Obama for America

Finally after a tortuous journey and an intense stand-off, Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic presidential nomination. In doing so, he has not only done the impossible, he has made history. He shall be the first ever black to run for office. And if he beats the Republican fella John McCain in November – I so hope he does -- he will be the first ever African-American in history to do so.

There are a few quick things to be learnt here. The beauty of liberal democracy in action. Even if Obama was vying for the top slot within the Democratic Party, it was a real battle of nerves. In the beginning, all odds were stacked against Barack --100% rookie, a political nobody, a completely green guy, with no clout or pedigree to take on the mighty Hillary. And yet he beat her and how! Obama is black, a junior senator from Illinois, has a Muslim parentage and zero lobbyists to back him. All he possessed and used to a devastating effect in these preliminaries was – vintage Hope. And hope sailed him through.

Obama impressed all and sundry. He mesmerized the audiences. He was inspiring from the word go. The consistency with which he debated his opponents and came out tops was indeed moving. His foes pulled every dirty trick in the dirty political kitty against him but he stood his ground. Then his pastor said something silly. Remarkably he didn’t disown him but rather gave a stirring race speech that went down as one of the finest ever on racial relations. End of it, Obama actually looked the Change he promised.

And he went from state to state, coast to coast, turf upon turf, taking on the extremely well-heeled, well-funded, politically suave Clinton. If Hillary was popular among the elderly whites, the Hispanics and the women, Barack’s appeal cut across the board – white and black, East to West Coast, students and workers and more importantly -- the youth. People absolutely loved his policies. His promises. His energy. The glint in his eye and the hiss in his voice struck an immediate chord. He seemed the right answer to everything wrong about Bush and his mad-men.

In endorsing Obama one is also compelled to marvel at the beauty of American democracy. It is downright participatory and grass-root level. Each candidate is laid bare as he goes through the grind. It is about wits as much as issues. It is about integrity as much as values. It is compassionate and long-winded but worth every slogan. And it is fascinatingly lovable. Barack of course chartered the choppy waters and emerged stronger and more lovable.

Now he battles the other big genie – John McCain. Barack is 46. John is 71. It is youthfulness versus experience, as they say. Courage against arrogance. Hope against fear. Already camp John has filched Obama’s election motto and tweaked it a little for their own conservative campaign. No issues here. Barack, I hope, doesn’t mind petty pilferages. We have won myriad battles; we are ready for the big war. McCain?..Bring him on.

Wait till Jan 20, 2009. You’ll have a young man as the 43rd President of the United States. Unless they don’t shoot him, as Gore Vidal and Doris Lessing think.

Sameer

Juices

I’ve been bitten by the walking bug. I brisk-walk for more than half an hour every day. It has been two weeks now and I hope to continue with the routine. Surprisingly I seem to be enjoying the evening mosey. The weather was utterly pleasant all through May and I must have walked a few miles – in a long long while – and actually sweated. Day-1, I was content to perspire only a little. Finally I was breaking free of my mechanized life – car and workstation and press conferences and copy-editing and creating stuff – and into the openness of a verdant cricket field. And I loved the smell of sudor.

I soon conspired to bring Wasy and Aaby along. The trick worked. They too liked it. And soon we added aerobics to our walking/running regime. It is an open-air work-out and by the time we begin to stretch and spread ourselves it is almost early evening and inky. You can see endless stars – small to beautiful -- twinkle overhead and it feels like an act from some very romantic 70’s movie. The mise en scène is heavenly. Commercial airplanes fly by the minute and occasionally deflect your attention with their cockpit and tail lights. Reclining on the grass I often think of all the people in the planes and their mixed mid-air laughter. An air-steward ambling across the aisle with a tray laden with chilled juices. On ground – with a fellow on my feet -- I give-out juices of another kind.

Apart from the playground I’ve been spilling my creative juices all over – on glossy copies for ads to mundane finance stories for my org. You don’t get no time for other creative outlets – such is the cruel arrangement of the darned market forces. I’ve been also trying to crack some real good works but –frankly – I have struggled in my efforts. Time is a premium in our lives.

I drink lots of juices. I swilled a can of cranberry juice last night and it was amazing. I’ve reduced milk in my tea by 100% -- leading my band to accuse me of everything from elitism to stupidity – but I am unfazed and am actually liking the bitter taste of the tiny tea granules. With black tea, you can count the number of tea atoms in your cup. I tease my pals for missing out on the real taste of the brew. Expectedly they fume at me ;) and I love it.

Now the secret behind all this frenzy: I’m going to attend a string of VVIIP [very very incredibly-important people's] weddings. I got to shop for suits and shirts. Importantly I want to get into the smart-fit ones. I've always believed that style was more important than fashion, said Yves Saint Laurent, one of the greatest fashion icons of the 21st century. The legendary designer died this morning in Paris.

So the juices will continue to flow till the shopping day dawns.

Sameer

Rock the party

Now this is rare. As unusual as hen’s teeth. Our generation has seen no live performances. The famed Pakistani Sufi rock band Junoon – means madness in Arabic and obsession in Urdu – performed on the banks of the glistening Dal. A very enthused audience jived to Salman Ahmad, the lead singer, as he crooned hit upon another hit. In the VIP enclosure, Farooq Abdullah [an adrenaline high ex-CM] swayed to the hybrid tunes. The police chief soon joined Abdullah in the fun. Girls, in nearby enclosures, screamed at the top of their voices, cheering on the songster. Boys clapped wildly. The boatmen in the Dal raised their oars in a distance. Music filled the May air of Kashmir.

It was manna for the entertainment starved Kashmiris. 4000 people attended the much hyped-up peace concert. VIPs, children of bureaucrats, friends-of- the-children-of-bureaucrats, students bussed form various missionary schools in Srinagar and a footloose crowd. Security men -- comprising of the local cops [who help erect and maintain the barricades that separate the dignitaries from commoners], the CRPF [who watch over the vehicles of VIPs and can -- alas -- only listen to the tunes from the parking lot] and commandoes [who maintain a hawk-like vigil while the notables tap feet with the songster] – were present in great numbers.

Not surprisingly a great deal is being made of the rock and roll jamboree in Srinagar. It is being made to appear like a prelude to peace. Junoon -- the harbinger. The symbolism is already in place. A Pakistani band singing Sufi rock. The correlation is not too hard to fathom. Former bad guys turned good guys. Former Sufis to radicals -- back to -- Sufism. We just need to join the dots.

Connections apart, music -- no doubt -- is soulful. It is levitating. And no one perhaps needs it better than the Kashmiris. But one is compelled to question the timing of this little show. Kashmir is in a state of flux. We live in tumultuous times where cases of severe human rights violations have not been properly investigated. Where people continue to suffer on a daily basis. A dance jig by Dr Abdullah or a joyous shriek by some top official’s daughter, however shrill, at the Dal concert cannot be called peace.

They may briefly tell you that Junoon's music soared from the shores of Dal. They might as well add that it soared higher than the elegant poplars that line the high-security hotel lawns in which the band played. They won’t tell you that a few miles away hundreds of orphans sleep early – in the Kashmir Yateem Trust – because their parents were lost to the violence years. Their moist, unloved eyes deserve our respect. As do thousands of parents whose children disappeared over the years and no one – none of the VIP’s, none of the police chiefs, no judge present in the music concert – ever tells them anything about their whereabouts. Their parents’ agony – a sad legacy of war -- needs our sensitivity. They require our attention. And solidarity. Not the rock star – Salman.

Let me put this straight. I am not being sardonic here. I admit that there are many recreation outlets available to Kashmiris despite their daily brushes with violence. So you might as well argue -- why should I take offence at a harmless peace concert? Do we stop laughing because people have suffered? Or because they continue to suffer.

The answer is a big no. We must indeed try and live our lives full on. A music band complete with its gear – drums and guitars and microphones – playing in a strife-torn place, with a crowd swaying to them indeed makes great headlines. It also sends out a message. Everything is fine. Normal. There is nothing wrong in this manufactured message only that it is NOT correct.

Scratch beneath the glossy surface – the lush lawns, the imposing mountain backdrop, the legendary Dal, good-looking people, Farooq Abdullah's romps, rich brats hollering [they don’t talk in Kashmiri, by the way] – and you have the real picture. Old men humiliatingly frisked on the roadsides, village elders slapped in front of village gatherings, scores of war orphans, people carrying the sick in horse-carts with a lantern at night, dis-appeared young men, mass graves.

Scratch a little more and you have the real Kashmir. Villages with no electricity, cities with no roads, forests with no trees. Widespread corruption. No awareness for the protection of environment. A slow and painful death of the Kashmiri language in urban Kashmir. Ziltch intellectual curiosity.

Amidst all this a concert looks terribly out of place. Of course no one in the valley will tell you that they have a problem with these shows. ‘It brings peace here,’ some buffoon might tell you. Really, you struggle to say.

We desperately need a truth and reconciliation committee. We need to seriously atone. We need to learn to forget, forgive and forge a completely new beginning. We also need to be sensitive to the plight of so many of our people.

