THE SUPREME COURT ORDER ON STRAY DOGS LACKS BOTH SCIENCE AND COMPASSION

 

[This piece was published in the TRIBUNE on 14.08.25 under the title A RECIPE FOR CRUELTY, NOT COMPASSION]

Today's nations and societies, with their massive challenges- social, political, environmental and technological- have to be governed by a scientific temper and compassion. Unfortunately, the SC order of 11th August on stray dogs in the NCR lacks both. By directing that ALL strays should be rounded up and housed in dog shelters, the Hon'ble judges have mandated a quick-fix not based on science and one that ignores practical realities. It is not in the spirit of Article 51A(G) of the Constitution, which enjoins compassion for all living beings. It contradicts an earlier judgment of a two judge bench of the same court which had asked municipal bodies to follow the ABC (Animal Birth Control) Rules and treat strays with compassion. It is also in conflict with an existing law- the Animal Birth Control (Dogs) Rules of 2023, framed under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act- since these Rules have not specifically been quashed by the ibid order. These Rules lay down in detail how stray dogs are to be vaccinated, sterilised, medically treated and released back into their old localities: the Rules are based on science, experience, compassion and practicality. In contrast, the order of the SC is a quick-fix, perhaps based on personal predictions, and issued without hearing any stake-holder.

Apparently, the impulse behind this order are the incidences of dog bites and rabies: these indeed are important issues, but the solution does not lie in throwing the baby out with the bath water. Firstly, not all rabies cases are caused by dog-bites- other culprits include rodents and monkeys, especially in rural India. Secondly, figures by the NCDC (National Center for Disease Control) indicate that rabies has been showing a declining trend since 2019. Thirdly, the answer to dog-bite induced rabies is vaccination and not culling of dogs, which is what the practical implications of the SC order amount to.

There are an estimated 10 lakh stray dogs in Delhi alone. The MCD has no dog shelters, there are just a few run by under-funded NGOs. Has the SC even considered the impossibility of the MCD creating shelters for a million dogs? According to animal rights activist Ambika Shukla, it will cost a minimum of Rs. 3000 per dog per month to house a dog, including diet, manpower, medicines etc. That means a budget of Rs. 3600 crore would be needed every year to implement the SC order. The capital cost of constructing these shelters would run into another few thousand crores. Is that even within the realm of possibility? Without these funds the dogs would be packed in like sardines in a can, denied food,  become diseased and would eventually kill each other or have to be euthanised. This would be institutionalised and legally mandated cruelty, which should shock anyone's conscience.

All the deficiencies and heartlessness of the SC order stem from a complete lack of consultation with those who are better informed, and work, in this field- animal activists, NGOs, vets, agencies like NCDC, pet owner Associations, RWAs. Had the court not been in such a hurry to pass this order, it would have learnt, or been informed, of other related issues that have a bearing on this matter: how the problem of strays is compounded by many pet-owners simply abandoning their pets on the roads (these, having no fear of us, can be more dangerous than the genuine strays); why it makes more sense for the govt. to assist and fund NGOs working in this field to establish shelters rather than to take on the responsibility itself; that most street dogs are not, in fact, strays, but "community dogs" who are well looked after by communities and animal lovers groups: in my own RWA in Noida at least a dozen such dogs are cared for by the residents- they are wonderful to watch, happily greet our children when they get off the school buses, accompany us elders on our morning walks, and are no threat at all. If only the Hon'ble judges had invited wider inputs, they would perhaps have seen this whole issue other than through the prism of dog-bites and rabies. They would have realised that, in fact, there is no need to imprison all these dogs, that they can be managed with a mix of practices prescribed in the ABC Rules.

Street dogs are the creation of man and have become an issue because of the incompetence, lack of vision and apathy of our municipal administrations. The risks posed by them are highly exaggerated and the judicial solution proposed is unscientific, cruel, impractical and is bound to fail. It is still not too late for the court to hold wider consultations (rather than shut out the animal activists completely) and arrive at a solution that is just, humane and has a chance of succeeding. But most important- remember: a society that can't protect its voiceless is a society that has lost its soul.

