TIME TO DECLARE AN "INTERNATIONAL DAY OF HATE"

 This is the age of empty symbolism, make-believe and the suggestio falsi. Our revered Prime Minister goes trotting around the globe intoning "This is not the era of war" like a metronome, even as he almost started a war on his own doorstep, and repeatedly abstained from voting to stop two wars which have killed tens of thousands already. The European Union calls for "dialogue and diplomacy" even as it continues to arm and fund a country which is committing a genocide not seen since the Holocaust. Trump calls for peace and demands the Nobel Peace Prize in the same breath that he pulverizes Iran with the Mother Of All Bombs. Nearer home, the RSS says we should not look for a shivling under every mosque even as it eggs on its followers to do exactly that. The Election Commission says no  voter shall be left behind even as it imposes policies that will disenfranchises millions of voters in just one state (to begin with).

You get the point, don't you? It needs a Shakespeare to describe this global perfidy and hypocrisy: this  "killing with kindness" or "smile and smile and be a villain." And so it is with the various Days we are asked to celebrate every second day- Yoga Day, Doctor's Day, Father's Day. Don't for a minute doubt the intent, dear reader- the purpose is praiseworthy, if proforma, but the irony is unmistakable. For what we celebrate  on day one, we repudiate on the remaining 364 days of the year.

So we celebrate Father's Day even as we strip the old codger of all his properties and banish him to an old age home where he rots in his own excreta. Doctor's Day only reminds me of how one gets ripped off in corporate hospitals by unnecessary tests, astronomical ICU charges and "consultation fees" for informing me what I will get for lunch. On Teacher's Day we are exhorted to sing a paean for our teachers just before we lodge an FIR against them for "hitting" a student with a ruler. We celebrate World Heart Day even as we gorge on adulterated paneer, baby food with impermissible sugar levels, and cooking oils with carcinogenic additives, all presided over by an unconcerned government. 

But wait, it gets even better if more acerbic and cynical. October 2 is the International Day of Non-Violence, and nations observe it religiously (yes, even the USA and Israel) while 110 wars/armed conflicts rage around the world, all instigated by the very governments that flag this day. March 3 is the International Wildlife Day, celebrated even as we have ensured that 500 species of vertebrates have gone extinct  in the last hundred years, and 15000 more are under grave threat due to human activities. Wild animal populations have been decimated by 60% since 1970. The 2nd of December is celebrated as the International Day Against Pollution even as we are on the verge of breaching the 2* Celsius red line for temperature increase, and 7 million people die of air pollution every year (of which 2 million are in Viksit Bharat).This is not just hypocrisy, it is sanctimonious, deceitful, humbugging on a global scale.

It is in this context that last week I received a suggestion from a WAF ( Whats App Friend) who, in his saner moments, is a very successful manufacturer of high-quality cosmetics. He suggested that the UN should now declare an International Day of Hate. His reasoning makes sense: the leit motif and zeitgeist of the world today- of national leaders, religious preachers, societies, generals, media (including social media)- is the emotion of Hate. Subaltern emotions such as Greed, Jealousy and Violence are the offsprings of hate. Just look around, or turn on the TV, and you will acknowledge that my WAF is bang on.

Hindutva types hate the Muslims, the Jews hate the Palestinians, Iran hates the Jews, China hates the Tibetans and Taiwanese in equal measure, Putin hates the Ukranians, the Sudanese hate each other, the Rwandans hate the Congolese, the Taliban hate women, Pakistanis hate the Balochis, Turks hate the Kurds, RWA types hate the slum dwellers. Donald Trump, of course, is the most eclectic and indiscriminating of the lot, he hates everyone and everything- Europeans, Asians, Islamic nations, liberals, Communists, non-binary genders, immigrants, environmentalists, judges. Arnab Goswami comes a close second to him.

In many countries which still retain a veneer of civilisation, laws do not allow this universal and all pervasive feeling of hate full public expression. But it is constantly bubbling under the surface, like the molten lava in a volcano, with occasional eruptions. According to my friend, it would be good public policy to allow this volcano to vent itself, to permit the de-facto to become de-jure. Hence the need for an International Day of Hate, when the haters can reveal themselves in their full glory and ugliness: no more dog-whistles, veiled references, obiter dictas, Prime Ministerial insinuations or vapid diplomatic niceties. They can, as the Beatles sang, "let it out" without fear of any consequences. In the words of a famous Madame- what you see, dear, is what you get!