That is step one and we haven’t achieved it yet.

Rock concerts can always follow.

Sameer

Slicing a Forest

When you defile the pleasant streams
And the wild bird's abiding place,
You massacre a million dreams
And cast your spittle in God's face.
~John Drinkwater

Article 77 of the Swiss constitution provides for the preservation and protection of its forest land. Environment is accorded more importance than -- hold your breath: public works, communication, economy and even political rights in Switzerland. In the American forests there are areas designated as wilderness by acts of Congress. No human being can go for logging, mining, road and building construction and land leases in these zones. In 1999 when a road was proposed in a national forest, President Clinton swiftly intervened. He ordered a moratorium. Construction work came to an immediate stop. One of America's great central tasks, Clinton quoted Roosevelt, is “leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us”.

Contrast this with Kashmir 2008. I’ve posted on this issue previously and I don’t intent to be iterative but this is something – invoking both Presidents Clinton and Roosevelt – we owe to our future generations. Let me simplify it a bit. Countryside Kashmir is being sullied and a lawful body is doing the damage. It is actually a board that oversees a pilgrimage to the Amaranth cave in Kashmir. They work less like a board and more like missionaries-on-a-mission, much to the chagrin of environmentalists/conservationists. The missionary cave board has an ex-military man at its helm. He is also acting as the governor of J&K. And these folks are openly flouting law and wrecking the pine and cedar forests of Kashmir.

Sample these headlines:
May 23, 2008: Greater Kashmir, Kashmir’s major daily:
SASB ERECTS 600 LAVATORIES, 150 HUTS ON FOREST LAND
May 23, 2008: Rising Kashmir, another major publication:
After denial SASB undertakes secret road construction plan in Baltal

SASB is the missionary board with its official appellation. It goes on building hundreds of huts and lavatories in the forest area causing considerable damage to the environment. More than 600 lavatories and 150 prefabricated huts have come up in the recent days. The land, newspapers report, is actually forest land falling in Sindh forest division where construction of any sort is strictly forbidden until proper approval from the state cabinet, forest department and other competent authorities. The law says that no construction – even a temporary one – can be carried out in the green zone.

To its credit the board applied for government permission last year. However the request was TURNED down. Undeterred the missionary board went about its work, making concrete lanes and concrete plinths using brick. In the middle of a virgin forest! Nobody ever tells these tomfools that if they ever attempted this anywhere else on God’s green earth, they would be locked up in some dark dungeon to rot for the rest of their adult lives.

That is not all. The missionary board has been working on a concrete road, cutting through the forest. They have secretly built a 3 km road Dumail onwards. My friend Omar reports in Rising Kashmir that the proposal to construct the macadamized road for the passage of light motor vehicles to the Amaranth cave, situated at a height of 3888 m above the sea level, was made in 2003 on the directions of State Governor. It is a crime. It is crime squared to pity.

Kashmir's beautiful forests have lots of European hoopoes in them. These are green and tranquil realms. And they have remained largely untouched by human intervention. A principal defining characteristic of these forest lands is that they do not have, and in most cases never have had, roads across them. We should let it be. The heady pines are vital havens for wildlife -- indeed, absolutely critical to the survival of some endangered species.

Ours is nature unspoiled. A treasured inheritance which we all should be proud of.

We cannot -- and should not -- allow a missionary board to tarnish it.

That is the least we can do for our little dell.

Sameer

Magical May

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while now, never got around to it.
Suddenly it is high May and it is raining. I just love the steady patter of rain on my pane. It feels almost home. And refreshing too. Newspapers are replete with sloppy explanations, quoting the poor weatherman. Some f******* western disturbance causes the f****** hot air to go up and then winds from Kashmir blow in to fill the seducing gap, they tell us. And it rains. Kashmir, it appears, works like a shot of tranquilizer India cannot do without.

Glad tidings first. Obama seems certain to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination in the US. That is only if that spunky old war-mare Hillary would let him. Looks like she is going to go down fighting. It was exhilarating to see real democracy in action all these previous weeks. Day after day. Primary after primary. Caucus after caucus. Debate after debate. Vote count after vote count, it was sheer catechization. The way a candidate makes it to the top is perhaps the best example of participatory democracy anywhere in the world. [Though democracy is not always flawless, occasionally it does promote a dim-wit. Example: George Bush Jr].

This week also marked the 40th anniversary of the student revolution in France. It was the May of 1968 when a million students abandoned their lycee and university classes to bring upon a profound social change in France. The rebellious youth were disillusioned among other things -- with the Vietnam War, the old society of Europe and traditional morality. Charles de Gaulle [CDG], the iconic French president tried to crush the uprising. Brute force was used to put it down but the students held forth. Soon workers joined them. Intellectuals like the existentialist John Paul Sartre backed the revolution. Police soon swung into action and occupied the prestigious Sorbonne University. Tempers frayed. Protesters were arrested in their hundreds --including Sartre -- and swiftly charged with sedition. At this CDG intervened and had charges against Sartre dropped. ‘You don’t arrest Voltaire’, CDG famously remarked.

A million young men marched in Paris on the magical morning of May 13, 1968. De Gaulle’s administration shuddered at this open defiance of authority. What started as an impromptu protest had become a movement that now seemed completely unstoppable. At one point CDG had to go into hiding. The brilliant Tariq Ali recalls those nostalgic – and eventful years – as the street-fighting years. Eventually France changed forever. Religion, patriotism and respect for authority gave way to liberal morality – epitomized by equality, sexual liberation and respect for human rights. The world watched in total awe. Students in those tumultuous May nights plotted and managed to bring about a dramatic shift in values.

Closer home the rampant pillaging of fragile countryside ecology continues unabated. Everyday -- for the past one week -- whenever I check a Kashmiri newspaper online I am immensely saddened. There are daily reports of impunity with which the beauty of Pahalgam is being destroyed. Dirty CRPF make-shift tentments – where troopers in groups of 10's -- eat, sleep, loll and play cards -- have come up all over the lush dell. And as I mentioned in an earlier post, trenches are being dug for excreting, bang in the middle of a golf course this time.

Kashmir is no doubt a tranquilizer but does that mean we overdose ourselves on it.

Sameer

A week in the mall

In the days of yore, Indians had a different meaning of the word mall. ’Mall’ used to be anything but a 1 million square foot exclusive retail and ramble zone. If someone was really loaded -- in the pre-globalization days -- his money was commonly called Mall. And then globalization happened. The Gandhi-esque money of old coffers and deep pockets -- hoarded over many socialist years -- came in direct contact with the Franklin-smelling dollars of the capitalistic west. And lo presto! There was the New Age Mall.

Post-globalization we have become so used to the mall culture that one is likely to find his/her future wife/hubby in some cozy bistro or across a mall aisle. We are abandoning the hot, dirty, pan strewn, beggar-infested marketplace for the climate-controlled confines of the ubiquitous, fast mushrooming malls. Fitted with neon lights and glass and steel escalators and imported trees the malls come abuzz with the generation next Youngistan -- sales boys and sales girls and a whole new range of products – from Namibian butterfly berry crème for cracked heels to Swiss military knives for everyone. Everything and anything you need or do not really need is on offer -- at the swipe of a credit card.

It feels jolly good. The most satisfying argument is: The crowd is decent. Everything stacked [which they unstack for you, in real quick time] is beyond the purchasing power of the lower middle class and the toiling masses, so effectively the poor – and ugly India -- is shut out from the air-conditioned limits of the great Indian malling experience. The middle-middle classes come in their droves. Sari-clad housewives carefully stepping onto the escalators. Families of six. Mostly touch and feel. Check the tag and let go. They are happy hopping shops. Consequently higher the income ladder you go, more you shell out. Cutesy show-windows ambush your attention span. Big brands vie for your eye-balls.

Raj is 6ft2, a childhood pal and on the verge of crossing the dash between bachelorhood and wedlock. He asked me to help him shop for his wedding. Like a nice buddy I obliged. We raided all the major malls. Since Raj is a meticulous fellow, he went about checking the detailing -- from shirt stitching to color combinations to ankle measurements and I joined him in the fun. Enthusiastic salespeople went out of their way to help him get into a jacket or try another mega size shoe. While we were treated like royals on weekdays [when there is barely a soul in the malls], we had to jostle for attention over the weekend [when everyone and his doggy descends on the malls]. End of the eventful week, I too was poorer by a few grands. But that’s exactly what consumerism is all about.

In between an impromptu dance party, quickly set up a mobile ramp and broke into a jig. Nobody knew why but they danced their heart out! Then there is this rather mundane exercise of handing over your shopping bags to the guard – usually a dark skinny guy in blue uniform – and collect a coupon. Usually people bark to the dark guy [who must never have seen a school] in their acquired call-centre accents: Guard, keep the bags together. Gimme a single coupon for all my merchandise. Pronto! Often enough the poor guy looks bewildered. Not to worry though. The confusions are small casualties in a big-big mall.