HIMACHAL'S ENVIRONMENT DOESN'T NEED MORE STUDIES- IT NEEDS FIRM ACTION- NOW!

 Governments never cease to surprise me, but they occasionally intrigue me, as in the two recent announcements by the Himachal govt. The first, in the middle of the devastating fury of the ongoing rains which has already claimed more than a hundred lives and inflicted damage worth more than 2000 crore rupees, stated that a Central team would be arriving soon to assess the causes for such disasters every year. The second was the revelation that the World Bank has approved a Rs. 2000 crore project to study the environmental impacts of hydel projects, particularly in the Beas river basin, and to suggest mitigating measures.

This is not just an example of shutting the stable doors after the horses have bolted, this amounts to opening the spillway after the dam has burst, to use a phrase appropriate to what is happening to the hydel projects in the state. For the fact is that the devastation, ruin and deaths that are occurring with frightening regularity every year now are something that experts and environmentalists have been warning about for more than a decade, but successive governments have refused to heed.

It is no coincidence that the so-called "cloudbursts" always occur in areas where there is, or has been, extensive and unscientific cutting of hills, deforestation, ramming through of roads, unregulated building activity, and construction of hydel projects. The most egregious and destructive has been the epidemic of four-lane highways- a goldmine, no doubt, for the NHAI, contractors and general officialdom, but highways to hell for the residents of the state. The millions of cubic meters of excavated earth and debris inevitably find their way to the rivers and water courses, constrict their flow and carrying capacity, and result in flooding and the misnomer "cloudburst". Continuous subsidence, erosion, landslides, building collapses follow in its wake. These activities, along with denudation of the green cover, have robbed the mountains of their capacity to absorb and hold the rainfall, which thunders down the slopes as run-off, with horrific consequences.

We don't need expert committees, hosted at the expense of a bankrupt state, to identify what is going wrong with the environment: the reasons are there in plain sight, carved on the denuded, crumbling mountain sides- stop the rape of the rivers, give up this maniacal fascination for more and more roads, cancel all four-lane projects, protect the green belts and forests, regulate construction with an iron hand (and Yogi's bulldozers, where required). Pay attention to the fact that GSI has identified 17000 landslide-prone zones in the state. Recognize that climate change is now a reality which has arrived, it will exacerbate rainfall patterns, there will be more EWEs (Extreme Weather Events). Concentrate on sustainable planning and not reckless development at all costs. Send back the central expert committee, Mr. Chief Minister- the answers don't lie with it, they lie in your office, in your files. Listen to the local citizens- those who have been opposing needless road construction, airports, hydel projects and multi-storeyed commercial projects, denotification of green belts, those whose lands and houses are getting washed away by your obstinacy, those whose family members are entombed in mud in the middle of the night.  Trust them, not your mercantile advisors..

The second announcement about environmental impacts of hydel projects in the Beas basin is even more mystifying. Firstly, such a study should have been carried out BEFORE, and not AFTER, allotting the 359 hydel projects (operational and planned) on the Beas and its tributaries. Secondly, the environmental impacts of such projects are already known, and have been for the last 15 years. In 2010 the then Addl. Chief Secretary(Forests), on the directions of the High Court, had submitted a detailed report, listing out the deleterious and damaging impacts being witnessed today: muck dumping, unscientific cutting and blasting, weakening of the mountain strata, deforestation, reduction in carrying capacity of rivers, the need to restrict the number of hydel projects on a particular river, the necessity of cumulative impact assessments for the whole river basins instead of for just individual projects, declaration of no-go areas for hydel projects. The report was accepted by the High Court but was fiercely opposed by the state govt. and was quietly buried. Thirdly, no further study is required to identify these environmental impacts- they have been happening with frightening regularity every year- the whole stretch of the river from Manali to Mandi has been  devastated and looks like Gaza- and are self evident. There is little point reinventing the wheel at a cost of Rs.2000 crore- exhume the 2010 report, get additional inputs from geologists and hydrologists, and implement the recommendations. The World Bank study appears to me to be just a smokescreen for avoiding any substantive action, and is simply kicking the can further down the river.