Some country, of course, shall have to take the lead in implementing this visionary idea, and no one is better qualified these days than our own Bharat Mahan. For we appear to have elevated Hate to the level of public policy, a societal aspiration and a religious commandment. Over the last decade hate has embedded itself in every aspect of governance, education, institutional structures and social intercourse. Initially founded on religious biases and dogmas, it has now metastasized across the board- language, festivals, regions, educational syllabi, media, entertainment, legislations, even citizenship-  there is now no aspect of daily life in India which is not poisoned by this venom. Even our diplomacy is now coloured by this emotion, as our callous approach to the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians demonstrates so well.

According to a report in the India Cable dated June 27, 2025,  The Association for Protection of Civil Rights and the Quill Foundation has documented 947 hate-related incidents in the country during the first year of the present NDA govt's third term. Directed at minorities, this includes 602 hate crimes and 345 instances of hate speech; the perpetrators are rarely, if ever, punished.

No other democracy is as uniquely qualified as India to move a resolution in the United Nations for the declaration of an International Day of Hate. By doing so, we will have ripped apart the curtain of hypocrisy and deception that characterises all such Days, and will have loudly proclaimed that this is a New India. One which is prepared to venture into the heart of darkness to satisfy the lust for power, to self-destruct in order to rule for ever. For, as Satan said in Paradise Lost: It is better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven.

As for me, the only day I heartily endorse is Shobha De- and she might even get more votes than India's proposal. 

THE DAY THE MAGPIES LEFT

 For six months of the year, confined in my NCR flat like a Trappist monk, the only birds I get to see are pigeons, which have now become the ubiquitous symbol of urban avian life. But for the other six months, when I repair to my cottage in Puranikoti village near Shimla, it's a completely different world. 

The dozens of trees I and my family have planted on my land as a post-retirement penance over the years to atone for my large sarkari carbon footprint- weeping willows, horse chestnuts, oak, deodar, robinia, chinars, apple, plum, cherry, pears, kainth- have now come of age and are repaying our efforts in ample measure. They provide a dense vegetation and fruits/ seeds/ flowers which now attract many varieties and species of birds, which are all the company one needs at this stage of one's WhatsApp dominated life. Their social media type chattering, the bird songs at dawn and in the evenings, the ambience created by their happy presence alone, has been very well expressed  by a poet:

I sit in my garden, gazing upon a beauty that cannot gaze upon itself. And I find sufficient purpose for my day.

My avian friends are of two types: the first are the permanent residents (termed "bona fide Himachalis" in govt. parlance!) who stay on my land throughout the year- sparrows, bulbuls, tits, blackbirds, whistling thrush. Because of their established tenancy status on the land, they assume a familiarity with me bordering on contempt, literally taking the food off my plate! (See photo below). I have no choice but to grin and bear it.

                                         [Bulbul joining us for morning tea. Photo by author.]

The second type are the seasonal visitors, more cautious, not sure of their welcome or of what they can expect. Among them are the swallow, swift, barbet, silver-winged blackbird, songbird, and the graceful, long-tailed Himalayan magpie. Each species has its temporal slot and arrives when its fruit of choice is ripe for eating. They are not selfish and do not overstay their welcome- a sojourn of a few weeks and they depart, vacating the slot for the next species, having stripped the trees of whatever fruit was on the chef's special. I don't mind at all- what they give us in the short time they dwell with us is much, much more than what those fruits would have fetched me at the local "mandi."

Last year, however, was a landmark year for me, for a pair of Himalayan magpies decided that they had had enough of globe-trotting and that it was time to start a family before the EMIs started piling up: they settled down and started nesting in a dense grove of trees on one corner of my land! (see pics below). This overt expression of trust in us was a quiet vindication of all our efforts over the years to create a safe and secure environment for our feathered friends. In due course of time they built a nest and laid two eggs, just before we departed for the NCR for our six month exile.

                                   [Long-tailed Himalayan Magpie. Photo by author]

We returned this April, to the sight of FOUR magpies- two adults and two offspring- frolicking on our land, their tenure in the grove now converted to adverse possession, if not deemed ownership, like a retired politician in Lutyen's Delhi but without the sense of entitlement! It was a delight to see them flying around the whole day, like trundling helicopters- the Himalayan magpie is not a good flyer- picking up insects, earthworms and the cherries and apples from our trees. I feed them every morning: the smaller birds are happy with bread crumbs and rice grains, but the magpies have a preference for  Haldi Ram's namkeens, which is what they get! In due course of time, unbeknownst to us, the female laid three more eggs on an oak tree in the grove.

