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

Bollywood’s Killing Fields

Her life is pornography. Even as their bare bodies are entwined for a few minutes of pleasure, Mahi Arora is capturing the scene on her camera.

I know a wannabe Mahi from years ago. Strange hands splashed whipped cream in her cleavage, crawling higher and lower than needed, the movements robotic. There was awkwardness in her demeanour. I watched this helplessly at a photographer’s studio. The girl and I both rookies, our silences bought by fake dreams. She was a struggling actress and I was there to capture that struggle, write about it, take the message to the world. I felt like a lowlife. And when I did speak, the response hit me: “We are preparing her for the movies.”

This was foreplay where everyone wanted to be a part of what might be a success story. Kingmakers, rag makers stitching clothes so close to the skin that the needles poked into pores. 

***

The film Heroine has been panned by critics because it uses clichés. By turning away from clichés we often lose out on truth. It is superficial in parts because Bollywood is superficial.

The casting couch is a reality few want to accept even if they have made the mandatory visit to The Permanent Suite.  After the first time, it ceases to be about sex or even power. The “heroine ka rate-card” reveals how she is being degraded to fight for every endorsement, party invitation, paid guest appearance at some rich person’s wedding as the bride’s friend and not a celebrity. The diva is now a hanger-on, acting that part in real life so that she can retain the title of superstar.

I wept during the film not because Kareena Kapoor has torn every emotion to reveal shreds, but because I thought about whipped-cream Shanti. A name so common it had to be changed. It did not alter her destiny. Her foundation lay thick on the face, ending at the jawline, revealing another shade of neck. She was the tacky adornment in a few films that released in seedy cinema halls. Then, she disappeared.

I saw her a while ago at a televised award function. She was clapping away, her makeup a bit garish but not gauche, and a new body that she could afford to buy. Her rate-card had been made. She did not need to act anymore. Her applause was genuine. It was for a contemporary who had made it. She knew what their respective prices were. This was happiness projected.  

***

Every day brings a new story of desperate measures to seek attention. Some years ago when I read about a starlet’s tale of woe, I knew there was something amiss. She called up a newspaper office in an agitated state to talk about a photographer who was blackmailing her. She said, “The pictures were taken of me in a bathtub, but there was no indecent exposure. It’s no big deal, but I just felt they should not be published anywhere.”

So why was she making a big deal of it? If she believed that a picture in a bathtub did not constitute indecent exposure, then what was she worried about? Nobody pushed her into it. She had posed for them, some had been printed, and she had not objected at the time. The photographer would not gain much, for the supply of women in bathtubs exceeded the demand. But, by creating a buzz, she sent out a message to those who mattered – the filmmakers – that she had no qualms about posing in such a manner. She had to rescue her soap bubble existence.

It is not difficult to understand the extent people will go to in order to become automated products in phantom factories. It is a cruel world and they unknowingly make it even more cruel by sleeping with the nightmare. Often, the women hang on to men, sometimes to further their career or to portray themselves as a hit pair or to enhance self-esteem.

***

In Heroine a desperate Mahi, hands shakily holding cigarettes, liquor glasses, pills, eyes glazed with self-pity, is addicted to love. She clings to it and when she is tossed out like a squashed insect, its hair-like feet still writhing with life, she does not hesitate to use her private moments. She tells her PR agent to leak out the love-making clip with her star boyfriend. Had she captured it as a keepsake, or did she instinctively know that the only way to keep people was to be ready to risk losing them?

It happens with madams in brothels who were once prostitutes. They sting back at the new girls and the pimps with a mixture of benevolence and cunning. They are recreating their misery. The masochism psychologically scars them.

Heroine’s director Madhur Bhandarkar has created some caricatures. There is also pop psychology about people from broken homes and he is not as harsh on men. In a way, this works because the female star’s loneliness comes across more poignantly. She is leading an LSD existence, hallucinating about herself. Bollywood has amplified her persona, so when she sees it reduced in the bedroom or when her mouth tastes dust from the street, she internalises these as her own flaws. 

Clark Gable, who had a number of famous Hollywood stars as conquests, said he preferred prostitutes. “Because they go away and keep their mouths shut. The others stay around, want a bit of romance, movie lovemaking.”

He was expected to recreate in his bedroom what he had done under the arclights. That is the fantasy many of them begin to believe. And they try out various ruses on fading magic carpets.

Mahi, beaten and defeated, leaves for autumnal Europe where she can deny who she is. Is there really any escape? The Bollywood she was a part of thrives on killing identities. It is always synthetic spring here.

Published in Express Tribune, Sept 29

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Also an old post here: The Fedora in us 

What is your good name?

A friend is writing a novel. She is stuck. Not with the plot, not with the characters, not with finding a publisher. She does not know what to name them.

“You are lucky, you wrote non-fiction,” she told me.

Although mine is non-fiction, due to the sensitive nature of some political aspects, I could not disclose the identities of some people...so it was finding names. Fortunately, there weren’t many such ‘characters’. But it was really a task...someone’s real face would stare at me and I had no idea what to do about it.

Imagine if you were writing about a bald character and named him Samson? As the familiar faces came to haunt me, I tried to fit in what would sound right. I had to also keep the Sunni-Shia-Mohajir thing in mind. Whoever said non-fiction does not require creativity?

One of these hidden people got a copy of the book. Now, quite naturally, he wanted to know if he was a certain person. I said, no…but I had forgotten what I had named him. Off I rushed to my Press copy, clicked on ‘find’ and typed out one item of his clothing (yes, I like these details) and found him. Needless to say he has only read his portions! Another person did not like the name I gave her: “It is the name of one of my relatives and she is quite ugly.” Oh, well…

Strangely enough, I suspect that if I were to write fiction I’d use names of people I know. And make them into real ghoulish characters…that would be fun. (Incidentally, that is just a needling strategy, with the hope that someone somewhere names someone somewhere Farzana, with little horns, knotted hair, frothing at the mouth…here is an idea for free.)

PS: Okay, so one has written non-fiction. Now you know what the problem is? Some people who should be doing things have said, “Yeah, it is, but it is so personal.”

People want realistic characters even in novels and here when they get the real, and some really weird, they call this personal. Arre, eik-eik museum piece hai…so why do you want museums and stuff?