Overall I’ve mixed feelings about malls. It is vanity but variety. Consumerist zones but comfort. The familiar sight of rich fat kids biting into chocolate-filled ice-cream bars. Heavily powdered females conceit writ large on their glossed faces. Over-excited teens. Retired army officers with curved moustaches in golf Tees. Swagger intact but slightly drooping. High testosterone north Indian males out there to splurge. Credit cards in hand, ready to flitter for an over-prized Kelvin Klein underwear. To be worn beneath low rise jeans, for the lapel to show. An occasional cleaning man, mopping the floor, breaks the decent crowd portrait. But the fiesta continues.

Happy malling

Sameer

Salman, the Salmon

Fact: Salman Rushdie is immensely overrated.

I find Salman Rushdie nothing more than a literary playboy. That he is a fine writer, I have not a dram of doubt about but I hate the way he is feted about in academic circles. The western fixation of hailing him as a fearless author par excellence is more political than scholarly. I understand why Indian news editors fall for him. One, because of Rushdie’s loathe-hate relationship with Islam [highly fashionable in post cold-war], he gives them great news-bites. Two, he has been in many ways the first of the major league home-born authors to catapult India to the International literary scene, with his highly readable Midnight’s children. Alas, apart from that one brilliant tome, Salman has written nothing extraordinary.

Needlessly, among all postwar writers, nobody has been more over praised than Rushdie. I, for once, have read most of his works. Massive portions of Salman are either uninspiring or inescapably boring. I however would be compelled to echo the opinion that the subjects of Rushdie's books are almost always fascinating, but his narrative has no real depth. John Updike perhaps sums him the best in the New Yorker: Rushdie as a literary performer suffers, I think, from being not just an author but a cause célèbre and a free-speech martyr, thanks to the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini. [What they will never tell you is that soon after the fatwa 44 out of the 45 countries of the Islamic congress called the fatwa illegal]

In essence Salman Rushdie is a product of his times. He was lucky after the publication of his stunning second novel ‘Midnight’s children’ and rode the waves of literary fashion. That fetched him a Booker. His first novel Grimus was largely ignored by critics and public alike. Shame, a book on Pakistan followed in 1983. It was mostly average. The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey (1987) was plain bad. The Satanic Verses generated a lot of heat in 1988. Death threats followed but the book had very poor literary merit. The Moor's Last Sigh came in 1995. The South African literature Nobel laureate JM Coetzee called it both palimpsesting [read confusing] and unoptimistic in a New York Times review.

Salman wrote The Ground beneath Her Feet in 1999. Pankaj Mishra, one of India’s most promising contemporary writers had this to say on The Ground beneath Her Feet: With its banal obsessions and empty bombast, its pseudo-characters and non-events, its fundamental shapelessness and incoherence, The Ground Beneath Her Feet does little more than echo the white noise of the modern world. Rushdie continued to dip his pen in the inkhorn and produce another unreadable in 2001. Fury. Subjective and thankfully slim. Next came Shalimar the Clown in 2005. A mix-bag of cliché. A poor half-hearted effort. Salman’s freshest produce is The Enchantress of Florence (2008). Olivia Cole dissects it in the UK’s independent. The prose, Olivia writes, is lackluster. Period. So while Midnight was a gem the rest of his oeuvre oscillates between mediocre to unreadable.

In between, because our ink-guzzler produced parchments of tolerable -- and intolerable --prose, the British government decided to knight him. I have no doubt in my head that the entire knighthood drama was a political event. Rushdie is a smooth operator. He possesses a mind matter that is part political, part literary. He supported [unlike most intellectuals] the US-UK illegal war on Iraq. No wonder Elizabeth II put her scepter on Rushdie’s bald head and uttered those magical words in her queenly voice: Rise Sir Salmon. [That is how they pronounce him: Salmon, which means a fish not his real name Salman, which is Arabic and means secure]. The flicker of the wand on the head was humbling, Salman said. The brilliant Tariq Ali correctly calls the likes of Rushdie belligerati. [Belligerent and literati]

Salman is still riding on the reputation of Midnight's Children, and the infamy afforded him by the fatwa. Most of his more controversial and mediocre books are not stocked in great numbers because there is no demand. Rushdie has been a has-been for two decades. To his credit, Salman Rushdie is a fairish Postmodernist writer because of the constant themes of coexistence on display in his many works. He aptly emphasizes the independence of local societies and human existence. That’s it. He is no genius.

The truth be said, I like his interplay of words, his tales, his magical realism. I abhor the shallowness, hypothticality and pretence of his canvas. I maintain he is Salman and not Salmon.

And he is hugely over-rated.

Sameer

The importance of being Azad

I am not surprised at the recent outbursts of chief minister of J&K. He is perhaps only stating the obvious. Ghulam Nabi Azad has called Kashmiris corrupt. He says they feign fasting during Ramadan, a charge carried by Economic Times [Apr 20, 2008], a much respected newspaper published from New Delhi but subsequently denied by the CM’s office. Another salvo italicizes that a lot of people have amassed an awful lot of wealth, which is mostly ill-gotten and illegal. Azad adds that were he were to open these files [which are apparently lying on his table], most people would find themselves behind bars.

Truth be told, the chief minister has stated nothing utterly shocking. The Transparency International (TI), one of world’s leading Corruption Perception Indexes (CPI) -- in its 2007 report -- ranked JK, at number two, amongst Indian states, in terms of petty corruption. It is there for all to see. For many years now corruption has systematically ruined the state and pervaded onto its very moral fiber. Despite the Islamic faith, which everyone in the valley seems to carry on his/her sleeve, faithlessness hangs around their no-so-fair necks. From Taxi-drivers at Srinagar airport to the corpulent babu in the city civil secretariat, everyone is out to fleece you. So Azad is not entirely wrong to suggest what he is suggesting.

My problem emanates at another level. Rather than threatening to drop names and open some clandestine file, Azad should lead from the front and go ahead and open the damn files. Stem the rot. Book the offenders. Let those charged prove their innocence in the court of law. If found guilty their properties should be swiftly sealed off and auctioned. Rather than going on and on about the fabulous wealth that all Kashmiris have allegedly made during the militancy years, he should get cracking on bribery and graft. May be he can start from his own office in civil secretariat where everyone and is dog is thoroughly corrupt.

Rather than looking at the solution, which I am sure is not entirely unachievable, Azad is trying to be pontific. Does it not highlight Azad’s cynicism rather than his competence? Is he a local pope or an elected administrator? Or plain cynical. In hindsight all the King's men [read Delhi's cronies] become haughty, aloof and preacy once they reach Srinagar. They behave like satraps of Delhi's northern-most outpost.

Azad should just zip his mouth and stop scoring petty political brownies. He is mostly considered a rank outsider. Originally from a far-flung village Soti, in Kishtawar [that falls in Doda district of Jammu], he is nephew to the ex-director of education [Kashmir] G. R. Bhat. The old educationist -- because he disliked his surname or may be he was a poet of some stripe -- dropped Bhat and took the last name Azad. Ghulam Nabi followed suit. Azad has been outside the valley for more than three full decades. That explains the extend of his disconnect.

In reality most people in Kashmir struggle hard to make a living, just like any other Indian state. And not everyone is corrupt. You'll find honest, kind people like everywhere else. The malaise of corruption began in the violence years. An immediate side effect of the armed struggle was a systematic breakdown of the official machinery. The fear of law was simply gone. Vanished into thin air. In Kashmir – even in 2008 – people are really not too scared of cops. They are often referred to as Poonda – in a rather derogatory sense.

With their traditional avenues of income – tourism, farming, handicrafts -- dried up, and limited alternatives available, the ambitious kinds resorted to making a quick buck. The demographics had clearly changed by now. A majority of pro-India politicians and their lackeys and kin began the plunder. They stashed away large parts of the money that came from the government of India. The separatists – most of Hurriyet and ex-militant commanders and their stooges made hay with the easy money that Pakistan smuggled into Kashmir. Ordinary people spoliated each other.

Morality is herd instinct in the individual, Friedrich Nietzsche, the German thinker-philosopher averred in the 19th century. May be it holds true in the 21st century Kashmir. Indeed someone needs to step forward and tell the truth. Rip open the can of worms. But only words won’t help. Deeds are needed. Azad could be sincere but his efforts belie him. He comes from a party that is often called the fountainhead of corruption. It is full of sycophants and me-too’s. He has never talked about corruption in his own party. Isn’t he part of the appeasement polity? Isn’t he part of the same corrupt cliché’, notwithstanding his personal integrity? Why does he want the security forces in Kashmir to carry on with special powers till the year-end elections? [There is consensus emerging in the centre, calling for stripping some of the military’s more harsh powers in the state]. What will fundamentally change at the end of this year? Does he want a rigged election again? Isn’t then he too morally shallow?

In any case no state, like no home, is completely perfect. There are always problems areas. In our culture, as head of the family, a father would rather try to fix the problem because he has got the authority. He can criticize his folks, rap them, throw them out. But he won’t go about town saying my family is evil. My boys are bad and my wife is a compulsive liar.

And he cannot afford to say that he is immune because he has been away all the while.

Azad at 59 can’t afford to be insensitive to his compatriots.