         

           [The grove where our magpies nested. Photo by author]
 

We came to know of this only when, one day, one chick fell from the nest and was grabbed by a feral cat. Brutus-our Indie dog- spotted this immediately and pounced on the cat, forcing it to drop the chick. We picked up the little bird, examined it for any injuries (there were none, but the poor thing was traumatised no end, as can be expected). We kept it in a warm room for two days, fed it rice and milk; all the while its parents staged a 24x7 dharna outside the room in the manner of Arvind Kejriwal, demanding the release of their little one. Finally, on the third day, assured that the chick had recovered fully from its ordeal and it was time again for its anxious parents to take over its nurturing, we carefully put it back in the nest, where the other two chicks were none too welcoming, of course, at the thought of having to share their snacks with another mouth! The two adults were overjoyed, of course, but quickly chased us away.

Tragedy struck the very next day. Taking our evening stroll, we found the half-eaten body of a magpie chick about 100 meters from the grove. A quick check of the nest confirmed what we feared but did not wish to acknowledge- it was empty. It was clear what had happened: the cat which had discovered the nest had not forgotten it even though it had been thwarted by our dog the first time. It had returned, and the three chicks- still unable to fly- never stood a chance. Cats are ruthless predators of small animals, especially birds. A 2022 study estimated that cats kill 55 million birds in the UK every year!

Our magpie family was desolate- they repeatedly circled the grove without alighting on it, making plaintive cries. That night, they disappeared and we have not seen them since, even though it's been more than a week as I write this. It is clear that they have abandoned our place; our hearts go out to them, rearing a family in the wild is a Herculean task, and to have laboured so long at it and lose it all in a moment is so unfair.

But I am now haunted by a more disturbing question- were we at fault, somehow? Could we have been more proactive in protecting the nest and the chicks? Should we have put that third chick back in the nest or should we have reared it ourselves? There are counter questions too: Could we have reared a wild creature without robbing it of its "wildness"? Could we have taught it how to fly and forage for food?  How far can one go in meddling in the lives of essentially wild creatures? Should we intervene or let nature take its course? I am afraid there are no easy answers.

The question that haunts me most, however, is this- have the magpies left out of a sense of betrayal, that we reneged on our implied promise of giving them security? Will they forgive us, and return some day? Will they give us a second chance?

OVERTOURISM AND UNDER-PLANNING

 

                                  

The Deputy Commissioner Shimla announced last Tuesday that 300,000 vehicles had entered Shimla in the last two weeks due to the tourist rush. That is 15000 vehicles per day. Shimla has parking for just about 5000 vehicles, and if we assume that a tourist family/group stays for just two days, the daily parking requirement is for 30000 vehicles- six times what is available. (This does not include the locally registered vehicles numbering about 70000!)

The situation is no different in Dehradun, Nainital, Mussoorie, Manali, Dharamshala and other hill stations. And it’s getting worse every year.

The tourists, of course, suffer, stuck in jams for hours, sometimes for nights, without food, water or toilet facilities. Half their vacation time is spent on the roads. The real and continuing price, however, is paid by the permanent residents of these once quiet, idyllic, British-era towns, who are practically imprisoned in their houses for half the year, with no space left on the roads even for walking. I live near Mashobra, about 12 kms from Shimla for six months every year, and have decided to never, but NEVER, drive into Shimla during my stay here-there’s no telling if I’ll ever be able to make it back to my house!

States like Himachal and Uttarakhand bear the brunt of this vehicle-driven overtourism; their proximity to the northern states is their undoing, while Kashmir is spared the deluge because of its distance and the on-again, off-again security situation there.

The state governments should have foreseen this, with tourist numbers growing by 43% ( 2023 figure over the previous year),rising incomes, and the desperation of families to escape the heat and pollution of our deteriorating cities. But the govts never planned for this nightmare, content with collecting their GST and Luxury taxes. And when they did start making some plans, they were all the wrong ones.

 

The biggest planning blunder has been the construction of expensive, environmentally disastrous four-lane highways and expressways in the mountainous terrain of Himachal and Uttarakhand to reduce driving time and make access easier for tourists. This has led to an explosion in the number of vehicles coming to these destinations: before the Kalka-Shimla four-lane highway was built (it is still not complete) the average number of cars entering Shimla every day was about 4000 to 5000- it is now 15000 to 20000. And when these vehicles enter Shimla there is just no space for them to park. It’s even worse in Manali, with 25000 vehicles crossing the Atal tunnel (below Rohtang pass) every day during peak season. The state govt. is a silent spectator: it took the National Green Tribunal to impose a daily cap of 1500 vehicles for the Rohtang pass to prevent it from becoming another Karol Bagh, in more ways than one.

The Shimla and Manali mistake is now being repeated, with Mussoorie being the victim this time. A 26 km elevated expressway has been approved to connect Dehradun and Mussorie: we are told this shall reduce the driving time to just 26 minutes. This is a disaster in the making, even without the 17000 trees that will be felled and the 250 families who shall be displaced by the project. The Shimla/ Manali experience shows that the number of vehicles headed for Mussoorie shall triple or quadruple; what happens to them once they reach Mussoorie? The town has even less parking space than Shimla, and can barely accommodate those who come just to meet Ruskin Bond!

