Sonia, Modi and Accountability

Narendra Modi is doing what he is programmed to do as a politician: rake up issues to show the opposition in a bad light. His latest salvo that turned out to be a whimper is to make public the travel and treatment expenses on Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

The media has made it into a Modi versus Sonia war. The timing is obviously to cause some embarrassment, for Ms. Gandhi launched her party’s campaign in Gujarat today.  

The problem is that there is no embarrassment in politics – kickbacks and killings are par for the course. There is only one-upmanship. 

Sonia Gandhi in Rajkot...words, words

Ms Gandhi’s speech sounded rather lame:

"The Congress has laid down the foundation for growth in Gujarat. The Congress has tried to live up to its ideals, we have come a long way and still have miles to go. It is unfortunate that our opponents only see darkness and cannot see the development. The work the Congress has done for the development of Gujarat, no one else has done. The opposition always misleads people about our development-oriented policies. It is the habit of some people to take credit for the work done by other people, let them do it.”

This indirectly conveys that there is major development. People are not interested in who laid the foundation stone, how much money the Centre is pumping in. They see the glitz and the man with the Midas touch, even if it is fiction.

And then she went straight into the lion’s den without even realising it:

"The whole country is concerned about corruption today. We are too. The UPA brought in the Right to Information Act. People against whom there were corruption charges; the law has taken its course. I want to know what the BJP is doing about corruption. Why is there such a difference between their walk and talk?"

It is an RTI report that Modi has been flashing in public. The BJP may not walk their talk, but what happens to their allegations?

Indeed, Modi should realise that when he wants to target someone powerful outside his state he should come armed with facts that will not fall flat on their face. The bizarre figure spent he said was Rs. 1880 crore.

Ramesh Verma, whose petition, was used said:

"If Modi is referring to my RTI, neither have I received any such information nor have I leaked it to the media or any politician.”

Then, where did it materialise from?  The Congress has gone on the offensive on this slippery ground using invective to counter invective. If Modi is a liar, then nail his lie.

Modi with the other handy Gandhi

He is a shrewd player. It is quite probable that he used hyperbole precisely to get such a reaction. The Kapil Sibals, Manish Tewaris, Rajiv Shuklas are frothing at the mouth, and he is watching the fun. In fact, he has come forward with empathy:

"I say the government should spend as much amount as is required for treatment of Sonia Gandhi. We are for humanitarian cause. I would like to tell the PM to spend as much amount of money as needed but if people want to know the details of the expenses, should not the government give the details? Is it not the right of the people to know how much of their money is being spent? I am not questioning Sonia Gandhi. I am asking the PM how much money from the exchequer has been spent on Sonia Gandhi.”

There are some people who want to know: why now? Why did he or his party not raise the issue earlier? In fact, one is amazed at the media’s silence and ‘respect for privacy’ where Ms. Gandhi’s illness and trips abroad are concerned. Let us not forget that other politicians are made into public spectacles for their ailments, whichever party they belong to.

Modi may be using this time opportunistically, but is the query not valid? Why the secrecy about expenditure and trips made? I don’t think anyone should press for details of her illness, if this is a specific request. (In which case, the media should leave others alone, too.)

There is a suggestion that he won the 2007 elections by abusing Sonia Gandhi and is hoping it will work again. Much as I dislike his politics, Gujarat is in his pocket. The earlier abuse is replaced with a mix of concern for the nation’s wealth, at a time when the prime minister has just come out with his plan for the economy.

Sonia Gandhi’s speech has not helped. The Congress party spokespersons’ casual attitude could well be counter-productive outside Gujarat too when people have to shell out more for household items. If only they came out with a clear indicator, they’d earn goodwill and be seen as a serious political force, and not just a party of quiet hangers-on.

