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."

FAREWELL PARTIES AND ASHOK KHEMKA'S MOVING EXPERIENCES

The redoubtable Ashok Khemka, an urban legend from the Jat-land of Haryana, retired from the IAS on the 30th of last month. He had had his brief hour of fame and glory (always a dangerous thing for an IAS officer, though Mr. Amitav Kant appears to have bucked this trend) about 12 years ago when he refused to register a land deal of Mr. Robert Vadra because he smelt a (Vad)rat: an act of bravery worthy of a medal if not a mention in dispatches, considering that the said Vadra was the nation's acknowledged son-in-law. As it turned out, however, Mr. Khemka got neither a medal nor a mention, he was transferred. Which brings me smoothly to the heart of my story.

Ashok Khemka served for about 34 years and was transferred 57 times, something one hopes the Guinness Book of Records will take note of. He had probably hoped that with the change of government in 2014 his fortunes too would change and that he would, like a good dog, be rewarded with a juicy bone in the matter of postings and that he would come in from the cold, as it were. Not so, because the new, non-Congress govt. transferred him yet again! For politicians, though fond of dogs as status symbols, prefer the poodle or lap-dog breed and not the hound or German Shepherd type. It doesn't matter which political party a Chief Minister graces- when it comes to dogs a pit-bull like Mr. Khemka is a strict no-no. And so, 12 years later Mr. Vadra continues to be the Opposition's official son-in-law and the cases against him have petered out like the mystical Saraswati river, while Mr. Khemka has now passed into the realm of archives, like all of us, and may shortly become a case study in Mussoorie.

Be that as it may, however, I am here on a different though related issue, viz. that with 57 transfers Mr. Khemka must have got 57 farewell parties- another record, by the way. And it is these farewell parties which I wish to dilate on today, having had some experience of them myself, though I bow before the sheer numerical superiority of Mr. Khemka.

Farewell parties are an integral part of a career in the IAS, but like everything in the bureaucracy, they serve a double purpose. The overt purpose is to extol the retiree's qualities and achievements, while glossing over his failures. The good is emphasized while the not-so-good is interred with the (tandoori chicken) bones, as Shakespeare would have put it if he had dined at a curry restaurant in Stratford. But it is the second, covert, purpose which really matters- to tell the retiring bloke that his innings is now over, and that by accepting the farewell he is now estopped from seeking any extension. But this does not work always, which is what makes the repast a bit like the Last Supper: the Chief Guest retiree usually rises again on the third day, like Christ, reemployed in some supernumerary post. Why, there is even a Judas lurking behind the scenes- the guy who has planned it all and hopes to succeed the retiring Chief Secretary or whatever, ready with a gift to seal the deal, as it were. 

At least, that's how things were during my days, but times have now changed and the old rules no longer apply, as events in one state last month demonstrated. IAS officers no longer accept retirement as a natural and inevitable denouement to a successful career; imbued by a nationalistic fervour, they wish to continue to serve the nation, at least till the next Pay Commission increases their salaries and resultant pensions. And so, apropos the event mentioned above, the Chief Secretary of the state was invited for his farewell dinner by the IAS Association on the eve of his retirement, at considerable cost to the members. The CS arrived graciously, and just before the consomme was served announced that he had been granted an extension of six months! Judas had to be given first aid on the spot.                                      Now, as regards the original Last Supper, Biblical records are not clear about who paid for the meal. It could have been the GAD (General Administration Deptt) where all such bills for victuals land up, or it could have been Judas (from out of the thirty pieces of silver he had received) or it could have been the Holy Ghost via PrayTM (as PayTM was then known). But in the case of the Chief Secretary mentioned above the Association members had shucked out hefty amounts from their own pockets, so, as expected, there were murmurs of protest at their having been sold a pig in a poke. To calm them down, it is reported that the said CS has promised that he will not expect a farewell again  when he does retire in the fulness of time. A knotty (or is it naughty?) issue, if ever there ever was one.

But it does appear to have set the cat among the pigeons: IAS Associations all across the country are now thinking of a new SOP for farewell parties, I learn. In future all retirees (especially Chief Secretaries) will be asked to furnish an affidavit before a farewell dinner is organised for them. They will be required to give an undertaking to the effect that (a) they have not sought an extension in service, and (b) in case they do get an extension they would refund to the Association the entire bill of the farewell dinner.

Mr. Khemka has eluded this fate by a whisker, fortunately, and has retired with the grace and dignity we expected from him. He has announced that he will now enter the legal profession, which is welcome news for a profession where crores are found in judges' houses and the bar looks like a mix of crony capitalists and the United Auto Workers Union. But I do have a suggestion for him to consider: given his vast experience in moving house and home every eight months for almost four decades: he could consider setting up a packers and movers company. I even have a name and tag-line for his new venture- KHEMKA MOVERS AND SHAKERS- WE PROMISE YOU A MOVING EXPERIENCE.