Sameer

What's in a name?

[Image: Tulip garden, Srinagar]

What's in a name?
That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
~William Shakespeare (1564-1616), greatest of the English dramatists

More than three hundred thousand tulips. Hundreds of exotic varieties in endless sequined rows. A proposed 90-acre golden meadow caressing the foothills of Zabarwan mountains. A riot of colors on the banks of Dal Lake.

To compliment the stunning landscape of Kashmir, they make everything beautiful in the vale. So we have a multi-colored garden, giving off fragrances from heaven, bang in Srinagar. The government claims it is Asia’s largest tulip garden, though I’ve my doubts. They are expecting lots and lots of footfalls as the tourist season unfolds. So far so good.

Since the myriad flowers in the garden radiate fluorescence, someone gave it a name: Siraj. That is Arabic for light. I noticed the dailies have started referring to it – in recent news items -- as Indira Gandhi garden. I don’t know how or why they chose to invoke Mrs Gandhi’s name. Azad, under whose watch the garden was inaugurated, is a balding congressman, whose only shot to fame is being in the good books of 10 Janpath. I reckon changing the name from Siraj – which ain’t frankly cool enough – to Indira doesn’t require much explaining.

We could have a more catchy appellation like ‘Million Blushes’ but I understand the associated basket of problems. The name won’t find many takers. Also it won’t resonate very well with the picnicking school teachers or their pupils. Methinks a simple name like ‘Tulip Garden’ was far simple and secular.

Most places in Kashmir still have ethnic names. There must be a couple of areas/roads where Mrs Gandhi’s name has already been used. I've nothing against the slain former PM but I'm not for overusing dead-names to the extend of boredom.

Kashmiris, historically, have not been too innovative in naming places. Everyone and his uncle – for example— calls the romantic stretch from Dal Gate to Centaur hotel, Boulevard road. Translated it means avenue road, which is wrong. It should be Boulevard. One word. The only fashionable places -- to my mind – are the more English sounding: Residency road, Lambert lane and Forest lane.

[Image: Cars going towards Residency road, Srinagar]

Across the Dal, the quick re-christening notwithstanding, the papers report that authorities are now edgy about the lack of expected visitors [local/non-local] to the garden. Any dignitary visiting Kashmir these days is swiftly taken to the garden and school children are encouraged [and charged] to visit the place. Since the life-span of tulips is short, the government wants to make most of it.

I once read of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the Victorian poetess:
And tulips, children love to stretch
Their fingers down, to feel in each
Its beauty's sweet nearer.

Sameer
April 2008
Srinagar Airport

In the name of God

Khuda Key Liye [In the name of God] is the first Pakistani film to be screened in India in ages. I’m so glad to see the offed cultural exchange betwixt the two countries finally taking place. Pakistani movies, as much as their soulful music, have started to blossom. I understand the fruits of labor from our naughty neighbor may not be as ripened as India’s but they are damn good. In the name of God is at once contemporary, provoking and eye popping.

The film’s USP is its topical, riveting storyline. The movies’ music is timeless. Shoiab Mansoor is a talented film-maker and he has researched his movie very well. No wonder the film has gone on to win many prestigious awards, including the award for best picture at the 31st Cairo International Film Festival, and became the highest grossing film of Pakistan of all time.

There is powerhouse performance by the dashing Pakistani duo of Shaan and Fawad. Iman is dazzlingly beautiful. Though there are occasional technical glitches – which you don’t notice in Indian A-list movies – Khuda Key Liye leaves you gently impressed. The script is multi- pronged but interconnected. It talks about the rise of modern day fanaticism and the role of vicious Mullah’s in abetting it. The film subtly revolves round the place of woman in Islam. In the name of God walks us on a canvas of misreckoning, sour-notes and misunderstandings between cultures. It is a turmoil we all can easily relate to.

We see a youthful Fawad falling under the spell of Islamists [who often confuse between religion and tradition] while his elder bro Shaan finds himself illegally detained in the US, post 9-11, where ignorant, rude authorities mistake him for being Al-Qaeda. Naseer-uddin Shah -- in a special appearance -- proves yet again that he is the finest actor in the subcontinent.

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It is as a bold statement from an intrepid film-maker, who comes from a very conservative stock. We need more films like ‘In the name of God’ to clear some of the cobwebs about what’s right and wrong about faith and how things like humanity and music transcend all barriers – religious and otherwise.

In the name of God unites. It entertains. It examines. It questions. It does not, however, pontificate. There was an ovation in the movie hall as the end-titles began to roll.

I – and my band of buddies – added to the chorus.

Sameer

Pakistan’s Day of Deliverance

March 24, 2008. The atmosphere in the Pakistan National Assembly was clearly emotive. After a long, hard and bloody journey democracy finally triumphed over dictatorship. The parliament chose Syed Yusuf Raza Gillani as the leader of the house by a huge margin, paving his way to take on the mantle of the most volatile nation in the Indian sub-continent.

Yusuf looked elegant in his business suit. He shook hands with everyone amidst the sloganeering and clamor. Bilawal Bhutto, the scion of the Bhutto family, wept quietly in the visitor’s gallery. It would have been his mom’s moment of glory had fate not decided otherwise. Syed Yusuf, the loyalist that he is, straightaway walked to the gallery and held Bilawal’s hand, amid roaring cheers.

Pakistan has entered a new era. Yusuf leads a rainbow coalition. Dawn succinctly puts it: ‘The coalition consists of the election victor PPP, which calls itself social democratic, its former arch-rival right-of-centre PML-N, Pukhtun nationalist Awami National Party and Islamic fundamentalist Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam. Urban Sindh’s MQM, which is still out of the coalition, is ethnic-based.’ In simple words the new leader has to hold together a flock of disparate views and ideas. The name of the game is accommodation.

Syed sahib, also called Makhdoom Yusuf, sounds very much a Bhutto guy. In his short speech he promised a UN enquiry into Ms Bhutto’s assassination [to a thunderous applause], a national apology for Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s judicial execution [another applause]. To please the Nawaz camp, he called for restoration of the higher judiciary [standing ovation]. How times change? They say if you don't create change, change will create you. Poor President Musharraf!

In the end, March 24 may well be remembered as Pakistan’s day of redemption. The country has recently witnessed mayhem. Pakistan has been through hell and back. It has been a rat’s nest where suicide bombings became a rage. Judiciary was kicked around. The media was gagged. Nawaz was publicly humiliated. Late Benazir Bhutto’s security was compromised. A change of guard can be expected to greatly emolliate the badly bruised soul of Pakistan.

It is redemption time for everything dear and beautiful this country has lost in the last one decade. It is also time to heal some deep and dark wounds. There is an impelling need to make the institutions strong and democratic. This is the time for love and peace. Education and upliftment. Some introspection and generous forgiveness. Atonement.

Pakistan’s new leaders should not squander this moment.

Sameer

Rants of a Racist

Racial superiority is a mere pigment of the imagination

Geert Wilders is a Dutch right wing parliamentarian. Though brought up as a catholic, he became an atheist. Wilders has made a reputation for his racist slurs on Islam. He wants the Holy Qu’ran to be banned in the Netherlands. He has also equated the Qu’ran with Adolph Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’. In past interviews he compared the Prophet Muhammad to the German dictator. Not content with his hitherto local hate-Islam campaign, Geert is now on the verge of a world wide release of a 15-minute anti-Qu’ran movie called Fitna [Arabic for civil strife]. The film links verses from the Qu'ran to violence.

Tempers are running high. Holland has a sizeable Muslim population. Of the Netherlands’16.5 million residents, a million are Muslim. News about the film has fueled ethnic tension in the country and sparked anger in the Muslim world. Threats have started flying. For record no Dutch TV station is willing to air the highly provocative film. Undeterred, Wilders decided to release the movie on Internet. March 23, even its US hosting service, Network Solutions temporarily suspended the website.

Geert Wilders is a very confrontational character. A nut-case racist, who colors his hair extreme platinum blond, he gained early notoriety because of his rants against immigrants and Islam. His party PVV [Freedom Party] has managed to win 9 seats [in the 150 seat parliament] owing to his fierce fascist diatribe. In his new role as the film director, Geert wants to dismiss Qu’ran – a book loved by 1.5 billion people world over – in less than 15 minutes. It remains to be seen how. New York Times adds …’some here have started wondering if it is as fake as his hair color’.

Whatever the ulterior designs swirling in his hate-filled head, Wilders is no more than a rank opportunist with absolutely no respect for other beliefs. As a commentator observes, "while everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, and even to voice out that opinion, there is a responsibility when [one] tends to bring out the debate to the public. Else we will just turn into barbaric bunch that throw insults to each other. But launching a film where he [Geert] knew would be perceived as an open insult by millions of people is really showing his selfish motives."