A few days ago, I got this email from a saffron party person:

"The latest India Today reports that Rahul Gandhi visited Singapore for three days to watch the Formula One race.  Since the race duration itself is about half-a-day, one has to wonder what exactly he did for the rest of the time.  Also, one has to wonder how the trip was paid for, since his wealth declaration, required at the time of filing the nomination to stand for Lok Sabha elections, indicates that he is a person of modest means."

Should these queries not be posed? Are they irrelevant to what else he does? In this case, it is possible that the F1 people invited him and sponsored his stay. It begs the question: Should a leader of a national party accept such freebies, if that is the case? Then, was not Narendra Modi invited by Gujarati businessmen in America? Expats have kept the Hindutva movement well-oiled. Almost all politicians make trips abroad; some take a huge entourage even on official trips. Industrialists lend their private jets. Helicopters are used for short sorties.

Where do we draw the line and for whom? 

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Cartoon: Mumbai Mirror

Pix: NDTV, TOI

Why Can't Science Let Us Be?

If you don’t wear stilettos and still get orgasms, then pat your back. You are the last hope of science. It’s funny that ‘science-ologists’ think such theories need to be debunked. The “year’s worst abuses against science” by celebrity offenders is the annual list that is part of the Sense About Science (SAS) campaign.

The organisation’s managing director Tracey Brown sets the tone for the attempt:

"It's tempting to dismiss celebrity comments on science and health, but their views travel far and wide and, once uttered, a celebrity cancer prevention idea or environmental claim is hard to reverse. At a time when celebrities dominate the public realm, the pressure for sound science and evidence must keep pace."

By making an issue of it, SAS is in fact giving it celebrity endorsement. Why are famous people asked to put their lot behind prominent medical causes like HIV and cancer? Don’t they often become a reason for treacle-inducing stories rather than gain any merit based on a factual analysis or research? Most celebrities perform at rock concerts and charity balls for these issues. How does it reach the real target audience when they are cocooned in their gowns and dinner jackets parroting what one version of the sponsor group tells them?

If scientific endeavour reaches a dead-end because of rumours or what someone personally believes, then it does not speak too well about science. A small group of people who are completely besotted by what celebrities say does not constitute the population of the world. None of the views they have listed can cause any damage.

Here are a few and my take:

• TV personality Nicole Polizzi: "I don't really like the beach. I hate sharks, and the water's all whale sperm. That's why the ocean's salty."

People do not like the beach for several reasons; some do fear sharks; sperm – or semen at least – might be considered salty, although human and whale sperm could well be different. And don’t we say that even a drop makes an ocean. So there.

• American singer-songwriter Suzi Quatro: "I used to get a lot of sore throats and then one of my sisters told me that all illnesses start in the colon. I started taking a daily colon cleanser powder mixed with fresh juice every morning and it made an enormous difference."

How is this harmful? Anything done in excess is bad, but I suspect the keepers of science are also the keepers of the pharmaceutical industry and the medical fraternity, and how they’d like to replace the powder-juice combo with a nice little capsule.

• Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, said that spending more time with horses had made her less allergic to them.

That is her experience. It is not like the whole of Britain or monarchists are going to line up at the stables to get rid of their horsy allergies, which they would be imagining about anyway.

• Pippa Middleton: “It (cold water rinse) closes the pores and gives it a lift and shine... it really works.”

SAS tells us that hair does not have pores. All salons insist on washing off conditioner with cold water so that it does not become limp. How will it affect the hair to get a cold rinse?

• Simon Cowell was ticked off for saying that he found vitamin injections “calming”.

Doctors use such placebos routinely, and many people are addicted to vitamin supplements.

• Heiress Miss Ecclestone said her secret to prevent falling ill: “I have acupuncture to boost my immune system every month or so.”

Alternative medicine has been practised for centuries. She is using acupuncture as a preventive measure and not a cure.

• Gwyneth Paltrow believes that a detox diet helped her liver and gave her “mental clarity”.

