Wednesday, May 01, 2013

You are in China


The Chinese are here. They came quicker than you can say Jack Robinson. And there isn’t much you can do once the dragon skates its way into your lair. Newspapers say that they have camping gear with them and that there is little the Indians can do but watch them from a distance. Imagine an entire 14 Corps, who knows, perhaps 40,000 soldiers, forced to watch the ignominy of 30 odd Chinese troopers having baked beans with their little Xuéyuán, or officer cadet, in canned tins.

The politicians in Delhi are clueless. Nineteen kilometers is a long distance. If Kashmir University was where the Chinese are actually supposed to be, then Pampore is where they have gotten. That is Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO). Nineteen frigging kilometers deep into J&K and the netas are busy talking about coal shit. The CBI director, who looks like a broke pahalvan, was doing some abracadabra with TV chaps yesterday. No urgency about the incursion, it appears. Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and good with ketchup.

So as things stand we now have a situation in Kashmir. There is a fourth claimant. It used to be the Indians, Pakistanis and Kashmiris. Looks like the Chinese woke up a bit late to suggest: What about us? Is it going to go four-fold from tripartite? Omar Abdullah, the viscount of Gupkar, wants India to send a clear message to China. Anyhow the security and policy mandarins in Delhi are in no tearing hurry. They whisper, “but it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them.”

Meanwhile at an altitude of 17,000 feet the fellows from PLA have erected a little signage in DBO. “You are in Chinese side,” it reads. Masters of irritating arithmetic, the idea is to provoke the Indians. Kashmiris meanwhile watch keenly, looking at the irony of it all. It must indeed be amusing to see the two creatures, in an eye-ball-to-eyeball situation trying to leave their scent marking and territorial claims on a landmass, which is clearly disputed in the first place.

As Chinese choppers violate the border with impunity and hideous Molosser dogs give some canine company to the PLA, the Indians continue to grow anger beards. There is an old Chinese saying ‘May you live in interesting times’. It appears that these indeed are interesting times, of course with a dash of fuckwittage thrown in!

Sameer

PS: Since Pakistan bashing is flavour of the season, must one reason that jingoism was perhaps manufactured to poison our humanity.