Neither of the two studies or inquiries is needed, and the state govt. certainly doesn't have the money to pay for them. Instead, the govt. should commission studies on factors which have grave portents for the future of the state: the changing precipitation patterns, changed hydrology of the rivers, melting of glaciers, formation of glacial lakes which pose a danger to downstream areas, carrying capacity of major tourist destinations, a Cumulative  EIA of the Chandrabhaga basin before proceeding to sanction another 4000 MW worth of projects on it. These studies will reveal  how our geology and environment are being altered, and are necessary for all future planning. It should also heed the dire warning issued by the Supreme Court last week on a PIL, having ignored everyone, including its own citizens for decades: "Entire Himachal Pradesh may vanish soon; Revenue Earning can't be at the cost of the Environment." 

Translated into simple English, that means that the time for post mortems is over, what is needed now is immediate and decisive action.

WHEN ONLY LOVE REMAINS

 I have just returned from my hometown, Kanpur, after severing the last remaining physical link with my late parents, with the tangible legacies of my dad and mom. My mother passed away in 1994, my dad joined her in 2017. He left behind a lovely flat in a multi-story development, in which he had spent the last years of his life, lonely most of the time, but content and at peace in his otherwise downsized world.

This flat contained the possessions he and my mom, and we (as children), had accumulated over the years, and not one of them was less than fifty years old! These included British time crockery, a Garrard music player with vinyl records, hundreds of books (mostly mine), furniture from Calcutta and Assam, an assortment of walking sticks. He had hoarded them lovingly, getting them cleaned and polished regularly, for would his children not inherit them some day? They were precious to him, not just because he had laboured to acquire them over a lifetime, but because they would go to his children after him.

That was never going to happen, of course. The flat was being sold, and we all had enough bric-a-brac of our own, accumulated over our own lifetimes, for our own children! Where was the space to take over my dad's stuff in our metro flats in Mumbai and Noida, where each square foot of space cost Rs. 100,000 and  Rs. 10000/-, respectively? So we gave everything away- the records whose music had once suffused the flat with lilting tunes, the books which had made holidays in Kanpur so pleasant and relaxed, the table at which I had prepared for the civil service exams, the dining table on which my mom used to serve the delicious "atta ka halwa" and "gobhi ki subzi" which were, and still are, my favourite fare, the harmonium on which my late younger sister learned her music. All big slices of our past, all indelibly associated with my mom and dad and our childhood. All now gone. I have retained only a few books, one of Papa's walking sticks, his battered briefcase, and a set of crystal Johnnie Walker glasses, which I had bought for fifteen rupees from the Jama Masjid Sunday market in 1971 and had gifted him for his birthday. They will have to suffice till I retain my memory of him.

The compulsions of "modern" life have no time for the sentiments of the past, these are weaknesses that detract from our algorithm based, market driven vision of a material valhalla. And that precisely is the point of this blog: there is a lesson in my experience, for all of us, all those adrift in the 70+ boat, most of us in sight of the harbour, or the reef, as fate would have it. As parents we spend too much time, resources and emotional capital, and deny ourselves, in collecting things to leave behind for our children. It's a waste of parental love, a mortgaging of  present needs for an envisioned but uncertain future. For nothing we leave behind will endure- the house will be sold (if not fought over), the money in the bank will be divided ruthlessly by some chartered accountant or lawyer and spent on trips to Bali or Biarritz, the clothes will go to charity, everything else will be given away. Nothing will remain but memories, and it is on those that we twilight dwellers should concentrate.. I am reminded of these haunting lines from an anonymous poet:

If I take nothing with me,                                                                                                            May I leave behind something beautiful-                                                                                    A memory, a kindness, a warmth in the hearts of those I've met.                                                So that, even when my road ends,                                                                                                Love remains.

POST SCRIPT.