So? Don’t we harp on psychosomatic illnesses? Are people not uncomfortable if they are too full of themselves, so to speak? Getting rid of some of the elements might in fact make a person think clearly or at least not be so preoccupied with what is within.

• Christian Louboutin, a French footwear designer, was taken with something a fellow party guest told him about shoes: "She said that what is sexual in a high heel is the arch of the foot, because it is exactly the position of a woman's foot when she orgasms. So putting your foot in a heel, you are putting yourself in a possibly orgasmic situation.”

An anthropologist or a psychologist would have the good sense to see it as body language or how illusions and analogies work.

Instead, they got a consultant in sexual medicine to ‘debunk’ this myth. Kevan Wylie, (“responded drily”, as the report states, which makes one wonder):

"A woman's foot may be in this position during orgasm, but that does not mean that putting her foot into this position under other circumstances will result in orgasm.”

The woman is not suggesting that, just as men do not get an erection if they hold a gun. She is fantasising.. The shoe industry uses such fantasies, too, as do other advertised brands. Why do some people find stilettos sexy and others think wedges are? Why do some like pumps while others prefer those mean leather boots?

I wish I had thought about this arched footwear…the image is wonderful.

The science saviours can go work on their test tubes. I am thinking of little needles poking into me and a small shot of calming vitamins as I get under the shower to wet my hair with freezing water that will leave it shining and bouncy. I shall then go the riding club and inhale deeply as I get astride a horse. We reach the beach and I walk on my toes on the sand and ever so hesitatingly dip my feet in the ocean. The fear of sharks lends an edgy feeling as I cup my hands and gather a bit of salty water.

Ending on Primetime

He was made into a corpse in a moratorium even before he died. His body went limp and the world saw it. They paid to watch it as the images flickered and the TV dinner or the evening drink in their hands shook a bit.

BBC1’s primetime documentary, 'Inside the Human Body', used Gerald a cancer patient on live television. He died in January, but they showed his last breath moment yesterday. Was it right?

A BBC spokesman defended it:

“Death is an important part of the human experience, and showing Gerald’s death is integral to understanding what happens to the body when it is no longer able to function properly. The BBC does not shy away from difficult subjects like this, but presents them in a sensitive and appropriate manner.”

If that were the motive, then it would have been proper to show his x-rays, the scans, and 3-D images of the affected parts. However sensitively it might have been portrayed, this is not much different from reality television and a bit more devious. In those shows you know someone is putting on an act or exaggerating or whose buttons are being pushed. Here, Gerald’s death was played out for two months. Indeed, the ‘experience’ of death lasted this long as his lung and liver degenerated.

Death is not part of the human experience; it is the end of it for the person concerned.

Gerald was approached last November. he had said then:

“I don't want to die but evidently, unless some miracle happens, I ain't going to be here very long so let's get on with my life as best I can. I'm not frightened. I believe it will not be just like cutting off tape with some scissors. It might be, but either way I just have blind trust I shall not completely disappear.”

Why was he approached? Are news channels in charge of such experiments? How do they choose their guinea pigs? He was probably told that what he was going through would help others. Do the ratings of the programme reveal any education on the part of the viewers? I can imagine sympathy and fear…the stuff you get in soaps and increasingly in news stories. But when there is no cure for last-stage cancer, the emphasis should be on finding out how to improve lives, not to get people to accept the inevitable and do a sightseeing tour of what happens to the body. Especially not the skin and flesh and eyes and smile.

I do not buy into the argument that people are accustomed to seeing gunshots and blown-up brains on TV shows and films. I might add that we see such deaths in real encounters too. The two are examples of fiction and reality. Not the in-between situation of Gerald. I would have understood an interview with him where he spoke about what tormented him, but not this. Certainly not this.

Recently, some guy had put up a line on his Facebook account that he was going to kill his son ‘now’ and he did. He had taken him from his estranged wife for the day. These have become the new YouTube fantasies, where people who would otherwise have lived and died as most do want to become public figures. There is no dearth of takers. In Gerald’s case, we are told that he was 84, as though it lessens the pain in any manner. In the picture as he breathed his last his family is shown weeping.

