Bitter vs. Insecure: The Natwar Singh-Sonia Gandhi Saga

Natwar Singh is right about one thing: Sonia Gandhi should have kept quiet. The one-time Congress loyalist and senior minister has written his memoirs in which there are some unsavoury references to the Congress party chief. Irrespective of whether he wrote it out of bitterness (he was made to leave after the oil scam), it would be quite a natural thing for him to talk about his tenure in the government, and it might include his perspective on the people he was interacting with.

Sonia Gandhi told reporters in Parliament:

"I will write my own book and then everyone will come to know everything... the only way truth will come out is if I write. I am serious about it and I will be writing."

This is disturbing. It assumes that her truth is truer. Just as there are people who will not buy all of Natwar Singh's 'truth', there will be others who would question her version. The one incident that seems to have had an impact is that she refused the prime ministerial position not because of the "inner voice", the touted reason, but because Rahul Gandhi gave her 24 hours to refuse because he thought she too might be killed like his father Rajiv Gandhi was.

To any observer, both seem relevant. A son wanting to protect his mother is a most natural emotion, and a woman cast as an outsider might realise that this space has its own niche and abjure overt power. A good sixth sense, or inner voice, has saved many.

She is a politically pragmatic person. As I wrote in The Accidental Prima Donna:

While her slain husband and two children were hesitant to enter the fray, Sonia Gandhi was never a reluctant politician. Her refusal to be the prime minister was also a political act that stood her in good stead. Indians connect emotionally with detachment. She came across as one not ambitious for herself.

Therefore, the Natwar natter would have just fallen by the wayside had she not responded. Now, people with some sense will expect a sanitised book from her. They will read it, but might doubt its veracity even more. For, if he is a "bitter man", then she is a defensive woman. Such statements make it only worse:

"I can't be hurt (by revelations), I have seen my mother-in-law riddled with bullets, my husband dead...I am far from getting hurt with these things. Let them continue to do this, it will not affect me... They can continue to do this if they so please."

By saying this she has exposed her hurt more sharply. Which secure person would in a flash decide to write a book to clarify their own position? And why is former PM Manmohan Singh saying, "Private conversations should not be made public for capital gains"? An expensive book in English reaches a limited number of people.

Dr. Singh probably does not like the fact that he is portrayed as someone who had no real power, and all files went to Ms. Gandhi. In retirement he would want to salvage his reputation. Circumspection is a good thing, but responding to the rash isn't particularly circumspect.

The Congress Party members will all huddle together anyway, and certainly not protest against their leader only because she listened to her son. If anything, they will see him as someone who has real influence on her and is therefore the leader they believed he ought to be.

Natwar Singh quit the party only in 2008; he was forced to resign in 2005 for the Iraqi food-for-oil scam. This itself is revealing. If he was bitter, why did he not leave the party immediately or prove his innocence then, as he claims now?

It would take naïveté of some kind to blindly fall for his interpretation, especially if he comes up with statements like these:

"No Indian would treat a man who was loyal to family for 45 years who had been very close to her and 30 years older. .... It is just not done in India. There is a part (of Sonia) which is ruthless."

And further:

Asked if that was her Italian part, he shot back, asking what else can it be adding, "some part of it is not India. Jawarlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi would not be like that".

He is sounding like a political rookie, treating this as some sort of soap opera. By emphasising his loyalty he is inadvertently justifying her arrogance that he seems to have issues with. The India of his imagination is certainly not real. Age is not respected even in everyday social situations; in this case it was professional. His insistence on making it unprofessional is grating and obsequious, for ultimately he is holding a candle for most of the Nehru-Gandhi family even if it means ignoring their ruthlessness.

Natwar Singh also needs a quick visit to Italy to discover how they uphold family values. Or he can just get DVDs of 'The Godfather' series. The Italian mafia too respected the unit. In Don Corleone's words: "A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man."


© Farzana Versey

Sunday ka Funda

Sunday ka Funda

Two ways of looking at belief:

One day Mara, the Evil One, was travelling through the villages of India with his attendants. he saw a man doing walking meditation whose face was lit up in wonder. The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him. Mara’s attendant asked what that was and Mara replied, “A piece of truth.” 