Geert Wilders has made a career for himself on a very hateful, racist ideology. Day before yesterday, not withstanding his loathsome brand of politics, thousands of people marched to Amsterdam to protest against his latest anti-Islamic rhetoric. ‘We want to show that there's something other than Wilders,' Rene Danen, chairman of anti-racism group Nederland Bekent Kleur, [The Netherlands Shows Its Colors] said on the occasion. A majority of Dutch people want a colorful society. It is people like Geert who let them down. And also create an ugly schism with other cultures and faiths, that he doesn’t seem to have the mental faculties to understand. That is incidentally the first signs of any feeble mind. It cannot understand, it can only afford to hate.

Geert, by the bye, supports his claims citing the now misused cliché Freedom of Expression. They use it all the time, as a European readymade tool. [Freedom of speech goes to dogs when Prof David Irving suggests Holocaust revision. He was jailed in Austria in 2006 for saying so]. Wilders ‘freedom of speech’ crosses the line, as Lairedon points out in his excellent blog, and turns into discrimination thus violating Article 1 of the Dutch Constitution where discrimination of people on their race, religion, political view, gender, sexual orientation or any other ground is prohibited.

I reckon Muslims have got to be a little thick skinned and let such things pass. They shouldn't construe this as yet another insult from the western civilisation. The world has always witnessed some really awful xenophobes, intolerant and narrow-minded bigots. Geert has just added his name to the infamous list.

The likes of him are relegated to the trash-bin on history, rather ingloriously.

Sameer

Friend of Friends

So after a rather exasperating wait, we finally have a new prime minister in Pakistan. The dude is Syed Yusuf Raza Gillani. He is 55, a Saraiki [ethnic group from South-eastern Pakistan, especially in and around the area of the former princely state of Bahawalpur; Saraikis produce most of Pakistan’s wheat and cotton]-Punjabi from Multan and a pretty influential player in Pakistan’s power equation. An ex-speaker of the Pakistan parliament, Syed sahib was jailed for five long years for misusing his authority while he was the speaker.

Mr Gillani’s rise to fame is largely due to his closeness to Asif Zardari. Asif is a much flamboyant character and is known for throwing legendary social parties and lavishly hosting his close pals. So he eventually cherry picked Syed sahib [an ex-Nawaz guy] over PPP icons like Makhdoom Fahim and Aitzaz Ahsan.

Asif’s friends vouch for his famed friendship. When Gillani was being sentenced to six years of imprisonment, Asif who was present in the Rawalpindi court room [in connection with one of his own corruption cases, all of which have now been dropped] suddenly got up and remarked in his characteristic rhetorical style,’ My Lord you are putting behind bars the future president of Pakistan.

It looks like Asif finally kept his word. In doing so, he chose a relative new-comer to the coveted post. The new PM Gillani is ironically a product of the Martial Law under General Zia-ul-Haq. The dictator made him a member of the Majlis-e-Shoora [Council of Advisors]. A heavy weight politician, he soon became part of the PML. Raza joined PPP in 1988. He has a Master’s in journalism from Punjab University and wrote a book 'Chahe-Yusuf-Se-sada' [Reflections from Yusuf's Well] while in prison.

Before the announcement of Raza’s elevation, last week Asif nominated Dr Fehmida Mirza to the post of speaker of the Pakistan Parliament. Her husband, Zulfikar Mirza, was Zardari's classmate at the Petaro Cadet College and has been Asif’s best friend. During previous governments of Benazir Bhutto, Mirza was often accused of being Zardari's front-man in most of his shady deals. That was why Mirza, whose car registration Zulfi One, used to make waves in the federal capital during those days, disappeared from the scene after the dismissal of second Benazir government in 1996, as Dawn quotes.

The latest choice -- Syed Yusuf Raza Gillani -- has Iranian ancestry. He comes from a very reverend spiritual family in Multan. Interestingly, Geelani’s aunt’s [mom’s sister] hubby is the current Pir Pagaro [Chief of many turbans]. The present Pir [seventh spiritual head of the respected Hur Sufis] is Shah Mardan Shah II. That’s what makes it all the more amusing. Both Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir had an aversion for the Hurs and hated them guts. The father-daughter duo persecuted the Hurs because they considered them as a big political challenge in Sindh. Now we have a Pir Pagaro kin, a Zia-find, carrying forward the Bhutto legacy.

Gillani’s appointment accentuates two important things. One, he may just keep the high profile seat of PM warm for Asif who may take over, let us say, six months down the line. Two, Asif remains a 'friend of friends' and very much a maverick.

Time for a drink.

Sameer

Poised to Soar

tu shareek-e-sukhan nahin hai to kyaa
ham sukhan teri khaamoshi hai abhi

~Tho’ I can’t talk to you anymore/ Your silences speak to me
[My translation]

India and Pakistan are two countries yoked by a common culture. Though there is much bitterness due to past bloodletting, the bonhomie we share with the Pakistanis is unrivalled. That is because we speak the same language, unwind for similar reasons and get the same jokes.

And nothing can get the two together like music. I think the Pakistanis – despite a smaller cultural scene than India – are pretty much evolved in arts. I was part of an elite gathering this weekend that assembled on the lush lawns of the Intercontinental Grand in New Delhi to listen to the iconic Ghulam Ali.

Ghulam Ali is simply put, magical. His style is simple but powerful. It throws you with the sheer beauty of it. The maestro arrived late but the perfumed gaggle waited on. Everyone knew it was worth the wait. Meantime someone from his troupe – which had already arrived --sang a few Ghazals. That served like an appetizer.

I was in row two with my best buddy. A gorgeous lady in her mid thirties with a permanent smile sat just in front. Her argentate saree flapped in the evening breeze. A hundred minutes behind schedule, Ghulam Ali sahib walked onto the stage. My first impression was Oh, so that is how the virtuoso looks like. In a moment the magic began. It soon spread. I have no doubt in my mind – and I don’t readily approve of superstars – that Ghulam Ali is one of the best Ghazal singers of our times.

His voice leaves you completely ensorcelled. The pitch is electrifying and the notes are divine. Even his pauses are an outburst of the soul. For a while you feel like levitated. Bliss pours. You become the music. Ghulam Ali has an amazing connect with the audiences. He speaks in chaste Punjabi and melodious Urdu. The andaaz [style] is distinctly songlike and his expressions purely poetic.

It also makes you compare, as mortals are often wont to: Who is the greatest of the two legends? Ghulam Ali or Jagjit Singh. Both have millions of fans and both are maestros. I’ve attended concerts of both and I think thus: While Jagjit is more popular and easily associated with a sweet melancholy that is timeless, Ghulam Ali -- no doubt -- has more variety. He is liltingly lyrical and continually improvising. That is his forte’.

Music perhaps has this appeal. Auerbach hit the bull’s eye when he averred, ‘Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life’. Ghulam Ali gives you a big reason to feel good. I remember my fav thinker Nietzsche.

Without music life would be a mistake.

Sameer

The pir who coudn't be the king

The day Benazir was assasinated; BB and Makhdoom talk to Prez Karzai

Now that the Queen is no more, her man Friday can be kicked around by the king’s men. Poor Makhdoom sahib. He won’t be the prime minister after all. That he served Benazir all his life, like an able adjutant, holding together the PPP flock when Mohtarma and her wily hubby were enjoying Mediterranean cruises, didn’t eventually work for Makhdoom Amin Fahim.

The King [that’s Asif Zardari in his new guise] perhaps feeling a notch vulnerable decided -- in his infinite wisdom -- to sideline the affable Fahim. A tête-à-tête in the holiday resort of Muree saw every PPP heavyweight worth his salt breaking bread with their foe-turned-pal Nawaz Sharif. Asif, obviously, led the pack. The only conspicuous absence was – no brownies for guessing this – Fahim sahib. While the big guys clinked glasses [imported juice, no liqueur when media is around] celebrating their victory, nobody thought about the man -- who competently led the winning party in these elections.

Now Nawaz’s folks are going about town [Asif’s men can’t do that directly, stupid] saying Fahim is unacceptable because he has met Musharraf in the past. Oh, I forgot to add, the act [of meeting Mush] is a cardinal sin in Pakistan these days. But wait a second; Fahim met Mush in the past because he was talking on behalf of Benazir. So why is everyone out to hit Fahim? It is no secret that Mohtarma was conniving to enter an agreement with the General. Fahim, as a loyal guy, was just a go-between. What is the fuss about? Do we really need a scapegoat? Why slaughter the old poet? This is, for God's sake, a man who refused the PM's post in the past.

The first press con after BB’s assassination [when the Bhutto kid was crowned heir apparent] saw an emotionally charged Asif announcing Fahim sahib as the choice for PM's slot. A dignified politician, as Fahim is, remained quiet at the occasion. Now under fire from left and right, the poet is finally speaking out. Asked by media men why he didn’t attend the Muree meeting, Fahim waxed poetic: I am a hermit; I don’t go to the mosque unless the Azaan [Prayer call] is called.

Meantime Asif’s men in their attempt to lionize Mohtarma’s widower are now saying that the ex-playboy-turned-peacenik can become the PM in the next few months. That is when he quickly installs a friendly-inept chap as regent for the moment. That would give Asif time to consolidate his grip and contest from a safe seat.