Bureaucracies are loath to think out of the box, and politicians are happy to sanction capital intensive projects like roads and multi-storeyed parkings to their favoured contractors. But this comfortable, parabiotic arrangement has to change: given the geology and terrain, one cannot keep “widening” roads and excavating more parking spaces indefinitely, and the limits have already been reached. What our mountain destinations need are fewer highways and more cable/ rope-ways- that way they can keep getting more tourists but fewer vehicles. A Dehradun-Mussoorie cable system would have served the purpose of the elevated highway, with no addition of vehicles, at one tenth of the elevated highway cost. It is to Himachal’s credit that it has seen the light and has approved four major rope-way projects: Parwanoo-Shimla, Dharamshala-McLeodganj, Manali-Rohtang, and Kullu-Bijli Mahadev. Many more are needed, including one from Parwanoo/Kalka to Kasauli.

The Union government too needs to play a role in curbing this vehicular overtourism. It should NEVER AGAIN approve a monstrosity like the Char Dham Highway which is effectively a death warrant for Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri. It should put a hold on all four laning projects in these states (even at the risk of annoying Mr. Gadkari) and fast track central approvals and funding for ropeways. More flights should be started to these states- in Himachal currently all its four airports are being utilized at below 50% of their capacity.

More helicopter services should be introduced, and not just to religious places. Most important, the govt. should expand the skeletal rail network in all mountain states which have tourism potential, and not just for strategic reasons. In 75 years not an inch of rail line has been added to what the British left behind. This shall not only reduce the vehicular tsunamis in the mountains but shall also add an entirely novel experience for the visitors.

Harsh physical or fiscal barriers such as e-passes, capping numbers of vehicles entering a state or even excessive tolls or entry fees should be avoided as they cause inconvenience and will not serve the purpose in the long run. It is better to provide the tourist an attractive alternative to using his car rather than simply taxing him or embroiling him in red tape. The lazy solution is usually the worst. ( Though these tough measures will become inevitable if the numbers continue to expand at the present rate).

The vision should be: we welcome tourists, but not their cars.

(This piece was published in The Times of India on the 21st of June 2025 under the caption "Tourists Welcome, Not Their Cars.")

TO B(2) OR NOT TO B(2)

 Move aside, Hamlet, and give way to the decisive deal-maker. The recolonistaion of West Asia is now in full swing, with Trump's bombing of Iran's nuclear sites on the night of 22nd June. It took him some time to decide whether or not to send in the B2 bombers with their payloads of the 15 tonne bunker busters or MOABs (Mother Of All Bombs). And he did it, as usual, with the MOAL (Mother OF All Lies), having announced just the day before that he would wait two weeks for diplomacy to play out. As with Israel's surprise attack on the 13th, diplomacy was once again knifed in the back.

Trump and Netanyahu are the Genghis Khans of our benighted times, and will probably never be made to pay for their serial war crimes and genocidal actions, but that is just a sign of the times we live in. Their game plan is now clear- regime change in Iran and joint hegemony over West Asia and its oil- though Ms Modi, Jaishankar and Doval cannot see it through their transactional, Islamophobic hoods. The story was never about Iran's nuclear weapons programme; it doesn't have one (as numerous testimonies have made clear). But then Saddam Hussain didn't have any weapon of mass destruction, either- that myth was created by the other two B2s (Blair and Bush) to serve their purpose. A similar myth has now been created by the two leading thugs of our times about Iran's nuclear programme, to green light another invasion and another war.

Which begs some obvious questions which very few in power in other countries, or even the media, are asking. Why should Iran not have a nuclear programme, even a nuclear weapons programme? Why is it asked to submit to IAEA inspections when other nuclear countries are not? Why does it not have the right to go nuclear when it is surrounded by none-too-pacific nuclear countries- Russia, Pakistan, India, and, of course, the biggest terrorist threat in the world, Israel? Israel does not even officially acknowledge that it has nuclear weapons capability, has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, does not subject itself to IAEA inspections or protocols. And yet, the sanctions are against Iran, not Israel.