“Doesn’t this bother you when someone finds a piece of truth, O Evil One?” his attendant asked. 

“No,” Mara replied. “Right after this, they usually make a belief out of it.”

---

Tosui was the Zen master who left the formalism of temples to live under a bridge with beggars. When he was getting very old, a friend helped him earn his living without begging. He showed Tosui how to collect rice and manufacture vinegar from it, and Tosui did this until he passed away. 

While Tosui was making vinegar, one of the beggars gave him a picture of the Buddha. Tosui hung it on the wall of his hut and put a sign beside it. The sign read: 

"Mr. Amida Buddha: This little room is quite narrow. I can let you remain as a transient. But don't think I am asking you to help me to be reborn in your paradise."

(Zen fables)

Have stings replaced news?

The anchor held up a piece of paper and shouted down a politician with the precious words: "I have this secret information." A rival channel did its own bit of smirking: "Our sting operation will give you the whole story."

It will not. This too is fed information. The reason there is a surfeit of 'stings' — how can a formal letter by a cop to his bosses be called a sting operation when he has written it and sent it? — is because newspapers and TV channels have saturated the regular routes and want to entertain. Many of the readers and viewers too wish to be entertained, and news stories, however controversial, become more interesting when they stink.

Sting operations get a whole lot of points by a gullible public that assumes those blurred video clips are done as an act of public good. No one bothers to check out the motives behind these moves. It is high time we made the mainstream media answerable, but the alternatives are not always as above-board as they appear simply because they too depend on the largesse of sponsors, advertising and benefactors.

A few noises are being made now about some of these exposés. I wish it had been done earlier, too. Then we would have been spared this rush and rash of scoops where dirt covers only more dirt.

I've said it in earlier pieces, and instead of repeating myself I shall reproduce two extracts, one from 2010, the other from 2007. [Unfortunately, opinions do not qualify as scoops and exposés!]:

Stings that stink, 2007, Asian Age Op-Ed:

Have sting operations changed anything? Have people stopped having their palms greased? Is there more awareness about wrongdoing? Are the culprits shunned by society?

You know the answers. They have, on the contrary, become even more important.

A reporter of a Delhi television channel tried to expose a teacher for forcing her students into prostitution. It turned out to be fake. It was done on the prodding of a businessman as a planned strategy to hit out at the teacher for owing him Rs 100,000. He called up a reporter who we are told harangued her to make a few quick bucks by getting into the flesh trade and supply women. It is said she fell for this bait. A colleague of the reporter was sent as a potential girl ready for the job.

The whole story sounds bizarre. Would a woman in a respectable profession be so gullible as to get into criminal activity? If there is any truth, then why has it been labelled fake? This is not a big channel. Had it been one of those fancy ones, do you imagine anyone would have made such a noise about its lack of authenticity? The reporter has been arrested. I would like to know what is being done to the channel owners. This isn’t just a sensational story. It is about an issue that concerns women and any sensible person. Sting operators cannot get away with it.

Is this about vigilantism at all? (In 2005), there was an exposé where 11 Members of Parliament were bribed to pose questions in the House. The website carried tape recorders and cameras to catch them red-handed and a TV channel aired what they thought was a complete travesty. These clippings were later shown in Parliament. Newspaper reports were dramatic: "Parliament was stunned into shamed silence."

Does Parliament feel no shame when elected members throw slippers and chairs at each other? Has no ministry ever been shamed for taking kickbacks by giving a contract to an undeserving company?

And who were the MPs who were paid Rs 15,000 to just over a lakh for asking questions? Were they important enough names? These nobodies suddenly got notorious fame as "the dirty eleven." I can lay a bet that even if they were not bribed and were told they would be given some media coverage, they would still have done what they did. The sting operation only helped make scapegoats of a few unknowns to let the real sharks march around like saints. A whitewash job has never been simpler.

The real scoop was this, and it had been reported in this newspaper: The television channel gave the sting operators about Rs 58 lakhs. Less than Rs 10 lakhs was spent on the entire operation. The bribe amount was less than Rs 3 lakhs. Other expenses were about Rs 5 lakhs. The equipment was available on loan. Was the balance money returned to the TV channel? Does anyone know?