Many viewers might have done so too. This does not mean it is one big family joined together in sorrow. It means for those who were not close to him an end to a show.

News meeows

True lies:

In times when exposes have become grandiose, Mumbai Mirror (Jan 11 issue) sent out its reporter to apply for membership to various political parties. He said he was a freelance web writer. This was enough to make him seem educated and he is young, too, which is what
everyone is looking for.

It is appalling to discover that one can become a member of any political party without anyone bothering to check on not only credentials but basic details. He even lied about his address.

The NCP was the quickest, followed by Shiv Sena, BJP and the MNS, whose office was also the most crowded. Within 48 hours he had laminated ID cards for all these parties. The Congress is the only one that asked for proof of address and PAN card number and the form he
has filled will take a week to process. I assume there will be some standard used for that.

What does this reveal? Party members can participate in several activities and have access to programmes organised by them. Should the person wish to take advantage, he can easily do so and there will not be any evidence. A fake name, a fake address, a fake profession - think about these the next time someone sells a political leader and party to you.

Are the political parties desperate or do they want such 'invisible'
people who can hide their shame?

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True idiocy:

"It's true that the price of milk and vegetables are high. Some of this is a reflection of economic prosperity and purchasing power."

- Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman, Planning Commission

Someone tell him that we are not talking about limited edition solitaires. A country's economic prosperity is judged by how it manages to improve its main sector - agriculture here.

The high cost of essentials, in fact, is a yardstick of poor policies. I heard someone say on a TV discussion on Doordarshan, I think, that if the price rise is being attributed to bad crop, then why are egg prices high? "Murgi ne tau andey dene band nahin kiye! (the hens have not stopped laying eggs)"

If our purchasing power is so high then even the fairly pricey restaurants would not be replacing onions with cabbages. But who's to tell these kings of fancy economic policies?

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True grit:

This news has made me really happy.

Polio cases in India are down by 94 per cent from 741 in 2009 to 42 last year.

It seems like such a small thing but in our land of bad health care, superstition and lack of initiative, this shows we can do it if we genuinely want to.

Just two drops can save so many people of a debilitating disease and also closed minds.

AIDS Attraction

Today is World AIDS Day and it’s time for more feel-good gimmicks. Symbolism does have a place in raising consciousness. However, we do not question the manner in which such symbols are used and their consequences.

The Sydney Opera House in red behind a sculpture commemorating World AIDS Day

This year distinctive landmarks across the world decided to flash red to usher in a goal – to ensure that by 2015 no child will be born with HIV. While the photo-ops are from interesting to monstrous, from Paris’ City Hall and Fountains, the London Eye, Cape Town’s Table Mountain, Niagara Falls to the Sydney Opera House, one wonders at the sagacity of such neon-therapy. Are people going to the opera dressed in condoms or will they dip the prophylactics in the Niagara waters to show the potency of such safety measures? Is the disease, then, only about sexuality or is sexuality emphasised because it is, well, sexy?

This will turn out to be just a light show with sound effects coming in the form of homilies from the likes of U2’s Bono, who held a concert, and said it is a “winnable war”. This is not a war. It is about people who often suffer due to ignorance and negligence. Many of them are not visiting landmark sites or even aware of their existence. How will this ‘red’ alert help?

The deputy executive director of UNAIDS, with the rather unfortunate-in-this-context name, Paul De Lay, said:

"There seem to be secondary and tertiary waves of the epidemic, particularly the sexually transmitted side. You have young people who don't know enough about AIDS, there is less of a fear factor about it.''