The West has created another myth- that Iran cannot be trusted to have a nuclear weapons programme because it's a rogue regime and exporter of terrorism. This about a civilisation which dates back to a time when the ancestors of today's Americans were still living in caves in a miserable island in the North Sea. From two countries least qualified to make these charges- the USA is the only country in history to have actually used a nuclear munition against another country; it has started (and lost) more wars and bombed and destabilised more countries (30 at last count) by military force than any other power since the end of WW2. And Israel, with its voracious appetite for land, is the biggest terrorist power in the Middle-east, the quintessential rogue nation which has, in Gaza, killed hundreds of UN workers, medical personnel, journalists, aid workers, more than 100,000 Palestinians, and is currently engaged in starving the remaining ones to death. Both have repeatedly cocked a snook at institutions established to promote the international rules based order- the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court- and have even banned, threatened and sanctioned its functionaries and assassinated political leaders and scientists they take a dislike to. In all likelihood Trump may bomb the Nobel Prize headquarters if he is not given the Nobel Peace Prize and sanction the Israel Supreme Court if Netanyahu is not discharged from the criminal cases against him! And we are led to believe that Iran is a threat to global peace? 

The ironies keep mounting, and would be farcical if they were not so sinister and dangerous in their implications. Pakistan nominates Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize the day after he drops the largest bombs ever made, without any provocation and in the face of all international laws! Trump himself, after practically triggering World War 3, tweets: It's now time for peace! Our own Prime Minister rings up the Iranian President after the bombing of the latter's main nuclear facilities by the USA, and advises de-escalation! Pardon me if I'm exceptionally stupid, sir, but shouldn't the party doing the escalation be the one asked to do the de-escalation? And, in the grandest gesture of hypocrisy and two-facedness, the EU fixes a meeting in the middle of July to "consider" sanctions against Israel- note, dear reader, the word "consider" and not "impose." By then, of course, another 1500 Palestinians would have been murdered in Gaza and the West Bank by a country they are all supporting, financing and arming. But Hey! what's the hurry, in the long run we're all dead anyway, aren't we?

I am sick to my stomach with the stench of all this posturing, deceit, barbarism, lack of any compassion or feeling of humanity, and evil power plays. Maybe I'm being too naive or am a bit of a simple Simon. But as I get along in years I find, in the words of Meryl Streep, that the funny thing about getting older is that while your eyesight starts getting weaker your ability to see through people's bullshit gets much better. Now, is that a blessing or a curse? Over to the Prince of Denmark to figure that one out.

DHELA THATCH - MY HIDEAWAY FOR THE DAY AFTER

 These are perilous times for homo sapiens, regardless of whether you believe in the predictions of Nostradamus or the epiphanies of Baba Venga. Thanks to a trio of psychopathic megalomaniacs, we are being pushed to the edge of extinction, one lie and tweet at a time. Drones and rockets are raining down in Russia and Ukraine like confetti on a Victory Day parade. West Asia is being showered with hypersonic missiles and ICBMs like the guests at an Ambani wedding with Rolex watches. Nearer home, there is no telling when the "sindoor" in our Vishwaguru's veins gets replaced with enriched uranium and we nuke Pakistan, to be nuked by China in turn as a return gift: the Chinese are nothing if not polite to a fault.

It's time for us to start looking for a safe hideaway to weather the nuclear winter that appears to be on its way, notwithstanding that current temperatures in North India do not presage a winter anytime soon. Donald Trump may have his underground shelters in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, and Mr. Modi may have his cave in Kedarnath to tide over the Day After (with or without cameras), but here in Puranikoti there are neither bunkers nor caves, just houses designed by Delhi-based architects which would not withstand a Kangana Ranaut tantrum, let alone a nuclear blast. So I've been applying my rapidly atrophying brain to think of a safe place where I could repair with the family and the pooch, and I think I've found it!

Dhela Thatch. (A thatch is a meadow or glade surrounded by thick forests, a traditional camping site for shepherds, Gujjars and trekkers). Dhela thatch is located deep in the Great Himalayan National Park (GHNP) of Kullu district, 35 kms from the nearest roadhead at Neuli in the valley of the Sainj river, at an altitude of 12000 feet. It takes two days of strenuous trekking to get there, and once there you don't want to leave, believe me. I didn't: I've camped there on three occasions on my treks in the GHNP: it's the nearest I've come to Eden, and if Worsworth  had been there he would have immediately dashed off a few poems before you could say "My heart leaps up..." 

                                      [ Dhela thatch in the GHNP. Photo by author.]