There should be transparency regarding sting operations too. Jaya Jaitly, who ought to know, had made an interesting comment, that it would be honest if a person went to these sting operators and told them that someone was taking money for asking questions or getting things done; the snoops could then accompany the person and catch the culprit in the act.

---

Would they do a sting operation on cultural organisations or famous "respectable" artistes who get special privileges? What about nominated MPs from the "world of arts" who use their position to further their personal causes? What about NGOs that misuse foreign funds? What about media houses that take money from socialites to promote them?

The media as middleman, 2010, CounterPunch

Journalists have often got prime posts in social organisations or are sent on junkets; many of the hugely respected senior names conduct all their ‘investigations’ over the telephone, which means they are fed information by interested groups. What about owners of channels who get elected and become MPs?

To push the envelope (no pun intended) further, what about freedom of speech? Does the industrial house not have the freedom to lobby? Does the lobbyist not have the freedom to push her case? Does the journalist not have the freedom to act as a go-between?

---

Political stooges have always existed, only the level of subtlety has altered their persona. You just have to spend some time in any of the intellectual hubs in Delhi and you will see a journalist supping with a politician or a bureaucrat. There are TV channels that have given preference to young recruits merely due to their proximity to and sometimes family connections with such powerful people.

The (Radia tapes) revelations have become such a talking point, ironically, because they have been exposed with much flourish outside the mainstream media in India. Internationally, the Washington Post mentioned ‘paid news’ and reported that The Foundation for Media Professionals plans to host a conference on journalists as power brokers. The organisations’s spokesperson said, “We are actually happy that these practices have come out in the open. It forces us to address the problem. We as journalists sit in judgment of others all the time. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard.”

Journalists are fallible and their standards should be decreed by ethics and not morality and most certainly must not become a ruse for nobility. The self-examination should also raise questions about the media conducting kangaroo courts and making a spectacle of helpless common people.

"False history gets made all day, any day, the truth of the new is never on the news." (Adrienne Rich)

© Farzana Versey

India and Pakistan – a Perpetual War: Decapitation vs. Capitulation

Are India and Pakistan at war? If we take a pragmatic view, then there has never been peace between the two nations. Does this translate into war? Should crossing the border, killing soldiers, infiltrating be treated as war during peacetime?

On January 8, the Pakistani army killed two Indian jawans, Lance-Naik Sudhakar Singh and Lance-Naik Hemraj. It was made out to be as though they ambled across, fired at the two, beheaded one and took away the head as trophy or proof. But this wasn’t a random act. The mainstream media has largely been talking in terms of “giving them a bloody nose” whether it is stated explicitly or implied.

Combat across the Line of Control (LoC) where both countries are involved does not amount to “diversionary manoeuvre to push infiltrators into J&K”, especially if the Intelligence Bureau was aware of it.

Winters in Jammu and Kashmir were generally considered as downtime for infiltration, the snow making it difficult for such incursion. If the IB had tipped off the Army, why were there no adequate pre-emptive steps taken? This is where it gets interesting.

False peace

Pakistan has, expectedly, denied any such killings. But what has the Indian government done? It termed it “provocative action”. The Indian Army also called it “grave provocation”. If the ceasefire is not respected, it is beyond provocation. This is not some game.

Foreign minister Salman Khurshid said: 

“I think it is important in the long term that what has happened should not be escalated…We have to be careful that forces ... attempting to derail all the good work that's been done towards normalisation (of relations) should not be successful.”

Who are these abstract forces that want to derail the peace process? Unlike in most countries that have a dispute, here peace is the Damocles Sword that hangs over the heads of India and Pakistan. It is ridiculously forced and caters primarily to the commercial and elite classes that gain points at seminars and encourage exchange of artistes to uphold a common heritage. If the heritage is common, why do we need clones?

Has any treaty been signed without ho-humming about the Kashmir issue? No. So, let us accept that the two governments are not interested in peace or a solution to Kashmir. We treat such casualties as collateral damage for a non-existent détente.