So, some quick lessons to be learnt here. Pakistan’s politics remains very much a feudal charade, as the gifted British intellectual Tariq Ali likes to call it. We may soon see an Asif crony in power while the old boy will control him backstage.

And the clamor shall continue.

Sameer

The Good food

North Indian food is rich and fattening. They use dollops of clarified butter, locally called Ghee and the slick makes you lick your finger-tips like a greedy hog. Ghee and weddings are complimentary in India and I think the only other major culture remotely fond of Ghee is the Egyptian. Besides some north African tribes in Eritrea use it.

I made it to two weddings in the last one fortnight. A Jain and a Muslim feast. While I regard the confluence of cultures – and India being the melting pot of human diversity – I daresay that I find Muslim cuisine the very best. They make regal food and it smacks of heaven. At the Jain nuptials, the priest went about spraying holy water and sprinkling ghee everywhere.

And before my critics take out their knives and forks to assail me on the sacred altar of vegetarian and non-vegetarian bones, let me confess that it is not about the lamb versus ladoos [sugary gram flour balls] debate. My point is that the entire concept of going out for a wedding party -- in your best attire -- somehow looses its charm if you end up eating mustard leaves [saag in India]. I can be wrong too.

I reckon the charm of any party lies in the assorted smiles of its gathering. The air has to be chirpy and the food divine. While the Jain affair was elaborate with many generous layers of ghee to it, I found it pretty bland. As most vegetables tend to be, however deep you try and fry them. The Pathan ball on the other hand was vivacious. Melliferous music wafted over lamb skewers.

In my mind I was attempting to make a comparison with the last party I went to. And I distilled my thoughts thus: In India two kinds of people exist. Those who eat lentils and are content with the vittle and those who savour lamb and just love it. While I would mostly identify with the latter, I think taste is always a relative term. Iffy, if you may call it.

The humorist Fran Lebowitz once averred, ‘Vegetables are interesting but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat’. Jim Davis, the cartoonist, differs. Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie, he argues. I think the Spanish got it right: The belly rules the mind. So eat what you please.

Bon apetit.

Sameer

Ghalib's Delhi

You almost cross a light-year as you make your way into old Delhi from the 21st century New Delhi. The journey is just a trot and on a traffic-slackened day [which, the truth be told, is a rarity in this city], you’ll reach old Delhi in a little over half an hour. It is baffling to see two Indias distinctly co-exist within a stretch of few miles.

Tucked away from the corporate boardrooms of the NCR and the sophisticated drawing rooms of South Delhi, lives the original -- ‘Dilli’. A cacophonously-disorderly space where people somehow tend to find order to their lives. While the rickshaw puller paddles his way through hodgepodge of a humanity on the march, you cannot fail to notice the riot of colors on display along the road.

No it is not an ensemble of designer colors that we are generally attuned to in our new age malls. Nor is it any shade of the latest plasma TV or a bold laptop theme color. It is the passel of tiny schoolchildren in their bright red going back home from school, all packed onto a – no brownies for guessing this – rickshaw. It is the rouge chops -- from constant chomping of betel -- of fat men sitting tight on their fat backs inside very narrow shops, selling everything from car engine shafts to marriage cards – at throwaway, wholesale prices.

There is something about old Delhi, especially the stretch leading upto the historic Jama Masjid, which makes it at once timeless and antique. The odd bleat of a pair of goats tied to a beaten pickup right outside the grand mosque reverberates across the terraces of Emperor Shah Jahan’s 17th century marvel. The din of skinny men, carrying double the body weight on their slight heads, and still managing a smile from earlobe to earlobe actually surprises you.

But what fascinates me the most about old Delhi is her myriad shops. They are all old-fashioned, piddly little holes with heavyset men inside them. Most of these establishments have big, rusty fans and no air conditioners [an act unthinkable of in our part of Delhi]. The shopkeeper has his spectacled father’s photo framed and garlanded just behind his head. Usually the picture glass frame has a dot of vermilion applied on it, right in the middle of the old, deceased patriarch’s forehead. It is a general rule. Images of deities and divinity hang from the 100 year old walls. The area right in front of the shop is splattered with red specs. Most business are partnership: RamLal, Baburam and sons; SS Khanna-TS Tullo. Brothers, Pals, who knows but you find pairs abound.

A mesh of wires – electricity, cable, telephone [you can’t make out: they are all Raj era] – jut out from every shop corner, while street vendors in their dozens fry their domestic fast-food on either side of the arcade. Meanwhile shop-owners can be seen animatedly talking into their telephones and cut deals [in 100’s, 1000’s, millions: you can’t make out]. Orders are quickly jotted down and passed on. It looks like a perpetual bazaar [grocerteria], where business goes on amidst the shouting, yelling, pushing around and the confluence of hordes.

People go on buying spices, cycle tyres, books, auto parts, ceramics, safety pins, wedding cards. In between the sonorous chant for Azaan rises above the Jama Mosque and the faithful scramble to pray. The fragrance of a million herbs wafts over the attar joints [local perfume shoppes]. Restaurants are crammed full with people who love to savor lamb, rustled up in secret recipes, passed on since generations.

Children play in box-like homes. Women, clad in the traditional garb jostle for space, with bearded men and mendicants on miniature streets. An old monkey jumps from roof to roof.

Life leaps in Old Delhi, perhaps a little loudly.
I take a rickshaw back to my metro station.

Sameer.

Pakistan’s Protagonists

Elections in Pakistan have thrown up a fractured mandate. While PPP has emerged as the single largest party and is likely to lead the next government, PML-N is going to form the new government in the politically important province of Punjab. Together Nawaz and Zardari, it appears for the time being, will share the spoils. However neither Main sahib nor Benazir’s crooked widower [as Jemima Goldsmith, Imran Khan’s ex, calls him] can become the prime minister of Pakistan, in the immediate future, as both men didn’t contest these elections. While Mush initially got the constitution of Pakistan tampered with, solely to keep BB and Nawaz out of the PM’s race [A person can be PM only two times according to the amendment], a slew of corruption charges await Zardari. All these equations could be corrected, in the days and weeks ahead.

Already the balance of power has shifted 180 degrees. We have new protagonists in the play. While some of the older hero’s are dead, others may soon have to take a detour or follow the tracks leading to the exit door. Some of our hero’s have grown horns while others developed a halo. Such is the nature of politics in this part of the world. A profile update of Pakistan’s most powerful protagonists:

Nawaz Sharif: The quintessential Punjabi [Power house].
Fabulously wealthy. He and his extended family made a huge fortune during his days as the powerful finance minister under the dictator Zia. Sharif’s family originally migrated from Kashmir, made its fortune in steel [Ittefaq Industries] before moving into sugar and textiles. Most of Pakistan's political elite has tended to come from the agricultural, rather than industrial sector, so Nawaz is an exception.

The Biryani-loving Sharif – also called Main sahib – used to talk in chaste Punjabi and Urdu and was considered something of a conservative. His exile [which he blames Musharraf for] did two good things to him. He got an image make-over and improved upon his English. Sharif is now clad mostly in Seville row tweeds and has a new hair crop, thanks to a quick hair transplant in London. Not surprising from a man, who wanted an amendment in constitution of Pakistan during his second term as PM, to designate himself as the ‘Amir-ul-Momineen’ [Leader of the faithful], a politically loaded Islamic title.


Asif Zardari: Mischievously yours [Backroom dude].
Ex-polo player, horse-riding, ex-playboy. Zardari is considered to be a corrupt guy and was jailed on murder and other charges for eight long years. He was charged with getting his brother-in-law Murtaza [BB’s bro] bumped off. Nothing was ever proved but Zardari remains a much controversial chap.

Asif grew up in Karachi and did most of his schooling at St Patrick's School -- ironically also the alma mater of President Pervez Musharraf. He belongs to a ‘lesser Sindhi tribe’ and surprised the whole of Pakistan and the world at large -- when he married Benazir Bhutto [from the super rich ‘superior Sindhi tribe’] – heiress to the magical Bhutto legacy.

Zardari is given to rhetoric and pretence. He remains a survivor with a penchant for politicking.

Makhdoom Amin Fahim: The quiet loyalist [PM in waiting]
Rare breed. A squeaky clean Pakistani politician known for his dignified demeanor. Always stood besides Benazir. On her last day he was by her, like a shadow. Even as she was shot, Fahim sahib was in the SUV, like always. Offered the Prime Minister’s post by Mush in the past, Fahim, the true family loyalist, out rightly rejected the offer.

Fahim is a feudal lord. His father Makhdoom Talib-ul-Maula, the spiritual leader of Sarwari Jammat of Pakistan, was one of the founding members of the PPP — which was founded in 1969 by the former Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Venerated as a peer [spiritual head] of Halla Sharif, Hyderabad, Fahim is elected from Mathihari in Sindh and has an excellent understanding of Pakistan politics. However his heart is in poetry. Loves Rumi on quiet evenings. No wonder his admirers call him, ‘he whose presence brings good harvests’.