Dhela is a gently sloping meadow, about two acres in size, perched just below the ridge line that divides the Sainj and Tirthan valleys in the Great Himalayan National Park in Kullu. Surrounded by thick stands of oak and deodar, with dense thickets of dwarf rhododendron and hill bamboo on one side, it is an ideal camping site: there is even a little brook which provides water. The camping site is surrounded by a vast thicket of juniper and dwarf rhododendron where the monal and rarely sighted western tragopan come to feed at sun-set. The Forest department has built a stout log hut at its upper edge for use in the winters (at 12000 feet Dhela can get a lot of snow)- for the rest of the year one can happily pitch tents anywhere on the dale. The height, mix of vegetation and undergrowth and the open spaces make it an ideal habitat for Himachal's two most prized pheasant species- the monal and the highly endangered Western Tragopan (Jujju Rana- the King of Birds, literally) and sightings of both are quite common. The crags below it are home to the "ghoral" (mountain goat) which can be easily spotted sunning themselves in the morning sun. The view of the GHNP landscape from here is stupendous, framed by the majestic 16000 high Khandedhar range to the north, the even higher Pin Parbat massif to the north-west, the Tirthan ridge to the south-east, and beyond that the bleak ranges on which is located the holy peak of Srikhand Mahadev. There is a small "jogni" or religious cairn at the top of the ridge, bedecked with colourful prayer flags which is ideal for meditation, bird watching or simply sunning oneself with a favourite book.

       [Trekking party approaching Dhela Thatch. Photo by Sanjeeva Pandey]

          

Dhela is not a place where you have to DO anything; it is God's, and nature's, ultimate creation which invites you to simply immerse yourself in the simplicity, beauty and unhurried rhythms of a life unsullied by technology, materialism and human ambitions. Listen to the birds singing joyfully at dawn and dusk-not for you, but for the sheer joy of greeting another day, observe with wonder the rising sun every morning and feel its spreading warmth bringing to life God's myriad creatures, dip your hands in the little spring and drink of its snow-melt waters, marvel at the sight of the ghoral grazing on 75 degree slopes, gaze above at the lammergeier hovering in ever enlarging circles in the emerald blue skies, keeping watch on the world on behalf of its creator, sit cosily by a blazing campfire at night wondering why the moths hurl themselves into the fire-do they love its glow or do they fear it? Dhela has the questions, it also has the answers.

                          

                           [The incomparable Western Tragopan pheasant]

This is indeed Omar Khayyam territory for me:                                  

" Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,

 A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse- and Thou

Beside me singing in the Wilderness-

And Wilderness is Paradise enow!"

THOUGHTS ON JIHADS, CIGARETTES AND THE PERFECT PLEASURE.

Baba Ramdev's recent video about starting a "sherbet jihad" against (presumably) the iconic Rooh Afza put me in mind of another jihad that has been raging for some time now but hasn't got the attention it deserves. I refer to the "cigarette jihad" against smokers, which is far more ubiquitous than the other jihads: the latter are limited in scope, applicable only to members of certain religions, but the cigarette jihad applies across the board to everyone who smokes, irrespective of his or her religion, and is a shocking display of secularism, in my view.

No one but a smoker understands fully the import of the saying: you can run but you can't hide; for a smoker today there's no place to hide (and have a quiet puff)- he is banished from restaurants, cinema halls, buses and metros, drawing rooms, planes and airports, and even in his own castle he has to take refuge in either a toilet or a balcony. His social status is lower than that of a Punjabi or Gujarati immigrant in Trump's America. Doctors talk down to him, Finance Ministers treat him like a milch cow, hotels consign him to non-smoking rooms without any room service, airport managers shove him into smoking cubicles resembling tandoors, socialites turn up their rump at him with a flounce, pretty girls refuse to share their mobile numbers with him. In Washington for a World Bank meeting, I had to go down thirty floors, out in the freezing cold, every time I wished to have a cigarette. Cadging a few million dollars from the Bank certainly wasn't worth the effort. But it wasn't always so for people of my generation.

I started smoking in my first year in college and have not looked back since, except to recollect, with a touch of nostalgia, the good days we have left behind. Those were the days of Clint Eastwood, Marlon Brando and Humphrey Bogart who always spoke through a cloud of smoke. One could smoke anywhere then- with a cup of coffee at Trinca's on Park Steet watching the non-pareil Usha Uthap belting out "Ramba ho", or in the AC coach of the the Vestibule train while travelling home to Kanpur from Calcutta, or while watching a movie in the Rivoli in Connaught Place. Till the early 1990s I distinctly remember being allowed to smoke even on international flights, occasionally even being gifted a couple of packs of Marlboros by an air hostess impressed with my diplomatic passport! (In those days wrestling federation chiefs didn't get these maroon passports!). Girls didn't exactly swoon over us (that was reserved for the leftists) but they did occasionally cuddle up for a second hand whiff and that was, as Omar Khayyam would have no doubt said, "Heaven enow." Why, one could even light up during job interviews: I remember being interviewed by the Director Personnel of SBI in the Parliament Street office in 1973 for the job of a Probationary Officer. I lit up while waiting for my turn in the ante-room; when I was called I walked in with my cigarette, waste not, want not being my creed. I didn't get the job, of course, but not because of the lighted fag: I suspect it had something to do with my answer to the Director's question: "Where do you see yourself five years from now in this Bank?" In hindsight, my answer was perhaps too cocky: "In your chair, sir." I have since learned that honesty is never the best policy at job interviews.