I make it a point never to end any piece on a somber note, lest the reader fling himself off his 22nd floor balcony in despair; and so I must confess that I did take one other object from my dad's flat- the album of photographs of my marriage with Neerja. (That was in 1977, I think, but I can't be sure since my long term memory is no longer what it used to be). There were no digital albums in those primordial days, no smart phones; only "still" photos which had to be pasted in bulky albums. I've appropriated my wedding album, not just for sentimental reasons, but as an abundant precaution to prove my marriage with Neerja. In these days of "certificate raj" there is no saying when proof will be demanded that I am not living in sin with her. Hotels and OYO have already started demanding this, and the time is not far off when banks, landlords and RWAs shall follow suit. "Marriage vigilantism" will be the latest addition to cow and citizenship vigilantisms. Didn't someone say that eternal vigilantism is the price of freedom? Better to be prepared, no?

But I'm taking a big risk bringing this album home and reminding Neerja about our marriage. She has had many second thoughts about these nuptials over the last 48 years, about the wisdom of having plighted her troth to me in an LSR moment of weakness. How will she react to my bringing home documented proof of what she sometimes considers the "biggest mistake of her life"? Maybe I'll hide the album under the dog's bed. As they say in the Pakistan Punjab - "Better to be Saif than Suri."

THE WRITER'S CURSE-- AND BLESSING.

[This piece was published in the TRIBUNE on 27.07.2025 with some minor editing.] 

It's a tough time to be a writer or wannabe author in India these days. If you write against the government you are likely to be stripped of your citizenship, and if you support it you'll be in Arnab Goswami's B team, or sharing a room with Sambit Patra in Gujarat Bhavan.. Or , even worse, you could end up like Ms Tavleen Singh whose sacerdotal efforts at the altar of the presiding deity of Indian politics didn't pay off- her son lost his citizenship anyway. So what is one to do? The safest course, I feel, is to do a Chetan Bhagat and write only about " The Girl in Room 105" or  pen motivational stuff with misleading titillating titles, like that other bestseller "The Subtle Art of not giving a "F--k." You will, of course, find neither the girl nor the "f--k" but your persistence in trying to do so till the last page will ensure that a couple more million copies of the books will fly off the shelves, quicker than you can say Man Force. 

   The other problem I've encountered is this: what does one write about ? History is a prohibited zone, because the RSS and Mr. Dinanath Batra have already started re-writing it, with novel inputs provided by the Supreme Court, no less, in some of its judgements. Mythology is no longer available as Mr. Amish Tripathi has already mined this seam till there is nothing left to explore there but the question: was the live feed of the battle of Kurukshetra conveyed to Dhritrashtra via Netflix or Amazon Prime or Hulu? Sardar jokes are a no-go area, like the area around Parliament Bhavan, as those poor chaps from JNU found out a couple of years back; the mountains have been denuded of all their tales by Ruskin Bond; the British era has been subjected to repeated biopsies by Shashi Tharoor and William Dalrymple; nobody reads about sports these days because everyone is hooked on to biopics; romance is nowadays confined to Twitter and Instagram and has to be compressed into 140 words: who has time for a novel? War books are unlikely because even though Messers Modi and General Munir both threaten it nobody is actually pressing that blue button anytime soon. Moreover, no two Indian generals can ever agree on whether we won or lost a war, including Haldighati. One potentially promising area is memoirs by bureaucrats, and quite a few are now rushing to the printers, having suddenly remembered their stellar contributions in pushing us onto a 8% growth path. But they are bogged down with their training, confusing "penal" with "penile" ( as in the Indian Penile Code), conclude each chapter with " submitted for approval, please" out of sheer habit, and think that "analogy" is the study of assholes. Their tomes do seem to bear out the unkind observation of Christopher Hitchins that everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that's where it should stay!