The two sides have taken position – away from the border – and ironically both are using the same excuse: non-state actors. This is particularly perplexing, for after the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai India had categorically blamed the Pakistani government and finally its ‘non-state actor’ Ajmal Kasab was hanged to death. This time, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has suggested that the mastermind behind those attacks, Hafiz Saeed, was seen having a chat with people across the LoC and therefore the Lashkar-e-Toiba could well be responsible.

How, then, can we blame the Pakistani government for being in denial? If this is an act of terror, then no government will accept the blame, even if there is complicity and jihad training camps.

Besides, between different versions of truth and lies, facts become the casualties. According to a Reuters report: 

“The body of one of the soldiers was found mutilated in a forested area on the side controlled by India, Rajesh K. Kalia, spokesman for the Indian army's Northern Command, said. However, he denied Indian media reports that one body had been decapitated and another had its throat slit.”

The theory of provocation assumes that needling is part of our respective foreign policies.

Betrayal of beauty?

What Jian saw and committed to

The Chinese man who sued his wife for being 'ugly' and won the case can be seen as a study beyond beauty.

Jian Feng did not know about the lack of pulchritude in his wife. When she delivered an “incredibly ugly” baby, he figured out that this is what she looked like. She had, in fact, undergone several cosmetic surgeries.

It is interesting that he assumed she had cheated on him. This made her confess about her surgeries before marriage, where she spent about $100,000.

This was another form of cheating. It makes one wonder about betrayal. What really does it mean? He says she used false pretense. We are living in times when nips, tucks, implants, botox shots have become commonplace. In fact, if you do not have any of the new fashion “accessories”, you might still be suspect.

He got attracted to what he saw. That was the reality for him. Would he know about other forms of ugliness? These are often revealed when people are forced into situations or because these are suppressed emotions that cannot be surgically altered.

Did his wife lie to him? Did he ask her about her past? Would she have confessed to this? Regarding physical aspects too, there are so many that are not immediately visible – what about depilation, push-up bras, corsets, cosmetics that enhance looks? Needless to say, the standards would apply to men as well.

What if Jian’s wife had met with an accident after marriage? Would that be a betrayal? If he began looking at her with pity and tolerated her, then would he not be betraying her? If she underwent reconstructive surgery, but there were a few changes, would that be betrayal? What happens as she, and he, age?

As for the child, what would happen if the daughter was born cute? There would be no reference to false pretense. Would that diminish the betrayal? Is it then about the real false pretense which in turn is about destiny’s denial?

The court has granted him a substantial amount in damages. The child is a product of both of them. What is his responsibility towards the daughter who is unaware of what transpired? If she revealed to him the big truth about his wife, then should he accept her as the harbinger of news or reject her for being a part of it? Will the mother hate her because it was her looks that brought out her secret in the open?

Aren’t these additions and subtractions to the body a betrayal of the self first? Such betrayals are often choices. If people are expected to change habits and values, then why the chariness about physical traits? 

PS: I don't see any reason to post her 'before' picture. This is what she is now. 

Lady Gaga's Mirror

She echoes my writer self. I am sitting here looking into what seems like a well, but I am dragged into it and soon the reflection is not water. It is solid matter as I hit my head on the ground.

Lady Gaga's quotes from a piece she wrote for 'V' are being showcased for reasons of her narcissism and obsessiveness, but she is delving deep. That well I was looking into could be her.

For two days I did not write. Deliberately. It was deliberated upon. Until now, I was utterly charmed by my ability to slake my thirst with words. The happenings around pummelled me and I was left gasping or angry or wounded. It has often affected me. That is not as worrisome as my complete subservience to what I write. What I imagined was a natural part of me I realise now to be an addiction. Some might say it is pleasant, but it has had a deleterious effect. Not because someone decides to seal my fate, or cannot fathom the complexity of certain thoughts, or finds them simplistic for their world-view is not my world-view and most prefer Disney characters to the dark nooks, unless one can caricature them, and the media so loves to do that.