Creating fear is counter-productive. I maintain that just as showing skull masks to prevent nicotine abuse works as an attractive proposition, making AIDS into a temptation that ought to be resisted will have an opposite effect. Besides, these monuments bathed in red will not make people afraid or bring about awareness. It is just a sheer waste of light and electricity. Perhaps, there will be another symbol of World Environment Day or Energy Conservation Day.

I am resting my case with Deal With Your Own Demons Day.

Raj Thackeray’s Mosquitoes

Like most people in the world, I do not like mosquitoes, whether they infect with malaria or merely take a sip of my blood. However, I always thought of them as creatures that we are supposed to thank Nature for. You know how it is…everytime a little slimy thing is considered good because it gets rid of another slimy thing. So, mosquitoes must have their virtues, and I would have been happy enough to take responsibility for their existence in my backyard.

But Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray has blamed ‘migrants' for the mosquitoes that have caused a malaria outbreak in the city:

"Dengue and malaria are spreading fast in the city due to the dirty illegal slums which are occupied only by the migrants. The city had the diseases earlier as well, but now the situation is different and migrants are attacking Mumbai and ruining it.”

Okay, so one assumes that the earlier version of malaria was tamer. The new mosquitoes are immigrants who have come from places to destroy the pure Maratha immune system. Since mosquitoes do not think much about such political dimensions of their actions, they are the lackeys of the human migrants.

These chaps from UP and Bihar decided that Mumbai, the city where they wish to make a living, needs to be slowly destroyed. They tried with their lingo, their rough-hewn manner, but somehow a tough city likes it rough. They were welcomed. The poor Marathi maanus, who left to themselves are happy doing what they do, were supposed to feel affronted. Being a lazy bunch, they were lured into believing their jobs were being snatched by the outsiders. The Marathi maanus checked their resumes to see whether they had posted them in the first place and when they realised they had yellowed, they woke up, had their Shiv Sena sanctioned vada-paav, and started attending rallies which felt like work.

They still remain simple souls who might drop in at Ravindra Natya Mandir, go to their Mantralaya offices, return dot on time (although the younger lot is different but does not feel threatened by outsiders). However, the germ of this immigrant idea has been put in their heads and they are shaking those heads. Now Raj Thackeray is telling them that the moment they get fever, a cough and cold and start shivering, it is because of UP and Bihar.

What Raj bhau does not realise is by saying that these people are all living in slums, he confirms the belief that the Marathi maanus have it better.

Of course, since the slums are dirty it is these outsiders who will be affected most. So, who is responsible for the mosquitoes – they or the insiders who want to throw them out?

The malaria of Maharashtra mystery deepens.

Fighting feet

If my leg was the Roman Empire then it had a fall. I ought to have used a more commonplace metaphor, especially considering I do tend to fall off beds. This time I did not. I was walking with what might be an autumn in my stride, the feet felt like they were crushing crisp brown leaves; they ambled from the balcony towards the bedroom and near the bottom corner of the bed a protrusion, a hook that had come off and hung loose with vicious intent, stalled movement. As it grazed my left ankle, the floor, smooth as a lover’s skin, dragged me down. I was on my left knee, in half a prayer pose, my hands akimbo – a bit like an opera singer and a bit like a bat in flight. The right leg had by then turned and my foot had twisted.

I screamed, as though the scream would untwist the foot, get me up from my knee. I was only slipping further, the foot twisting even more. I had nothing to hold on to except the bed. I tugged at the blanket like an urchin tugging at someone’s sleeve. I finally managed to sit on the floor, legs stretched out. With a great deal of effort I got to the edge of the bed and slowly slid up and wept into the pillow.

It felt strange. Just minutes ago I had opened my shopping bag and was admiring my new pair of shoes. When I had tried them they fit like a dream and I walked on air. Is this irony? Co-incidence? Or just another fall?

I know people fall. And this is hardly the stuff of Greek tragedies, pardon the mixing up of nations and metaphors. I had been on a high the past few days. I was treadmilling, bicycling, walking, sweating the hell out of myself, and I deserved those new shoes. An Iranian lady had helped me select them with facial expressions and delicate movement of hands. Our unspoken language made me feel good as she pointed me out to her whole family and they all smiled as though I looked like a bottle of Shiraz.