   Why do chaps persist with writing, given the hardships involved? You just have to attend every literary festival to be noticed, which is pretty tough considering that they have now started organising them even in dumps like Jhumri Tilaiya and Kotkapura where the infant mortality rates are probably higher than the literacy rates. Nobody there will recognize you anyway because they are too busy either drooling over Shashi Tharoor and "Pyjamas" Dimple Kapadia or shouting slogans against Salman Rushdie. You'll never make it to any best seller list because of Amish Tripathi: he's the BJP of the Indian literary universe with an almost two-thirds stranglehold. What is the Competition Commission doing, and why is he not being hauled up for monopolistic practices, or at least for forming a cartel with Chetan Bhagat who takes up most of the remaining slots? Both should be banned from writing for at least three years so the rest of us can keep the wolves, if not the cows, from our doors.

   Ruskin Bond once said that India has more writers than readers, which explains why the publishers act like capos. Influenced by our TV channels, they insist on the seamier stuff. One guy in Daryaganj I submitted a proposal to did to my manuscript what dogs down the ages have been doing to lamp posts, and then advised me instead to write a kiss-and-tell book about politicians I have worked with, replete ( he suggested with a wink) awards of dubious contracts, girls in rooms other than just 105, booth capturing techniques (this was before the age of the EVM which has rendered all previous practices obsolete) and other such staples of governance. It would, he assured me, sell like   "Hot Kates"- I presume he meant  hot cakes but I'm not sure: maybe he wanted a hot Kate in there between the pages if not the sheets. It appears that my books are as popular as ice cubes in the North pole: the royalty cheques I receive once a year look like Yogi Adithyanath's compensation cheques for UP's farmers, rarely exceeding double digits. Sometimes I wonder, did they even print the books ?

   But maybe I'm being too harsh on them, going by my own family and friends. Now, I have a fairly large extended family, even if I were to discount the guys who are either in judicial custody or have

 jumped bail, and they can also read though writing requires more effort. Members of my social circle are more law abiding and some of them even pay their taxes. But very few of them want to buy my books- they expect them to be dished out as gifts, never mind that it's nobody's birthday or wedding anniversary! I guess it's the effect of this new Amazon/ Swiggy culture of getting every thing at discounted prices or totally free, and I should be happy that nobody is demanding "cashbacks" ! But really, I don't mind giving them away- nobody's buying them anyway- but then I rarely get any feedback either. Nobody tells me whether they liked the book or used it as printed toilet paper. Except, of course, from the good wife who is never lacking an opinion or the urge to express it. I asked her about my last book and Neerja replied:
 " Uh, you really want to know?"
 " Sure," I replied cheerily, though not very truthfully, " I've always valued your advice."

 " OK, then, two comments: one, there are far too many conjunctions."

 " What's wrong with that?" I queried, "the idea is to stitch the story together. Conjunctions are good."

 " Nope, the road to Hell is paved with good conjunctions."

 I digested this Sadhguru type statement: " What's your second observation?" I asked, hoping for a more positive review this time. I was about to be disappointed.

 " Your style belongs to the coitus interruptus school of writing," she intoned.

 " Huh? What exactly is that supposed to mean?" I shouted.

 She was calmness itself, like a school teacher talking to a naughty child.

 " See," she explained," you use too many punctuation marks, especially the exclamation mark. It disrupts your rhythm, interrupts the flow, and delays the gland- sorry, I meant grand- finale."

    I'm still trying to figure that one out. Was she talking about my writing style, or did she have something else in mind? You never know with women ! ( Sorry for that exclamation mark).
   So why do I keep writing stuff that no one reads and not seek reemployment as an Advisor to the Minister for Open Defecation Free Himachal? Well, its partly because my net-working skills resemble those of Obelisk, and partly because the queue of retired Chief Secretaries lined up for the job is longer than the line outside the Moolchand metro's Sulab Sauchalaya, but mainly because , as some wise man once said: You are what you write. He was spot on, you know: writing bilge is better than advising about it!

   

THE CASINO IS RIGGED, LONG LIVE THE CASINO !