The effect it has is internal. I begin to feel ill when I do not write. I get irritable, I do not behave normal. There are a couple of people who have seen me in this state and it is not nice. I transform. Writing can be a huge part of my life, but must it replace it? I was cogitating upon these when Lady Gaga’s words touched a chord immediately. Let us travel together through some of what she said and what it means to me:

I have said before that I am a master of escapism, which many attribute to my wigs, performances, and my natural inclination to be grand, but perhaps that is also a lie. Maybe I am not escaping. Maybe I am just being. Being myself.

Think about the many situations writers write about. When do the lines between creation and creator just tumble over each other? I write a lot on topical issues and one might not imagine it possible to escape from what is reality while analysing it. It is. I am reacting; this is cathartic and therefore escape. All purging is escape, a denial of retention. I hate to say this, but I believe that by responding to everything around one becomes a puppet, even if the subconscious self does the string pulling.

Is this me, these wigs of ideas, the grand stand that may in fact appear to be lies if seen from the perspective of one ideology that negates another? I know I am being myself. Yet…and here is Lady G again:

The lines for myself have become so blurred now, I know not the difference between a moment of performance and a moment of honesty. If you were to ask me to remove my Philip Treacy hat at a party, in truth it is the emotional and physical equivalent of requesting I remove my liver. Talk about giving “clutching her pearls” a new meaning! I know not the difference between the hair that grows from my head and the teal wigs that grow from my imagination. They are the same. They are both honest, and always have been. So maybe I know nothing of “the art of escapism.” I was just Born This Way. I revere the dream to be real. I am always, and shall forever be, private in public.

Private in public. Think about it. Writers sit in their worlds, making new worlds – places, people, verse, prose, plots. We go back to cook, eat, bathe, shop, have relationships, and even ‘connect’ with real anonymous people. What is the truth here? The latter is a fact; the truth is larger, in that it is the submerged imagination ticking away. I know that if you take away my words, I cannot tell you who I am. I have forgotten.

I watch television and even the soaps seem to be ‘material’ to explore, to deconstruct, to analysed.

I read the newspapers and every bit looks like it has to be torn apart. I, too, am not ‘escaping’, for I know that each time I make a travel itinerary, it is with the intention of writing. My plans work around that – the laptop, pen drives, notepads,several pens and pencils to doodle. I go shopping in these new places and, of course, something happens that invariably leads to an experience. It could well be interesting, but after I have picked up the bags and sat down for a coffee, I bring out my little notepad or my phone and am jotting down observations. Do I not taste the coffee? I do, perhaps give it more importance than it merits.

So, what happened in the two days I did not write? I took a dust cloth, wiped the laptop, and then sat down, immobile for long, because I ceased to exist. The food, the shower, and the clothes I wore were things stuffed into what seemed like an automaton. I began to feel nauseous, drowsy and my hands went numb. Yes, numb from not writing.

These are withdrawal symptoms and I took a good look at myself in the mind’s mirror and saw imaginary lines scrawled on my face – incomplete sentences. I am doomed. My escape has become my life.

Hillary, Pippa and Peeping Toms

The battle’s between the rear and the mouth. Pippa Middleton is now known only in hindsight, or as hind site. Ridiculous as it may seem, the new Duchess of Cambridge’s sister has an Ass Appreciation Society that boasts over 200,000 members dedicated to her. They will celebrate her ‘day’ after her birthday on September 9. Will she be as “pert” then? Even if such adulation must irk her, subconsciously she will become conscious.

The brain behind the bottom, Jimmy Wevell, said: “I watched the royal wedding and the only thing that was entertaining me was Pippa's ass, I have to thank her for it.”

How can it be entertaining? I shall not get into the objectification argument because all such events objectify someone or the other and if you televise a private occasion live then the occasion is the object. However, it tells us a bit about how hollow lives have become that people need to seek not heroes but parts of them. A nose here, a pair of eyes there. One can understand admiration, even emulation if it is restricted to style and mannerisms, because individuality is effortless and some people need to put in some work to just be themselves.

The hypocrisy is that the $5m for one scene she has been offered in a porn film is considered crass. Vivid Entertainment’s founder Steven Hirsch saw what the rest did, and what the rest did was a snowball effect. Not everyone can notice a butt at the same time and with the same intensity.

This is really about images, in this case the televised walk holding the trail. One might dismiss it as just another fancy. It is. This too is voyeurism.