Minutes later, I was fragile glass. I had to manage the night with Deep Heat, which comes in spray form. Its sensual warmth penetrated my feet that ached uncharacteristically for the cold comfort of numbness.

Next morning brought a new pain, the pain of realisation of pain. Feeling pain is one thing. Realising that pain exists outside of feeling is quite another. Pain becomes an entity. It has its own dynamics, its own reason, and it chooses its victims carefully.

X-rays showed two broken bones. “Femur?” I asked the doctor, trying to sound knowledgeable about my body. “No, this is another bone.” He did not name it. There were two – they could be twins or they might be different. He did not think my bones needed names. The nameless bones were cracked. I imagined some fine piece of crystal on a mantelpiece with two cracks. Fractured feet. I needed a cast.

Before we could get to it, I asked the ortho if it would hurt. “Just a little,” he said. I either like a lot or nothing. I said, “Why must it hurt?” He smiled quizzically. I told him to give me local anaethesia for putting on a plaster. He was not amused. The new-fangled things are neat. He just kept winding what looked like an ordinary bandage, the soles touching his chest; for a while my soles could hear his heartbeats – I think on my feet! He was touching the wound gauze with water, pat-pat-pat, and the wetness set the plaster. I was amazed at how a simple bandage got so fixed to my feet. Now I can knock on it and it won't open any door. It is shut so tightly that no air can enter. It’s upto my calf because the pain travels. It must have chalked up quite a few qualifier miles.

I was out in a wheelchair and it felt like a stretch limo. If only I had a gown with a fur stole and a hat with ostrich feathers, I might have been in quite another age. The momentary charade of the imagination has now been replaced with a walker as I limp my way within the four walls. I see images on the walls, picture windows, the river, a beautiful table set for fine dining and the scent of jasmines as white as the cast on my leg. I think of sheesha, cinnamon flavoured, the smoke rings creating a haze, and I think how walls have doors and windows and yet we can see pictures on them without looking out. And I thank such moments for thoughts, for people, for strangers who make all this possible.

I don’t need glass slippers; my feet are glass.

Heart of the Market

Do you pledge to play more often with Leo? Do you pledge to use the treadmill? Do you? Your heart and its well-being are not only an advertiser’s paradise, but they are used to convey the wide disparity that exists between the social classes.

The Times of India has started the Billion Hearts Beating campaign together with Apollo Hospital. The ads refer to an audience that will have access to the good things of life. The assumption is that heart diseases affect only the urban individual, that only their health is of any consequence.

You might say that readers of the TOI are not living in villages, so it is perfectly fine to address this group. Here is the problem: It creates a closed group that begins to believe that only certain sections suffer; the rest are peripheral.

Some of you might recall that a while ago Quaker Oats had joined in. I had written then about what a sad trend it is of marrying concern with consumerism and blatantly plugging products. While Apollo Hospital does have facilities for such care and is directly involved, what do oats and newspapers have to do with it? You’d quibble that this is sponsorship and support, and the corporate sector can help in educating. I’d have gone along with that if it were only about you and me.

Of the millions who will suffer from heart diseases, how many eat oats or are amenable to the idea? How many even know what oats are? Quaker is not an Indian company; it is a multinational that wants to make a dent in the Indian market. Is there any proven study that shows oats reduce the risk of heart problems or reading a particular newspaper will educate you more?

I called it a trend. It is worse. This is a money-making racket through fear.

We already have false images of people in white coats telling you that your toothpaste has been certified by them so little children can eat as many chocolates and ice-cream as they want. There is one absolutely ridiculous ad where a kid is complaining of a tummy ache and the ‘doctor’ model says it is not the stomach to blame but the germs that find their way into the hands. You get the right soap and all is well. While the germs-on-hands theory is true, the stomach does have a mechanism of its own. No one bothers to ask or tell us that children or adults do not walk around with soap.

If these heart waalas are concerned, and there has got to be more education here, then they could have added some simple message of eating daliya, which is porridge, which is what oats amount to. The minute you want to ride on the salesman’s gravy cart, there is a chance of credibility going under the horse’s hooves.

H1N1? Try Tulsi?

I wish I did not have to mention him again. It isn’t really about him, anyway.

What is the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) upto?

With yoga guru Baba Ramdev suggesting that tulsi and could help prevent swine flu, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has decided to act on his advice seriously. The civic agency has decided to provide these plants to Delhiites ‘free of cost’ to safeguard them from swine flu. Giloi branches and tulsi leaves will be given to councillors to distribute them among residents of their area.

Many people in this country use ayurveda and home remedies and these can indeed be effective. But at a time when people are going berserk and the job of a government institution is to ensure the safety of its citizens, this amounts to negligence.

How can they say that tulsi will safeguard people against the flu? Have they got any assurance or scientific data to prove it? Distributing it free of cost will divert the attention of many and it will act as a placebo. At one level it might be a good thing, but what if there is a serious case and people are not treated on time?

How different is this from faith-healing? Have we not had examples of some evangelist priest holding court and lame people walking off the stage without a limp? Or of instances where the polio vaccine is resisted because some maulvi said so?

Swami Ramdev’s ashram was found to have skulls and bones and it was widely reported. Did anything come of the enquiries?

Are these religious figures now going to decide on medical issues that are considered epidemics? He has said he has a cure for cancer. Why does the Swami not tell people about how to deal with malnutrition?

At least, food is not something that requires great effort to procure in a country that exports grains and often lets it rot.

Eat your heart out?

Would you like a ‘Quadruple Bypass Burger’? Would you like to get a heart attack? At 8000 calories, the juicy stacked snack that is served at the Heart Attack Grill in Chandler, Arizona, comes with a medical disclaimer.

Is this supposed to be funny? The restaurant has a hospital theme, the staff are dressed as nurses and after the patient/patron has eaten, s/he is given a wheelchair ride.


I wanted to puke just reading about it. Not because of the burger but due to how completely stupid we are becoming as a society. It is a mockery of illness, of those who genuinely suffer, of the very idea of excess.

A parody is fine on stage or writing. But this is luring people into believing they can taste risk. In a country where people are sued for coffee that is too hot, I do not understand this mindless attempt at innovative hospitality.

You might well counter with the argument that people are going there, which means they do find it interesting. People go on rollercoaster rides, scream their lungs out and then want to repeat it. Like bungee jumping. These are risks taken with the knowledge that one is brave and fearless. It is about testing one’s mettle, not the organs in one’s body.

I wonder how this sort of thing is permitted. Next someone will serve contaminated food or a bar will offer you piss with a disclaimer.

Why don’t people just poke their fingers into electrical sockets and be done with their fun?

The way we are - 6

Wife beats man for not buying a bigger home

The demands for more are not unusual. Many women in our society are told to expect better lives, better opportunities to do things after they are married, things they are denied in their parental homes. She is transferred from one ‘boss’ (the father) to another (the husband).

Therefore, when I read about this guy called Aman complaining it seemed plausible. Him being beaten up also wasn’t really way-out impossible. But him shooting the whole scene while he was being thrashed with a broom does seem a bit stagey.

Video grabs of the clip the victim shot while he was allegedly being beaten up by his wife for failing to purchase a flat. The last grab shows an injury he suffered due to the beatings

Since both have filed non-cognisable offences are various times at the police station, to say that this was to produce as evidence is unusual. Did he know when she would start beating him? Did she not grab the camera when she saw it? If it was carefully hidden, then how did he manage to get fairly clear grabs of her in the act?