The oldest (and most disregarded) secret in the world of gambling is that you cannot win against the house. The decks are stacked, the cards are rigged and the slot machines are fixed. Oh yes! the casino will let you win once in a while, just so that you swallow a little more of the bait and keep returning to be ripped off. The house, folks, always wins. Which describes perfectly the state of our elections these days, after 2019.

What is happening with the SIR in Bihar, even as I write this, is the final turn of the roulette wheel: the Opposition (the real Opposition, I mean, not the Mayawatis, Owaisis, Kishores or Naveen Patnaiks of the world) will henceforth never be allowed to win an election, general or state. A few seats here and there, yes, maybe even a few inconsequential states, to keep the dumb charade going, but never a House- Vidhan Sabha or Lok Sabha: the House belongs to the croupier. No amount of petitions, meetings with the Election Commission, writs in the Supreme Court, grandstanding photo-ops outside Parliament, or threats ("We are coming after you") is going to change this inevitability. Maharashtra and Haryana were the prototypes and appropriate lessons were learnt from them- adding spurious votes is not enough, stuffing EVMs after 5.00PM is not enough, deleting a few thousand votes is not enough, the judicial pusillanimity regarding VVPATs is not enough; more work was needed to make matters fool proof.

And so the final product-the electoral Bramhastra, as it were- is on display now in Bihar. Make the nationalistic Citizenship issue the mechanism and excuse for getting rid of those pesky communities and classes who don't vote for the BJP and its allies, be selective in the desired documentation; Aadhar will do in the right wing areas, thank you, but in Seemanchal we need to see your birth certificate, and that of your parents. The motto being: show me the face and I will show you the document. Five million have already been disenfranchised, according the the ECI's own figures.

The Supreme Court will hear the matter on the 28th of this month, but don't hold your breath- the jurisprudence of the "fait accompli" will come into play and the loaded dice will keep rolling. The Election Commission knows this- it has already asked all states to prepare for an all-India roll-out of this grand larceny of democracy. At the most the Court may mandate the acceptance of a few more ID markers, but it's always the dealer who calls out the cards and numbers, and they are usually tucked up his sleeve. In the Supreme Court the SIR will go the way of the EVMs, VVPATs, paper ballots, procedure for appointments of Election Commissioners.

The Opposition will never win again. It has only one path before it in order to save democracy-drink of the poisoned chalice and boycott all elections until this casino is shut down. It must take the bull by the horns, and not by the tail as it has been doing so far. As Debasish Roy Choudhury says in an interview with Karan Thapar on Friday (which should be compulsory watching for all who value our democracy), by continuing to participate in elections which are rigged and which they know they cannot win, it is only legitimising the elections and the winning regime. A boycott will take away this moral legitimacy, in the eyes of most countrymen and the international community. That will the first step to restoring the old sanctity to the whole process.

The Opposition has failed, thanks to its own ineptitude, avarice, lust for power and out-size egos, and the abject surrender of all our constitutional institutions, including the courts. The Opposition, therefore, is no longer a player in this game-it can at best now be a coach. The actual players have to be the citizens of India, whose right to select a government of their choice is being stolen. They must be persuaded to boycott the elections too, to show the world how the elections in India now resemble those of Rwanda, where the President Paul Kagame, won with 99% of the votes. The world, of course, doesn't give a damn about Rwanda, but can it ignore India, the world's largest democracy which has historically been the beacon of democracyfor the post colonial world?

Country-wide boycotts may lead to civil unrest, which is not necessarily a bad thing, as Jayaprakash Narayan's Sampurna Kranti movement against Mrs Gandhi had shown-it finally led to her being ousted from power. A boycott could be a curtain raiser to something similar. This applies equally to civil society organisations like ADR (Association for Democratic Reforms), CCG (Constitutional Conduct Group) and others- they too have to espouse and campaign for the cause of the boycott. They have written enough letters to the Government and Prime Minister and Election Commission, and issued their fair number of press releases, to no effect: they too have to change course. As Debasish says: when your house is burgled, you don't write a letter to the burglar, you go to the police! And the police here are the people of India- We The People. It is time to turn to them.

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."

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.)