(I will, of course, understand if he turns down my well meaning suggestion.)

INTERVIEW WITH KARAN THAPAR

 Press Release & Video: India is becoming a nation of duffers and we’re evolving back to the neanderthal stage: Avay Shukla, Author ‘Holy Cows and Loose Cannons: The Duffer Zone Chronicles’ to Karan Thapar for The Wire.

 

In an interview to mark the publication of his recent collection of blogs called ‘Holy Cows and Loose Cannons: The Duffer Zone Chronicles’, Avay Shukla, who is arguably the country’s favourite blogger, says India could be becoming a nation of duffers and that we’re evolving back to the neanderthal stage. He says: “It is clear that the Indian side of the LAC is one big duffer zone all the way to Kanyakumari.” He also says: “Other countries evolve for the better, we have been consistently doing it for the worse, and are proud of it.”

 

This new collection comprises some fifty essays on a variety of different subjects but in each instance the Avay Shukla brand stands out. They are about our  peccadilloes, our idiosyncrasies, our prejudices, our vices, our foibles and our misdemeanours. Some of them are serious, many are satirical, several are simply great fun to read.

 

Let me give you a taste of some of the things that have attracted Avay Shukla’s attention and his versatile pen. He is infuriated by Indians who suddenly turn against our Muslim culture and heritage. Of them he writes: “They have suddenly discovered God and find that He can only be a Hindu. After growing up on Mughlai food, listening to ghazals and qawalis, conversing in a language that has as many Urdu words as Hindustani, swooning over Dilip Kumar, Madhubala and Waheeda Rehman, saying wah wah to the poems of Ghalib and Gulzar … they have now concluded that these are evil influences, they threaten our Hindu sanskars and girls and the whole lot must be banished.”

 

Avay Shukla is also eloquently opposed to Resident Welfare Associations who have started trying to determine how their members must live and think. Of them he says: “They are gradually becoming the self-appointed gatekeepers of morality, culture and political discourse … the time is not far off when these busy bodies may determine what their members eat, how they dress, to which Gods they pray … why they may even insist that all their members vote for a particular party.”

 

The Kashmir Files is a film that has, in particular, provoked Avay Shukla’s anger. He’s extremely eloquent in his criticism of it as well as his critique of the way both the Central government and several state governments sought to promote the film.

 

However, don’t let me convey a wrong impression of this collection of blogs. Many of them are tongue-in-cheek. For instance, Avay Shukla applauds the use of black money in elections. Watch the interview to find out precisely what he says. And, of course, Avay Shukla says of himself: “I’m a congenital dog lover”. But he readily forgives those who do not consider a dog to be man’s best friend.

 

As you will see, I have carefully given you details of the subjects that Avay Shukla talks about but I have equally carefully shied away from giving you details of what he said. This is because you must hear Avay Shukla in his own words. Like his blogs, he is a memorable speaker.

 

Here is the link to the interview: https://youtu.be/2JSFsEnhl_w?si=pbsjlOtFONfdcRYl

 

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Preview YouTube video India is Becoming a Nation of Duffers and We’re Evolving Back to the Neanderthal Stage: Avay Shukla

India is Becoming a Nation of Duffers and We’re Evolving Back to the Neanderthal Stage: Avay Shukla

OUR SOLDIERS WON THE WAR FOR US - BUT POLITICS AND THE MEDIA HAVE UNDONE THEIR GOOD WORK

 Going beyond the nit picking about the number of "assets" lost by India and Pakistan, it is now clear that we have inflicted significant losses on the latter. In doing so our defence forces have also demonstrated the technological and air power to enforce the Prime Minister's stated resolve to extract a heavy price for any future terror attacks. Why then is there no chorus of global support for India in its battle against terrorism? Why did the wide-spread surge of sympathy post Pahalgam peter out so soon? Why did no country stand with us in those four crucial days, like China, Turkey and Azerbaijan did for Pakistan? Why was the IMF able to sanction another one billion dollars for Pakistan in the midst of its nuclear saber rattling? Why was Trump again able to hyphenate India and Pakistan and throw in the mediation spanner in the works, knowing fully well our historical opposition to it? Why did the international reporting of those four days favour the Pakistani version of events rather than ours? 

The answer, perhaps, lies in what Arun Shourie told Karan Thapar in an interview on the 13th of this month- that "the Indian media has destroyed our credibility." With, may I add, not a little help from the government and its right wing cohorts. This ensured that we lost the global perception war.

Media (particularly television) reporting since the Pahalgam incident has been (again in the words of Shourie) no less than "a crime against the country". Firstly, these four or five rogue channels with their deranged, hate-filled and venomous anchors consistently equated terrorists and Pakistan with Muslims in general, distorting the narrative and seeking to drive a thicker wedge between our two major communities. This is something they have been doing, without any check, for the last ten years, but in a time of war this can be particularly dangerous for the unity of the nation and the morale of the armed forces.