Just as no one has a problem over the two million hits on Hillary’s photograph in just one location (Flickr) looking in what appeared to be shock – wide eyed and open-mouthed, they said. How did they know whether her mouth was open since her hand covers it? It became a testimonial for the nature of the goings on in the ‘situation room’ at the White House. What meaning were people looking for, what reassurance, what condemnation? She later clarified, “I am somewhat sheepishly concerned that it was my preventing one of my early Spring allergic coughs. So, it may have no great meaning whatsoever.”

Pictures are subject to perception and we do know that what happens in a fraction of a second is not only a fraction of the truth, it is probably not the truth at all. So, if this applies to Hillary – no shock, and no Miss Universe moment of OMG, I won – then all images can be suspect.

Why not a cheep of protest over the images leaping out now – pictorial and verbal? I am not a buffet person who goes around a pre-arranged table consuming what is offered. I like it a la carte, especially if I am told it is available. The chef cannot just say he’s cooked it, describe the recipe, put it on the menu and then tell me it’s not worth it, it won’t suit my palate. The chef says it to everyone. Not everyone has the same palate and taste buds or visits restaurants for the same reasons.

My ‘voyeurism’ – the right to know really – has been vindicated by these two ‘harmless’ images of the ladies. Interestingly, the men are not analysed.

Well, not unless they took ‘herbal Viagra’. How everyone is lapping up all this information. Avena syrup, an extract of wild oats, is marketed as a natural Viagra. There are many natural aphrodisiacs available all over the world. But you say Viagra and the potency of the image leaps out. I read a bit about oats and they add to fructose content and are not all that great for several other reasons. And if the dead man suffered from kidney failure, he was cured with watermelons!

There is no need for aphrodisiacs. People can just get off on such imagery.

During the Bhopal gas leak, we got to see some rather ‘artistic’ award-winning pictures, with slippers carefully arranged near a child’s half-buried body. It was half the truth, which was way more horrific.

The picture of Pippa reduces her to one thing and Hillary’s, the ‘hitters’ hope, stands for something more profound and revealing. Neither is factual but impressionistic. These give vicarious thrills and not the reality.
- - -


Updated:

An unseen photograph of Princess Diana in her dying moments will be shown in a film at the Cannes festival. As a report says:

The documentary 'Unlawful Killing' is backed by actor Keith Allen and Mohammed Al Fayed, whose son Dodi also died with the Princess of Wales, reports the Daily Mail.

The 90-minute film will include a graphic black and white close-up of the late princess taken moments after the Mercedes carrying the couple crashed in a Paris underpass.

The distressing image, Diana's blonde hair and features clearly visible, has never been publicly seen in the UK.

It will be shown around the world but not in the UK, prompting Allen to say: "Pity, because at a time when the sugar rush of the royal wedding has been sending republicans into a diabetic coma, it could act as a welcome antidote."

Al Fayed is an opportunist, but I found Allen's statement more so. Yet, unless the film is an expose, such a picture will only be exhibitionistic.

Venus and the Penis

The purists are puking. Venus has got a hand job and Mars can now boast of a nice little phallus. These ancient statues did not have the relevant body parts and had lived without them since 175 AD. Come end of 2010 and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has got them ‘restored’. This is not restoration. Any art work that had been altered from the way it was created is tampered with; restoration is a skill that stays pretty much loyal to the original.

The Italian PM is not known to be prudish, therefore these cosmetic additions seem surprising. Perhaps it has to do with the human idea of completeness. If he has to walk into his courtyard everyday, where the works are placed, and see a beautiful couple – the woman handless, the man penisless – perhaps it bothers him.

This raises the question about the perception of art in reality. What might be considered handicaps in life are often metaphorical or aesthetic statements in art. The license to distort is endemic in creativity. Unfortunately, such distortions in creation are looked down upon and rebuked.

Would the connoisseurs of such cut-off parts look upon people born with such disabilities as ‘complete’? I doubt it. I can claim to have an ‘eye’ and I understand at least to some degree the value of symbolism. My own conjecture about the handless Venus is to emphasise her beauty, exemplified especially in her other statue where she is lying in repose, curves accentuated, to concentrate on the feminine and only the feminine. A hand is genderless, so to speak. Regarding Mars, the god of war is probably considered so powerful that he can fight without a sword; his potency is not dependent on specific weapons.

