move when elections are just a few terror attacks away, one would think that blast accused aren't exactly very cool people to hang out with. Not exactly for the 'right' reasons, this kind of political posturing has the danger of further deepening that communal divide the country is staring at. Now as a 'yuppie' (as a friend called me recently) one doesn't give as much as a secular/pseduosecular as long as the hazelnut flavour in the cappuccino stands out distinctly...you get the whiff! The BJP's claim of the Maharashtra ATS's investigation into the Malegaon/Modasa blasts being politically motivated however, puts a question mark on the impartiality of these investigations. The question mark auto-extends to the investigations into the more recent 7/11 blasts and by default the investigations - and hence....

Of Benazir's 'blasted' homecoming and India

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"There've been blasts in Pakistan. Benazir's motorcade is hit. 51 people are dead so far and hundreds are injured," said a friend who'd called from the newsroom in reply to a mid night insomnia SOS message. I instantly switched on the TV and usual blast footage flickered to life...wailing ambulances, bodies lying around on the road, smoke, fire and injured being rushed to the hospital. The screen was buzzing with updates and everyone was 'breaking news' including the BBC (they generally don't succumb to the breaking temptation). By morning a clearer picture emerged. I woke up to the news that Benazir was safe, a lot of people who had gathered to welcome her were not as lucky. It was what everyone rightly called a 'Bloody Homecoming' and could it have been bloodier? The death toll by now had crossed 150 with the number of injured at around 450. Pakistan was....

'SIM'ple Justice

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So Dr. Haneef is bound homeward. To return to a wife, who literally made the outbound flight possible, his cute newborn kid, who thank heavens is too small to remember this phase of her life and a country that fought no holds barred to get him out of that Oz cubbyhole. That cell, by the way, is way better than any Indian jail cell we house our Haneefs & others in. The Aussies went into a tizzy trying to nail a 'terror suspect' and went hammer and tongs to prove that the case was not as 'sim'ple as it sounded (I just love this pun). My guess is that they knew all along that Haneef was innocent. They either traumatized him just to get even with us for Laxman's 281. After all Haneef and Laxman, as any Northie in Australia/India will tell u, are fellow Madarsis. Or just to....

EVIDENCE: ‘SIM’PLY NOT ENOUGH

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So Dr. Haneef is bound homeward. To return to a wife, who literally made the outbound flight possible (more on her later in the post), his cute newborn kid, who thank heavens is too small to remember this phase of her life and a country that fought no holds barred to get him out of that Oz cubbyhole. That cell, by the way, is way better than any Indian jail cell we house our Haneefs & others in. The Aussies went into a tizzy trying to nail a 'terror suspect' and went hammer and tongs to prove that the case was not as 'sim'ple as it sounded (I just love this pun). My guess is that they knew all along that Haneef was innocent. They either traumatized him just to get even with us for Laxman's 284. After all Haneef and Laxman, as anyone Northie....

Sell-a-Brit-y Big Brother

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Saddi Shilpa... brave Shilpa...hasn't she done us all so, so proud. Aren't we all impressed? From the Pappu of the Nukkad to the Lucky of the Chowk...everyone is all praise for the black-belt-good-looking heroini. To keep the Indian flag flying in the land of the generally bully/racist angrez is a coveted achievement. To keep the flag flying high in the presence of the likes of Jade Goody (what a foul mouthed lout, let her come to India...we'll also call her a Paki) is even more of an achievement. And bringing in precious foreign exchange home while you are keeping the flag flying high is the real killer. But as we all know, the televised and much debated path to glory wasn't as easy. She had to go through the pain of defending an undercooked chicken curry and the agony of a badly pronounced name (Shipaaaaaa). This other than being called....

HANG…HANGING…HUNG!!!

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13-12-2001. It is more than a series of numbers separated by hyphens to make a 13th day of the 12th month of the first year of the new millennium. It's a date etched in the memory of a nation forever. It's on this fateful day, five years ago, that a group of 5 fully armed men stormed their way into the shaken, scarred and stirred psyche of a nation. A shocked nation watched the 'drama' unfold and let out a collective gasp. As I saw with a bated breath on the morning of 13th December 2001, LIVE if I might add, soldiers in the Parliament battling these five armed terrorists, explosives going off, bullets whizzing past soldiers & journalists, I knew this was not a 'normal' terror strike. Even by our standards - used - as we are to some ghastly ones every now and then - this....

The Rat Yatra

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The headline sucks...you might argue. But so does the idea of BJP's new twin Yatra. Ok not a good enough excuse for a bad headline, you might say. But then the excuse for this twin Rath Yatra is not very convincing as well!!! Read on. We in India are used to the idea of our politicians doing this regular yatra routine. While the pioneers of this political gimmick, NTR and Co reaped rich political dividends down south using the road show as a mass communication/interaction tool; Yatras have a proven boon-bane value for the BJP. The BJP politician is invariably found either on a yatra, or planning one. That is if he is not busy wondering what went wrong with the previous one or simply basking in the glow of that successful, glorious yatra. BJP leaders, have a penchant of making it a point, every now and then, to....

Varanasi: A Testing Tragedy

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I write this as unfortunate events unfold in the historic city of Varanasi. The multiple blasts in Varanasi, at the railway station and the Sankat Mochan temple have rattled the entire nation. At least twenty people have been reduced to statistics in government records and scores have been injured. An entire nation is outraged and is in a state of red alert. It is not clear as to who is responsible for the ghastly act but whosoever it is, doesn't want us to live in peace. Only a filthy entity can carry out such an appalling act and needless to say, the act is condemnable in the strongest of words. It won't be out of place to mention here that in our country, incidents of this nature have started to fall into a pattern now. A blast, media coverage reaching dizzying heights, red alerts, public outrage, politicians cutting across....

It's not over and it's not history

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There are moments in a nation's history that define its spirit and set the precedent for generations to follow. Howsoever unfortunate we are to have an open and shut case as that moment, our response to this blatant wrong will be a telling comment on our veracity and sense of righteousness. It's a relief to see all these reactions to the letter. The way civil society has reacted to this gross injustice has now forced the government to take another look at the case. The outpouring of support, cutting across all divisions, is proof that we as a nation won't take things lying down (thank God for small mercies). While we all stand united in our disgust at the way this case was handled by the Delhi Police a section of opinion talks about how we are being unfair to Shayan Munshi. Wouldn't we all have chickened out?....

The Kashmir Roundtable: An Afterthought

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The Prime Minister inviting all the parties involved in the Kashmir dispute for a roundtable to New Delhi is one matter. That the timing was a little suspect, come as it did just before the bush visit, the separatists boycotted it (seems like they will talk to God and only to God) and that there was no agenda for the roundtable (was it basic lack of groundwork or was the intention to go with an 'open mind') is another issue altogether. Of course the protests over the gross violation of human rights in the Kashmir valley also did not help the cause at all. While most of us will agree that it was a commendable gesture on the part of the Prime Minister to invite all and sundry to at least initiate a process of taking everyone on board so that an amicable solution is hammered out, but....