President Musharraf: The fall guy [Tough nut]
Ex flamboyant General, Attaturk quoting Prez of Pakistan. Frank. Still thinks out of the box. Wonderful fashion sense. Once loved for the freshness he promised to instill in the debilitatingly corrupt Pakistani political soil, he has since become the worst cynic of his country and went on to commit some humongous mistakes. He sacked the entire judiciary, gagged the media and imposed Martial law -- a move which badly backfired on him. To his credit, he fought Islamists and flushed radicals out of Islamabad’s Red Mosque.

Then something unthinkable happened. Benazir Bhutto was killed on his watch. Right outside the military HQ in Rawalpindi. That evening marked Musharraf’s countdown also. Elections 2008 ousted his party called the Q league. There is no love lost for him. The media continues to grill him. Human rights fellas want nothing less than his scalp. Yet he continues to hang onto power rather shamelessly.

It looks like an ego-fight for him now. Musharraf’s days are clearly numbered.

****
There are other players at the hustlings who are going to be increasingly relevent in the new dispensation -- The supremely gutsy Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan [PPP]: Dark-horse, the tough Sharif bro Shahbaz [PML-N]: Likely CM of Punjab, the tall Pashtoon Asfandyar Wali Khan [ANP]: NWFP chieftan and key ally at the centre.

Sameer

Democracy's Revenge

First things first. Elections in Pakistan were fair. There was no pre-poll rigging. Mush, the scheming dictator, as the mainstream media loves to dub him, is after all no Gen Zia. While Zia was a rude Islamist, Musharraf is wordly and smart. Despite his liberal credentials, Mush is nonetheless overtly ambitious. Methinks he read the public mood. There could be other reasons – No rigging could have worked because the victory margins of the winning candidates have been too wide. The army remained neutral under Gen Kiyani, who though a Mush loyalist, is not politically inclined. The press kept its vigil. World capitals -- notably Washington DC and Riyad -- watched carefully. Most analysts however concede that Musharraf knew that were he to rig these elections, the backlash could be terrible, something he cannot withstand.

Coming to the final outcome of Elections 2008 – I was a little generous perhaps with PPP. I predicted 110. They got 88. If we add the women’s and minorities reserved seats, they add up to a decent 113. Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N did exceptionally well. Since PML is essentially a centre-right party, election boycott by some right wing parties like the Jamat-i-Islami helped Nawaz. They lapped an impressive 65. Add reserved seats and they touch 84. It is a personal vindication for the man, who was kicked around at Lahore International airport on Musharraf’s orders – upon his return from exile -- only a few months back. Now it is Nawaz Sharif’s time to get even. I expect political maturity from Main sahib. However he may settle for nothing less than Mush’s exit. Sharif can always have those lowly chaps at Lahore International airport grilled over hot coals – Pakistan style.

Check http://sameerbhat.blogspot.com/2007/09/london-jeddah-via-islamabad-flight-786.html

Elections 2008 shattered a few myths. There was no sympathy vote. People exercised their franchise mostly on ethnic lines. The voter maturity level was very high. People liked Benazir but not her hubby, who remains a much polarizing figure. Despite him, PPP proved to be a party which transcended political boundaries, like always. Dawn, Pakistan most respected newspaper puts it succinctly, ‘PPP has managed the highest number of seats in the National Assembly and not thanks to Sindh alone. Its enviable comeback is owed to a strong showing in all four provinces. Pity that Benazir did not live to see the day.’ PPP remains party of the masses in Pak.

Now the game of courtship begins. PPP is expected to join hands with Nawaz to form a consensus government. Already the era of coalition governments [ like India] has started in Pakistan. We will increasingly get to hear lexicon replete with words like allies, tie-ups et al in the days to come. Together with likeminded guys like ANP, headed by the pashtoon Asfandar Wali Khan [grandson of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan], PPP-PML-N combine can form a stable government. There are differences though – while the PPP appears conciliatory towards Mush, Nawaz is hawkish. [Mush's exit can mean re-alignment of equations for US, who back him at the moment] Restoration of the Nov 3 judiciary could be another sticking point. Since Mush is in no mood to go – though morally he must quit -- I think a confrontational attitude is going to harm the alliance. A more nuanced, step-by-step approach is a smart idea to take the Prez on.

However the task to cobble the next government is uphill. Both PPP and PML-N may have to shed their baggages and past bickering. Unfortunately that may not be very easy. They are ideologically diametrical [PPP: centre-left; PML-N: centre-right] but look headed for confluence. Guardian UK analysizes this thus:
The classic PML voter is urban, lower middle class, relatively educated, with a world-view informed by Pakistani nationalism and a very contemporary moderate Islamism. Nawaz is not particularly politically sophisticated, speaks Urdu or Punjabi not the elite's English but reads local newspapers and watches the new satellite television channels.

By contrast, the PPP's voter, by and large, lives in a different world, a world that was dominant up to a decade ago. It is a world that is much more rural, more deferential, more rooted in tradition. Its nationalism is less marked and its Islam less influenced by the international trends of the last 30 years and thus much less politicised and much more based in centuries-old Sufi traditions.

In hindshight Elections 2008 have been significant for Pak in more than one way. They come at a time of extreme radicalism. The state of Pakistan came close to brink many times in the past few years. The anarchy saw hundreds of innocent Pakistanis die. It witnessed the despicable assassination of Pakistan’s most promising leader. The results, which many read as a referendum against Musharraf and Islamists [both Musharraf’s party PML-Q and Islamists across the political spectrum got a drubbing of their life]. These elections have also firmly established that Pakistan is fed up with the military boots. The verdict is clear. More than anything else the results signal return of the much cherished democracy.

There is an African adage, 'However dark the night, dawn will break'.
Benazir must be turning in her ambrosial grave. It is her dawn.
She has won, even in death.

Sameer

Pakistan’s tryst with destiny

There were many fake starts. Dates were scheduled and cancelled. Pakistan procrastinated on its polls multiple times. Its powerful army refused to budge. Then suddenly the tables turned. The lawyers rebelled. Its civilian leaders got the much needed political fuel. Long exiled, they cantered back to their motherland. And just as people felt a glimmer of hope, there was blood. Slayers of the worst order roamed at will. Soon they lay the most sinister ambush and slaughtered Pakistan’s most darling daughter – Benazir. There was shock and blue funk. My eyes got moist.

Yet hope lingered on. The battle betwixt the slayers and people continued. Meantime Musharraf's ratings slumped. The world said its obituaries for Pakistan. There was a talk of de-nuking the only Islamic nation with the big bomb. Anarchy reigned supreme in her alleys. The country bled profusely. Yet her people stood firm. New election dates were set. February 18, 2007. A new countdown for Pakistan’s tryst with destiny began.

Almost everything in these elections has been unprecedented. Such is the atmosphere of fear that most candidates chose not to address electoral rallies – which are so key to elections in this part of the world -- and instead campaigned through mass media. TV and newspapers stood up against staggering odds – despite a gag order -- to bring out truth to people. Legal luminaries like Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan faced house arrest for months. Yet the resolve of people did not falter. For once it looks like the people’s power is going to prevail.

However the road to democracy is still fraught with danger. Musharraf – once revered -- and now hated guts continues to make threatening overtures. The Sharif brothers’ nomination papers were rejected outright and now Mush says his party -- the PML-Q --will win this election. The statement comes from an authority which is supposed to be plain neutral. In any case, neutrality looks like in suspended animation in Pakistan. Right now -- the judiciary, election commission and local governments – look suspect.

The fear of rigging is real. PML-Q in all objectivity cannot garner more than 20% of the votes. A free, frank and fair election is most likely to produce PPP – Bhutto’s party – as the winner. Nawaz Sharif's PML-N is another strong entity. For a simple majority in Pakistan, a party needs 136 seats in the senate. Since the Bhutto aura is expansive in Sind and her brutal murder a clear emotive issue, PPP is likely to lap 50 seats from the Bhutto land. Punjab – 148 seats up for grabs – will be crucial. Nawaz is popular after his recent dignified posturing. The wily Chaudary brothers [generational supporters of army] are organized and Mush-backed. So Punjab can end up with a fractured mandate. Let’s assume 65+ to PML-N, 20+ to PML-Q and 30+ to PPP. That leaves out NWFP [called Sarhad] and Balochistan.

PPP is the only political outfit with a nation wide appeal and logically it may suffice with 15 odd seats in NWFP and another 7-8 in Balochistan and FATA put together. This is a realistic estimate: Single largest party PPP 110+ seats. I reckon an alliance with Nawaz [who may lap touching 100 odd seats] or one of the smaller parties – like the MQM/JUI – may get it past simple majority.

Of course I am being speculative here and the end results may vary. Mush may rig big time to get his cronies back in power or PPP may simply sweep these elections. Both situations are hypothetical and probable.

For the future of Pakistan and for results of the most watched, debated, bloody fight in its chequered history -- pockmarked by chaos, coups and clamor -- we wait for a few more hours.

I hope Pakistan’s prayers are answered this time.