Berlusconi has meddled with a work of art, but it is not unusual if we see it from the perspective of how art is perceived. The manner in which certain goddess figures have been decorously draped in our own temple sculptures, there has always been a progression-regression battle as to what is considered timely and timeless. What about the attempts to destroy certain works, maim them? Aren’t ruins a testimony to it?

There is in the realm of art also the question of how the real are portrayed. It is different from mythological figures. Do portraits of royalty necessarily reveal them as they were? What about the many ‘subjects’ that get iconoclastic status simply because they have been given a buildup over the years? Who were the people in Picasso’s distorted images?

Isn’t truth fabricated when famous works are replicated? Why, when a canvas is put behind fortified glass it loses much of its texture and becomes a mere desirable object. So, the purists need to ask and answer a few such queries. Meanwhile, since these parts that Silvio has ordered to be added are detachable, is there any scope of them being enhanced or inflated? Just wondering…

Faisal, Farah and Lie Detecting

Everyone is going on about who this Faisal Shahzad is. As though they are supposed to know.

His neighbor has given some information: "He was quiet. He would wear all black and jog at night. He said he didn't like the sunlight."

He bought fireworks but according to the shopkeeper, those would not harm a watermelon. However, had he got them in the blackmarket it might have been different. I guess he is the stingy sort.

My question is: Why did the US and its agencies say immediately after the Times Square bomb scare that they did not suspect any Islamist group? How did this superpower with all the arsenal at its disposal make this pronouncement? And what changed? A guy who is a Pakistani and says he was trained in Waziristan. This sounds just too convenient, especially after Mehsud comes back from the dead and declares that the Taliban will attack the US. This fits in. Of course, they are still not taking it at face value for they don’t have to worry about the Taliban at all. They are thinking other nations. Or other cities.

Do remember that US intelligence had warned India of attacks in its major cities and our security and sniffer dogs went all paranoid. Either they were misled or they misled.

I wish that instead of a hotdog cart owner who was the one to smell the bomb it was a kebab seller. That would have been nicer.

- - -


The truth serum is on its way out. The Supreme Court wants investigations to be based on techniques other than narco analysis and brain mapping.

While it is true that such information gathered through lie detection techniques is inadmissible as evidence, it might have helped in putting the cops on a specific track.

Is it inhuman, given the health risks? I’d imagine it is better than keeping undertrials in prisons for years.

Former IPS officer YP Singh made a pertinent point:

“The test helped reveal vital details. Now, the use of third-degree could increase. Professional investigators are essential to conduct probes minus scientific tools. But such professionalism is no longer left in the Mumbai police force. Narco-analysis was increasingly used as it was easier.’’

Will doing away with it make the police force more vigilant to the actual collecting of data and vital circumstantial evidence? I am wary. Think about the cases where clues have not been collected or have disappeared.

We might recall how disturbed our Balasaheb Thackeray was when a Naxalite under the narco influence said that the Shiv Sena had funded them. Wonder what the SS chief would have to say had the accusation been made after a few pints of warm beer, that he had a special fondness for at one time.

- - -

Oh, here’s a story about how a Muslim woman is fighting her way into the fight club. Jordanian Farah Malhassa is a body builder. She says:

“Everyone is against me. No one understands why I want to become an international star in figure body-building.”

For six years she has been working out, managed to get all those tattoos, is now ready to go to Canada for an international competition, so there must be at least some support. I wish she would not create such a negative picture, since she is sitting in Amman and managing all this.

I think I understand her family disapproving and wondering why she wanted to “deform my body and make myself look ugly”. This is the general perception. We do have fixed ideas about the male and the female body. A man who is not of strong build or his manner not masculine enough is considered effeminate. Women who do not possess the right body type – differing in cultures (interestingly, this applies mainly to the female) – are made to become aware of it.

Farah might like muscles, but not all women do. Sure, she ought to have a choice and she has made it. Some of us just course through life training with the weight of our follies. And they come in different sizes.