All pretty tragic, considering the benefits of smoking, both to the individual and to society. Non-smokers are not aware of what they are missing. Cigarettes are the food for broken souls. You can't buy happiness but anyone can buy cigarettes, and that comes pretty close. Oscar Wilde famously said that "a cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?" Groucho Marx went a step further when he stated that, given the choice between a woman and a cigar, he would always choose the cigar. At the age of 74, I see the wisdom in what he said: it's easier now to light up a cigarette than a woman. There are other benefits too: smoking is the perfect way to commit suicide without actually dying, and therefore it obviates the need for having to save up for your old age!

One final thought before I part with you, dear reader. Cigarettes, or at least the buying of them, is a very accurate indicator of inflation and rising costs of living, certainly much better than the consumption "basket" govt. economists are talking about all the time. This basket, of course, is rigged like a casino and contains only what suits the govt. But a smoker never lies. Let me illustrate my point.

I started my smoking career in the early 70's with the humble "beedi" (which cost about 25 paise for a pack of ten) since my Dad gave me a pocket money of Rs.10/- per month only and was a more difficult negotiator than Donald Trump. In the fullness of time, as domestic income rose, one progressed up the carcinogenic scale  to Wills Flake, Wills  Navy Cut, Gold Flake and India Kings. The apotheosis was attained when, after the generosity of the Sixth Pay Commission, one touched the sublime heights of Classics and Marlboro. Sadly, that didn't last long though with the arrival of Ms Sitharaman, Hardeep Singh Puri and Mr. Gadkari. So, like an Everest summiteer, one descended back the way one had come- a brand notch lower with the filing of each successive ITR. I am back to Wills Flakes these days, and desperately trying to keep the "beedis" at bay.

This bit of history is prime raw material for economists, who rarely trust cooked-up govt. figures to determine inflation rates, and look for secondary indicators: household savings, number of cars bought, power consumption, real estate prices, and so on. They also rely on some rather odd if not weird indicators. Alan Greenspan, the then Federal Reserve Chairman, invented the Underwear Index to gauge consumer sentiments and economic cycles- his theory was that in a downturn people bought fewer underwears! A more recent one has been reported by the Wall Street Journal: the Home Lunch indicator. It says that when more people bring lunch from home instead of eating in the cafeteria or a restaurant, that indicates a tightening of the budget belt and increase in cost of living. Visits to brothels and night clubs is another indicator- in an economic downturn they decline significantly!

This is precisely where the cigarette comes in handy as an economic indicator : a shift in the brand one smokes is a faithful index of the cost of living. The government should include it in their inflation basket. As for me, I'm desperately trying to reduce my daily intake of the cancer sticks but it's a losing battle, methinks, especially with pensioners likely to be denied the benefits of the 8th Pay Commission. As the gay smoker, who was trying to quit, confided in his friend: I'm down to two butts a day.

WHO'S AFRAID OF THE NEW NORMAL ?

India, we are told, has now entered a "New Normal" after that little "menage a trois" with Pakistan and China in the first week of May in which we still don't know who came out on top, as it were.  And there is certainly plenty of evidence to back this claim, viz. that we have plumbed new depths of abnormalcy.                                                                                      Our prime -time TV news channels apparently missed out on the cease-fire bit because they continue to fight the war every evening three weeks after the cease-fire, and are all in favour of expanding it to Turkiye. The Prime Minister has just had another blood transfusion and has replaced the RBCs in his veins with "sindoor", which perhaps explains why he goes red in the face every time he talks about the four day war. Shashi Tharoor has decided that when dealing with terrorists or the Congress high command covert action is ineffective; so now he has gone overt (against his party, not the terrorists) and placed one foot squarely in the BJP camp; as the poet said: if one foot comes, can the other be far behind? Mr. Jaishankar has by now dropped so many bricks that he can now use them to construct a mausoleum of his rhetorical follies; the latest brick (boulder, actually) being his response to a Danish journalist's question as to where the USA was during the recent conflict with Pakistan; our Delphic EAM's nonpareil reply- "the USA was in the United States". At least he knows his geography. Not to be outdone by a mere bureaucrat, the Supreme Court broke new ground by appointing an SIT of three police officers to decipher and interpret the nuances of an English post by a professor. So, move over Shashi Tharoor and Chetan Bhagat and Jug Suraiya-your lexicographic skills have now been replaced by a bunch of cops whose vocabulary consists almost entirely of four letter words. We now eagerly await the scholarly interpretation of four of India's finest.