Sameer

Love ~ in the times of metro and malls

Like every year 2/14 has been special. Natives call it Valentine’s day. Love day. Every teenager -- and most adults cued-in to the big media – wait anxiously for the special day to dawn. Bakeries bake hot cakes, mostly shaped like a human heart and balloon sellers do brisk business. Malls throw open their electronic doors and the ubiquitous metro is crammed full with mushy-eyed, love birds. Love is literally littered everywhere.

Like every year, 2/14 event this year was practiced with much markedness. Everyone was out. Cupid hung from roof eaves and café’ joints. Upon staircases and newly-painted park benches [damn the paint]. It was almost carnival like in the new-age malls where everything possible was made out like a heart – streamers, coffee froth, shoe laces, belts -- while people en masse held hands. Completely lost- in-love, made-in-heaven couples strolled about. Queues for movie halls [where cornflake boxes are heart-like] this year got more serpentine than ever.

I am at loss to fathom – or explain -- this sentient spectacle. Why should we go out in the open and walk with hips joined like Siamese twins on this particular day? Why must we sit in the gardens – which are so filled with humanity on 2/14 – and flirt with each other's locks for everyone to ogle? What is so special about this day that we must mandatory wolf heart-shaped pancakes [ridiculously priced]? Why should we practise our emotions like a mass ritual?

Love is such an uncommon sentiment. We love people for what they are. The feelings are oft reciprocal. Erich Segal, author of Love Story [New York Times top selling work of fiction for all of 1970 in the United States, the book was translated into more than 20 languages worldwide. Motion picture of the same name was the number one box office attraction] writes about love thus: Love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked.

Love is for most of the times an inexplicable phenomenon. It is romance, it is fun and it is madness – yeah. But do we need one day in an entire calendar year to express it? Isn’t love eternal? Do cakes and cut flowers and candies and coffee constitute love? The curt answer is ‘No’. The problem with us is that we are madly aping the west. As a society we have failed to balance the cultural onslaught. In doing so, we have been completely overwhelmed by market forces who give us only two options -- either go out and splurge or feel wanting.

No wonder the idiot box is relentless and the newspaper columns persistent. If you don’t go out and participate in the emotional-make believe pageant, you are doomed! In times of globalization and consumerism, the wholesale import of culture/fests do not come as a shock to me. Commodifying emotions do.

I reckon love is more than just ribbons, bouquets and the love panoply on sale. We have come to such a pass where we need to shell out quick bucks [and that is the real reason for this show-boat] to express our love. Love has -- alas -- been reduced to packages and gifts! The great French dramatist Jean Anouilh waxes eloquent,” Love is, above all else, the gift of oneself’.

Happy V-day.
Sameer

The attack

It is biting cold. One-dog-night types. Winters in the capital are generally chilly and this year there is no let up. [I’m always amused when people say it has been colder this year] You go numb in the feet and cheeks. I see people sipping hot tea and damping their dumpling in the tea just before wolfing it down. Pop corn is an all time fave. None of this for me though. I’m always fighting against odds. This winter it has been a corny tooth.

A few moons back, a gang of germs – stupid little devils – decided to invade my teeth. I have never held any grudges against them but in an unjust world, where the distinction between right or wrong is largely blurred, the germs must have possibly identified their innocent target. A hack with a love for global affairs and coffee is -- any time -- a sitting duck.

Now an important lesson to learn is that no amount of brushing – twice a day – or gargling or mouth fresheners of the expensive variety actually helps. Means no security is completely fool proof when the attack happens. There are unguarded moments – like when you licitly nibble on a Bernachon.

I reckon one of these days when I was flattering my taste buds, the assailants sneaked in. Quietly. And they straightaway carried out their mission: Attack my pre-molars. I felt a sharp, shooting pang go through me. The epicenter was somewhere in the mouth. I popped a painkiller to alleviate the agony but the damage was already done.

My doctor was quick to diagnose some frightening medical-dental jargon and gave me temporary fillings followed by a rather painful but high tech nerve-numbing treatment. They call it RCT. While the fella was busy taking innumerable X-rays and drilling on my mouth cavities, I thought whether RCT actually meant Relief from Constant Trouble.

In reality they clean up your tooth roots, flush the cretins out, cut all replenishments and nerve support to the bacteria and secure the entire space. Sounds like what Bush did in Afghanistan but the dental cavity is no Kandahar and I hate George. So couple of sessions later, after both befriending and enriching my handsome dentist, I can now re-direct my creative energies on the ‘Obama for America’ campaign.

God, quite an invasion, it was.

Sameer

Tariq Ali on BBC

Leading intellectual and historian Tariq Ali's splendid analysis on Bhutto Sr and Zia.

Remembering the pastures

As hiatuses go, it was a longish one. It has been a little less than a fortnight and I have not jotted anything. If I were to give one alibi for my dormancy – I would say: Plain Procrastination.

There were no glad tidings in the days bygone. Someone whispered to me that it is snowing back home in Kashmir. Ah, how I love the divine confetti. I wish to run in the snow meadows, stretch my arms wide, look at God, close my eyes and let the flakes kiss me.

I miss the pastures. The snow hanging onto the pines.

Cummings waxes eloquent: The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches. I agree.

Regular posts to follow.

Sameer

New Year and coffee wafts

New Year’s Eve.

The idea of fun in this country is very strange. These days everyone is high on some kind of dope. The junkies go ecstatic as the countdown to the New Year begins. I can’t fathom what has exactly led to this relatively new phenomenon but I’ve no doubt that the funny stuff they smoke – leading to the brouhaha -- is courtesy corporate media. India, if I may add, is in a transition phase, going from a staid, slow country to a consumerist, globalizing one -- hence a fertile territory for any takeover [cultural, economical and physical]. Easily put, we we are up for grabs.

A smart but notorious nexus controls our hearts and minds: Market forces-corporate media-ad gang. As soon as they sniff an occasion they up the ante. Frenzied TV reporters – with IQs ranging between 15 and 30 -- hit the marketplace with amazing alarcity and start shouting into their dirty microphones [not metaphorically, the mikes are grimy really]: New Year is coming. New Year is coming!

Basically ordinary people in this country are too busy trying to eke a basic standard of living, not withstanding India's impressive economic growth rates. Returning home completely petered-out, there is an idiot box awaiting them. It is – trust my word on this -- a constant bombardment of standard rubbish: Are you going out? What are your plans tonight? Everyone is offered two choices: either come out and have ‘fun’ [party hard, that is the exact expression used] or stay back and feel deprived and wanting. So everyone is compelled to make up his/her mind: ASAP. Urgently, because you need to grandstand next morning in the workplace/college.

Again there are two choices. Either go to one of the happening places and allow yourself to be fleeced. It could be a disc, pub or a party where everyone and his uncle has already descended, drunk, behaving plain weird. Or go to a public place, park, an open air theater, mall or a concert and meet the funniest human creatures you’ll ever bump across in your life. Either ways, every glade of earth is crowded, cacophonous and commonplace on New Year’s. It gets colorless because there is too much of humanity looking for 'fun' and most of it is spiritless.

Let me be honest here: I did go out on the New Year’s. Pals insisted. Perhaps the deprivation albatross hung around our necks. We decided to go to the heart of the city: Connaught Place. It is Delhi’s lifeline and was considered the most fashionable arcade in North India before malls sprung up everywhere. But we found all exits and entrances to CP, as Connaught place is lovingly called, sealed. When an entire armada wants to assemble in one small square, what options do the cops have? We nonetheless managed to sneak in.

It was the most amusing sight in my life. The great march of lemmings. Just too many of them. Blaring, throwing up, walking aimlessly. Going to nowhere in particular. Seeking deliverence, perhaps. Some looked up in the sky, searching for New Year. I was instantly put off. I winked to my chaps. We left the mobbed venue.

There was no Plan B but luckily, I spotted a cosy cafe'. So at the out start of 2008, I sat amidst cappuccino wafts, cracking jokes with friends. Impromptu moments are so much fun. The ambience was just fine. But in the middle of our chatter, my attention went to a stocky, middle aged, bearded, tall man, clad in a black Pathani dress, walking into the café. I looked at my friends. I knew they were all thinking what I was contemplating. Could he be a suicide bomber? What else do you make of a man 50+, dark, somber, religious-looking, bearded, wrapped in a shawl, in a café at mid-night?

Undeterred we cracked more jokes, some on the poor man. My chums often accuse me of being cavillous. I was merciless, as usual. I went on: Imagine he explodes, and we all die, just like Benazir’s supporters. We laughed out loud but a part of me was sad too. Isn’t it so paradoxical: The fear-factor, the stereotyping, the terror phobia? In the end, the gentlemen sipped his New Year coffee and nothing went off.

We drove back at half past one. Expensive cars lined outside many venues. The golf club parking was chock-a-block. Nothing much. Must be a scantily clad dancer, in the January chill, jiving to a large, loud crowd of liqueur smelling Delhiites, I reckoned. Good way to greet the New Year. Means you are not deprived. Also means you can splurge in the night and go home and sleep for the whole day.

I’ve always believed that it is much more fun to regale in the company of your loved one’s and together welcome new dawns over hope, laughter, familiarity and love.

Happy New Year

Sam