The language used by these anchors in their broadcasts can only belong to the gutters where they were perhaps born. Newslaundry has compiled a short clip of some of these instances and I would urge the reader to view it to grasp the utter depths of coarseness and vulgarity to which they have sunk: in one clip the anchor, who calls himself a retired Major (much to the shame of our army) describes the Foreign Minister of a strategically important (for us) Islamic nation as a "suar ka aulad" (son of a pig) and even writes it out on the screen in case you were hard of hearing! (This has since resulted in a diplomatic row but, as expected, no action has been taken against this anchor for creating enmity with a foreign power, a standard criminal action against journalists who do not enjoy the govt's patronage). This is not behaviour calculated to endear our country to Islamic nations: just a couple of days later Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE supported the IMF loan to Pakistan. It could have been a coincidence, but I doubt it. 

The misreporting of the conflict crossed all limits of fakery, dishonesty and war mongering, studios were converted to mendacious war-rooms where all manner of fiction was concocted: the destruction of Karachi port, the occupation of Islamabad, the imminent fall of Rawalpindi, even the bombing of Kirana Hills and Pakistan's nuclear installations and the release of radiation (denied by the Indian Air Force and the International Atomic Energy Agency, respectively). Every single hour these channels contradicted the official briefings in Delhi, causing confusion, panic and loss of our credibility internationally. And even now, one week after the cease fire came into effect, they continue with their war mongering instead of trying to bring down temperatures, instill calm and report only on facts.

The govt. too did its bit to damage our journalistic reputation by its usual ham-handed and selective targeting of the few reporters and commentators who had established a reputation for independent, fearless and critically objective reporting. It committed a perception hara-kiri by taking down channels like The Wire, 4 PM, Praveen Sawney, Punya Prasun Bajpai, and filing cases against Neha Singh Rathore and Medusa of Lucknow University. The only voices which could be trusted to be objective were silenced- the world drew the obvious lessons from this- that the Indian govt. was hiding something- and discounted everything as propaganda. 

The whole world knows that India does not have an independent media, and that our TV news channels and print media are defacto extensions of the govt's information apparatus. So, the loss of credibility of the media over the progress of the war resulted in a loss of trust and credibility of the official spokespersons also, be they the MEA or the defence briefings. To put it bluntly, no one believed our version of events and relied instead on Reuters, BBC, New York Times, Washington Post and spokespersons of other countries!

What has added to our discomfiture and isolation is the complete failure  of Indian diplomacy ever since Mr. Jaishankar has taken over the reins in the MEA. His pulpit thumping arrogance, his aggressive preaching and abrasive moralising to other countries whenever he grabs a mike, his talking down to countries far above us in the global pecking order, his refusal to recognize that our "vishwaguru" ambitions do not match our status in international matters, his inability to discern that most leading nations now consider India a flawed democracy which stands for no principles but sheer opportunism- all this has led the global community to suspect our politics and policies and to keep a reasonable distance from us. The war with Pakistan has shown that India has no allies left, not even in our immediate neighbourhood. Our soldiers fought alone.

The last nail in the coffin of our reputation and international standing was, as expected, hammered in by the right-wing cyber warriors and the infamous IT Cell. Misinformation apart, social media was flooded with posts spewing hate against Kashmiris and their community leading to Kashmiri students being driven out of hostels and colleges in some states, demands for ethnic cleansing of Muslims and the annihilation of Pakistan; one BJP Minister in Madhya Pradesh even labelled Col. Sofia Quereshi as a sister of the terrorists! The state took no action against him till the High Court intervened suo-moto and ordered the registration of a case against him- his party is yet to take any action against him. The ruthless trolling of the Foreign Secretary and his daughter by right wing sympathisers (for announcing a cease-fire) forced the officer to suspend his X account. The depths of perversion were reached when even Himanshi Narwal, the widow of a naval officer killed by the terrorists at Pahalgam, was not spared: right-wing bigots trolled her mercilessly, poured venom on her, wanted her to be shot, cast doubts on her character and morals. Why? Because she appealed for communal harmony and to stop the violence being inflicted on Muslims and Kashmiris. Did our soldiers fight for such perverts?

The world, and the international media, took notice of this and decided to distance itself from India; we allowed the fundamental cause of the conflict, where we were on strong grounds - terrorism- to be relegated to the back seat, and the center stage was instead occupied by the Hindu India vs Islamic Pakistan narrative. The plot was lost, along with any support we could have otherwise expected.

Diplomatically and perception-wise, we have frittered away our gains on the battlefield and in the skies, we may well have boxed ourselves into a corner with our gladiatorial and cocky rhetoric. And there are no seconds in our corner. For you cannot occupy the moral high ground when your feet are firmly planted in the swamp of mercenary opportunism, contempt for basic human rights, hate and religious nationalism. This is not what our soldiers fought for. They won, but as a country we have let them down.