Other aspects of the New Normal are even more disturbing. I refer, for instance, to our new-found "Boycott Jihad", which involves boycotting tourism/visits to every country that does not see eye to eye with, or say aye to aye to, us. This dimension of our foreign policy is not guided by the Ministry of External Affairs, as you would expect, but by companies like Make My Trip or Ease My Trip, and anchors headed by the (dis)likes of Arnab Goswami, Gaurav Sawant and Navika Kumar. And so, we have by now boycotted Pakistan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Turkiye, Azerbaijan, Canada. On the TRP chopping block are: France (for not sharing the Rafale source-code), Colombia (for condoling the death of Pakistanis in our attack), South Africa (for daring to haul Israel before the International Criminal Court), Bhutan (for charging a tourism tax of Rs. 1200 from every Indian tourist), Russia (for signing a two billion dollar project deal with Pakistan), the United Kingdom (for not returning the Kohinoor diamond), Antigua (for not returning Mohil Choksi). We would have boycotted the USA also, but for the fact that the sons and daughters of most of our Ministers are green card holders there, which could then be converted to yellow or red cards before they could say MAGA! There is, of course, no mention of China in this list of the damned, in keeping with our revered Prime Minister's credo that China's name should never be taken in vain, not even in pain.

Very soon, then, there shall be no country left which Indians could visit, and this is what gives me sleepless nights. Denied their globe-trotting opportunities, these bhaktourists would descend on the mountains, and villages like my Puranikoti, like a herd of locusts and strip bare our little Edens, transforming them into something resembling Gaza. The onslaught has already commenced after the Pahalgam massacre. Maybe the Himachal government should do something to make them boycott Himachal too, like proposing Kangana Ranaut's name as the next Prime Minister..... 

I am even more alarmed by another aspect of this New Normal, viz. water sharing, and not just with Pakistan. Our Prime Minister, who possesses a good turn of phrase, has announced that "Water and blood cannot flow together" and has turned off the Indus tap. To which the Chinese Foreign Minister has riposted: "Do not do to others what you don't want done to you." Which is a pacifist version of the more militaristic Confucius: "Do unto others BEFORE they do unto you."

Confucius was a Chinese too, and one highly regarded in his home land even today. I'm worried that President Xi may take him at his word and start doing something unto us: work has already commenced on the biggest dam in the world, on the Brahmaputra (Yarlung Tsangpo) at Grand Turn Canyon in Tibet, which can have ominous consequences for us were the descendants of Confucius so inclined. And China has an even bigger Indus tap than we do- the river originates in Tibet and China, being the upper riparian state, can dam it any time it wants. Two can play at this game, is what the Chinese FM was trying to convey.

The consequences of this new normal-denial of Indus waters- can be devastating for our northern states. It would be so for Pakistan too, but we are a democracy, unlike Pakistan, and it would be difficult for our government to manage the public uproar. The rulers of Pakistan, on the other hand, will take the consequences in their stride- its Generals and Punjabi elite don't need the water, they have their Scotch and vermouth on the rocks, you see.

But what's sauce for the Pakistani goose is also sauce for the Indian gander, and Mr. Modi's new water doctrine-that the upper riparian state can do whatever the hell it wants with the waters-may just exacerbate our own water wars. We already have plenty of them: Tamil Nadu and Karanataka have been scrapping over the Cauvery waters for decades; Delhi accuses Haryana of impounding the former's share of the Yamuna waters (when it is not poisoning it, that is); Odisha and Chattisgarh are at loggerheads over the Mahanadi river shares; Punjab and Haryana do not see eye to eye on the Sutjej-Yamuna Link Canal. Our Chief Ministers, who are usually up on the slow-take on most matters, were quick to act on the New Normal on water sharing. Just days after the four day war, Punjab Ministers quickly occupied the BBMB premises at Nangal, locked up the General Manager and stopped the flow of water to Haryana- it had exercised its right as the upper riparian state under the Modi doctrine! Not to be outdone, the usually docile Himachal Pradesh ( the "baap" of all alpha male riparian states, as its outspoken MP Kangana Ranaut would have said if Mr. Nadda had not gagged her) declared that it would not let any water flow from its state if it was not given its rightful due in the BBMB projects. 

There are other, more alarming, aspects of this New Normal: how a couple of belligerent Prime Ministerial statements have lowered the nuclear threshold to a, literally, tripping point; how details of the war are revealed in Singapore to a foreign press but not to the citizens of this country; how dozens of MPs can be suspended here and then sent abroad to defend the same government; the puzzle of trying to figure out where patriotism ends and nationalism begins.

Be prepared for new exciting times ahead as all traditional wisdom, the art of diplomacy and norms of governance are turned on their heads. As the Walrus would have said in Alice in Wonderland, at the risk of being hauled up for sedition: "My desire to be well informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane."