Mandela...

Everybody wants to claim Nelson Mandela. India has appropriated that right with its most bankable crutch: Mahatma Gandhi. Mandela, who fought against apartheid, was imprisoned for 27 years, is seen in India as the man inspired by Gandhi.

Of course, he expressed admiration. Yes, Gandhi was thrown out of a train in South Africa. But their lives and politics were vastly different.

That ought to not even be a point right now. Just as quoting Barack Obama on Mandela, except as an obituary, makes no sense. Mandela was the product of a violent struggle in his lifetime and was called a terrorist. He did not initiate a war on terror, he did not live to send drones to other countries.

In his own words: "Armed struggle must be a movement intended to hit at the symbols of oppression and not to slaughter human beings."

He was not a traditional pacifist when it mattered. As he said, "During the times of tensions, it is not the talented people who excel, who come to the top, it is the extremists who shout slogans."

In the rush to pay tributes, people don't seem to realise that they are conveying something entirely different from what they intend to say, simply because they are saying it badly.

Take this ad for a dairy product company.

It has sensibly not put in a reference to its butter. But, how exactly did Nelson Mandela rise each time we fell? Who are the 'we' represented here?

This does not even sound complimentary; rather, it is an insult. Did Mandela rise when others faltered? Does it mean that his whole struggle was about such flawed behavior on the part of the rest instead of a fight for what he believed in?

There is a quote by Confucius, which seems to have inspired the ad:

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

Mandela did not give up despite the incarceration. It was his glory, his achievement. He did not wait and watch for others to fall so that he could rise.

In fact, prior to the 1994 elections, he said: "If there is anything I am conscious about, it is not to frighten the minorities, especially the white minority. We are not going to live as fat cats."

End note:

"Nelson Mandela Becomes First Politician To Be Missed" — Headline in The Onion

© Farzana Versey

Jai ho...hum...

The Congress Party has bought the rights to the Jai Ho song for its election campaign.

What a pathetic thing to do. True, it is written and composed by Indians, but you are buying it from an outsider. India will have the anthem of how the world sees it and not how we are or want to be. It also reveals the paucity of original thinking. We have enough writers who could come up with some slogan/anthem for the party. But, no, it has to be the tweedle-dum, tweedle-dee Jai Ho.

The response from the Opposition is equally amusing. BJP leader, Prakash Javdekar, said:

“This song will ensure their defeat because it will remind every Indian that millions of people still have to stay in slums because of faulty Congress policies.”

Still? When was the NDA in power? No slums then? And every Indian has watched the film? The Congress plans to play this ditty (yes, I can only refer to it as that) in rural areas and small towns. I don’t think people there would have watched the movie, or that slums would affect them. Who knows, this might be the millionaire moment being shoved down those poor throats…hey, you live in a hovel, no water, no nothing, good…send SMS to a reality quiz show and become a hero. What an idea, sirji…

Heave ho.

- - -

Would this man, a bade baap ka beta being launched as hero, be carrying these kids in his arms had they not become famous?

I had said I was sick of the Slumdog Millionaire titbit and here I am…mea culpa.

Fine, they are making their debut as themselves. Returning from the Oscars win they are targeted by bombers…

I hear that little Rubina Ali has said she does not want to lead the life she led anymore because of what she experienced in the US. Had this girl not seen big cars and big houses when she got out on the roads in Mumbai? Did she not envy those or aspire to that? Has the very idea of aspiration been imported? Or is the West playing up to this?

Then there is talk about the greed of Mohammed Azharuddin and his father who have been demanding more money.

So? What about our pampered film stars? One feeble hit and they up their price. Look at that other child, Darsheel Safary of Taare Zameen Par. Rs. 1.50 crore is his demand and he is getting it. He really hasn’t been tried and tested well enough in other films and yet he is talking big money.

If the whole world is making using of these slum kids, then why not they themselves? It is a lesson at least they learned in the streets among the garbage bins and not by asking their secretaries to negotiate. There have been instances when superstars have refused to come out of their vanity vans unless their demands are met.

It isn’t all good anyway, but then nothing surrounding the Slumdog hype is.

Empty slogans and the charade of concern

What was supposed to be a day of reckoning turned out to reveal what a sick society can stoop down to. These were the slogans at the peace march at the Gateway of India.

‘Chief minister, you should have shown the terrorists Ram Gopal Verma Ki Aag. They would have died automatically.’

Not only is this facetious, but by blaming him for taking the film director with him we are in fact making it seem that we have no other grouse against him. But how would these poor people at the rally even know?

‘There are some more terrorists in India. They’re called politicians.’


‘Vande Mataram, Neta Besharam’


‘Our government: Mumbai’s Weapons of Mass Destruction.’

Have you ever heard this after Gujarat or Malegaon? And going by this picture, since terrorists are often referred to as dogs, would this lady let one of them enter her house?

‘Call back the bar girls, maybe they can protect us.’

Cheap shot. These women are earning an honest living. Will these blokes openly acknowledge them at any other time, especially about their hush-hush visits to some seedy bar?

‘Gali, gali mein shor hain, Pakistan chor hai’

Chor hai? Get your slogans right, if you can’t get the facts.

Three housewives from Napean Sea Road stood by the divider hurling the choicest of abuses. “They’ve raped our motherland. We want war.’’

The army is looking for recruits. Send your sons and daughters.

A group of St Xavier’s college students moved around with T-shirts that screamed: ‘No Vote, No taxes!’

You vote? You pay taxes? On what? The Mercedes your Papa gave you on your 18th birthday that you rammed into some innocent in the street?

Media personality Alyque Padamsee said he had three ideas that he was going to work on after the peace march. “If the Prime Minister appoints ministers and they don’t perform within 100 days, we people should get them sacked.”

This is not an ad agency where if your model coordinator who does not get the right gel-filled bikini top can be sacked, okay, Mr. Ignoramus? Let us not forget that this was the same man who I wrote this about:

He got hold of all the right-sounding secularists and roped in the general secretary of the Jamiat-ul Ulema-I-Hind, Maulana Mahmood Madani. The ad man and the mullah sat in the plush environs of his house. He told Madani, “…a fatwa carried weight, and created a buzz. I recalled how Imam Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie hit the headlines. I wanted similar publicity for the anti-terrorism fatwa”.

I strongly protest against this picture. We have no business using children. And why are they shown with religious symbols? What are we teaching them - that they have no choice but to uphold their faith?


The smaller news item:

The incident took place on board the Jet Airways Aurangabad-Mumbai flight 9W-114 on Sunday. A passenger asked the flight attendant her name when she was serving him. Recounted a passenger, “We heard him ask and found it strange since flight attendants have name tags on their uniform.’’


The next question was: Are you Muslim?


“She said yes, and this man, who was about 35-years-old, started shouting at her. The man said, ‘Why the bloody hell are you Muslims doing this to our country?’ She calmly replied, ‘Sir, this is my country too.’ He shot back, ‘I don’t think so, because people from your community are behind these attacks.’ She was on the verge of tears, but said bravely, ‘Sorry Sir, they don’t belong to India. They are not Indians.’ After that she quietly moved away, avoiding further conversation. We could see that she did not go towards the cockpit to complain to the commander about it. It was very embarrassing for the rest of us. We felt like apologising to her, but were too taken aback by the incident.”

For me this is the bigger story. A brave flight attendant and a bunch of sensitive passengers. No need for a peace march. Your feelings are adequate, thank you. It is people like this unnamed passenger who will be the real citizen’s movement.