There are several cases with the police station, and he is a bus driver, so I am surprised it became a media story. Obviously, everyone wants a bit of the limelight and life has become a reality show. The newspaper also had a picture of the couple on their wedding day.

This man is very savvy. After saying that his wife has left several times, he approached a NGO, the ‘Madat Seva Sanstha’.

“Despite our fights, I prefer to live with my wife, as we have a five-year-old daughter. When women face such problems, they usually approach NGOs. Hence, I thought of approaching them to save my marriage.”

Very few women do, and they don’t take pictures when they are being beaten up.

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HIV-positive woman branded

An HIV-positive woman was branded stuck with a label that read ‘HIV Serum positive’ on her forehead and paraded through the wards in a Rajkot, Gujarat, hospital to “warn other patients about her status’’. Only corpses are labelled after post-mortem.

That this was done by medical professionals is itself cause for concern. She was pregnant and had gone for a check-up; they suggested an abortion. After she underwent the surgery, this was done. A voluntary organisation that visited her house found out that her husband too was HIV-positive. She has been so troubled that she wants to end her life because of the humiliation.

The nurses and doctors responsible for this ought to be arrested. We live in a society where such a stigma will follow her forever. All efforts to educate people don’t serve any purpose if we are to continue in this manner of public display of degradation. If people who are supposed to know better don’t understand, how can the layperson? If they were concerned about her spreading the disease, they could have told her to stay away from other patients; it is not as though people were thronging to meet her because she underwent an abortion.

Plain disgusting.

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Worth his weight?

Being Under-Secretary-General in the United Nations is one thing – it helps you get a ticket to many goodies, including the Indian Parliament and a ministerial berth. I thought Shashi Tharoor would at least bring in some newness and steer clear of religion as a publicity stunt. No such luck.

Here he is performing before god and the worshippers (and the electorate?):



Union minister Shashi Tharoor performs ‘thulabharam’, a ritual in which devotees offer goods equal to their weight to the deity, at the Guruvayoor temple on Sunday


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Results of blog poll:

Which case must be acted upon first

1984 anti-Sikh riots - 8 (44%); 1993 Bombay riots - 4 (22%); 2002 Gujarat riots - 6 (33%); Afzal Guru -7 (38%); Ajmal Kasab - 4 (22%)

I am happy that the few who do visit this blog at least have their priorities right.

Only pigs make us go oink?

The largest ever manhunt is for swine flu.

Read this:

In the largest ever manhunt in India’s history, authorities are tracking down the 2,000-odd passengers who are known to have arrived in the country from Mexico over the past week. These passengers will be traced to their local addresses and checked thoroughly for symptoms of swine flu infection by central government health officers, in an exercise to prevent outbreak of the deadly flu in the country.

This group is part of the 50,000 passengers identified as having entered India from flu-affected countries like New Zealand, Mexico, the US, Canada, Spain, France and Britain over the past week.

India on Friday also started full-fledged screening of all passengers coming into the country from infected countries. A total of 17,949 passengers were screened till Friday evening at the international airports in Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Goa, Amritsar, Cochin, Ahmedabad, Trichy and Srinagar. Around 96 doctors have been deployed to man 32 counters at the 12 airports.

Now, if only there was this much effort and enthusiasm to track down terrorists, wouldn’t it be quite something else?

I am not suggesting that such a pandemic is not cause for concern; people are dying. I have always maintained that the ongoing problems are of illiteracy, poverty and health, but somehow they are not as great smart bomb bytes as the T word is.

In fact, rarely do we bother to get in touch with people close to the affected areas unless there are bomb blasts or such. And when we do – as I did when I called up a friend not far from Mexico – she was, like, “huh, yeah, we’re fine…” I admit I felt like one of those bustling hens.

One supposes a small dose of humour would not be out of place, anyway:


Is this riding piggy back or just good old grrr revenge of “you can’t bank on us only for small change”?