Why we need Anna Hazare

It’s not about corruption. It can’t be. Because if it was only about corruption, then none of us are exempt from it. We have all lied, bribed, taken unfair advantage of a situation in some way or the other. It could have been a ticket that we have bought in black. It could have been the commission we had to pay to jump the queue. It could have been the stack of cash under the table we have slipped for a licence. The scale may have varied but we have all played our part in nurturing corruption. And it’s not as if by admitting to our role in fostering corruption we have won ourselves some reprieve. In fact Anna’s crusade is as much against us as it is against the politicians. So why do we feel compelled to support this old man who has been doing his best to make us look and feel bad.

I think the dam simply burst. Just because we have been corrupt does not mean we have liked being in that position. Especially since most of us have been bribing rather than getting bribed. We have been paying rather than getting paid. And increasingly we have been discovering that whatever honour there was among the thieves who were looting us, looting the nation, has fast disappeared. It’s not as if India has not had bad governance in the past. But we have never had this level of deviousness from the ruling classes. Increasingly we have started to believe that not only have we been short changed but we are also being mocked for being in a position of being cheated. That it was our fault somehow to have landed ourselves in this situation.

And the man who has done this to us is none other than our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Here is a man who had a mandate of the entire nation behind him. We took him to be one of our own. As someone who had to compromise his integrity because he was forced to. Just like us. We believed his sense of purpose was so strong that he will first achieve whatever he had to and then ensure that we will transition into a cleaner system. Instead he has let us down like no other politician has. The decency we attributed to him has been arrogated by him and turned into an infuriating smugness. He was meant to liberate us. Instead the government he leads has mired the nation in one scam after another. And to add insult to injury he has remained totally immune to the charges levelled against his ministers. Forgetting that sooner or later the nation would wake up to a concept called collective responsibility that is not selective in affixing blame.

We no longer believe that the Prime Minister was not aware of what has happening right under his nose. We know now he knew and ignored what has happening to stay in power. Sonia Gandhi didn’t do this to him. He did this to himself. In his crusade for capitalism he seems to have forgotten all norms of basic human decency. What sense does a line like inflation is inevitable in our quest for growth make to a starving man unable to manage one square meal a day because of the unchecked price rise? How different is it from asking if they can’t afford bread, why don’t they eat cakes?

Make no mistake about it. Anna Hazare represents the greatest threat to this self serving government and its leader. For one the Gandhian has taken the wind out of the sails of the careful brand building of the Prime Minister. He has also emerged at a time when the personal credibility of Manmohan Singh is at an all time low. Sonia Gandhi has not appealed to Anna Hazare to end his fast out of humanitarian considerations. She has probably seen her dreams of positioning her son as the next Prime Minister go up in smoke if she does not assuage Anna’s feelings. And the feelings of the entire nation. The ruling classes are on their knees and for a change we, the citizens of this country, are feeling smug. While they squirm.

That’s why we need Anna Hazare.

Anna Hazare versus Manmohan Singh

There’s something called the real thing. Something that cuts across empty rhetoric and stops at nothing short of action. The real thing is not reactive. The real thing is not mealy mouthed. The real thing does not believe in running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. The real thing is not Manmohan Singh. The real thing is Anna Hazare.

For months now we have been subjected to one scam after another and one blatant lie after another to cover the scams. We have seen how there are no exceptions to the rule of the corrupt politician in this country including the honourable prime minister with his dubious halo of personal integrity. As if it’s all right to be an honest leader of a gang of thieves. Today he stands exposed stripped of any personal glory. His image carefully cultivated by his party and nurtured by his own careful public declarations lies in shambles. He has done what he has always done when confronted with something that has the potential of damaging his image. He has gone into hiding and sent out the usual suspects to do his bidding. So now we have to endure Barkha Dutt interrogating Kabil Sibal on how the government is going to respond to the mass movement swelling on the ground. Talk about supreme irony!

There are many who are questioning whether the cause over which Anna Hazare has gone on fast and the entire nation is rallying around is big enough. Whether having citizen representation for the Lokpal bill will take care of the corruption in this country. I don’t think anyone believes that including Anna Hazare. But revolutions always come to life over a symbolic gesture.

We know now a 73 year old man can get the government scurrying. We know now how we can come together cutting across religious, political, parochial lines to take on the common enemy personified by the sleazy politician, oily babu and grasping corporation.

We know now we can go beyond the sham Manmohan Singh and look for some real inspiration from Anna Hazare.

Afridi & India

Shahid Afridi is the new poster boy for Pakistan bashing if there can be such a thing. The media is out to crucify him over his contradictory views on India and Indians. After the semi final loss to India, the captain of the Pakistan team graciously conceded defeat after the match and spoke like a harbinger of peace. But once he went back to Pakistan he called Indians petty and small hearted. Apparently he was riled by Gautam Gambhir’s comment that he wanted to dedicate the world cup victory to the victims of 26/11. Afridi interpreted Gambhir’s comment to be political and attempting to show Pakistan in a bad light. The small detail that the world cup final was played in Bombay completely escaped him.

All Indians were hurt and angered by what happened on that fateful day in November in India’s largest metropolis and if one member of the Indian cricket team was moved enough to dedicate the cup to the victims, it does not mean he was being political. Afridi, on the other hand, has emulated a wily politician by changing his stance like a chameleon. But I don’t think we should be hasty in condemning him.

Firstly, there is the man himself. I remember there was a huge controversy about his age when he started to play for Pakistan. Afridi claimed he was 15 and the rest of the world took it with a pinch of salt. I don’t know whether he was as young as that when he started out, but the cricketing establishment in Pakistan was very keen to prove that he was younger than Sachin Tendulkar when the master blaster made his test debut. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then and we know where the two cricketers stand today with regard to each other not just where the game is concerned but as human beings too. One has stood up to Bal Thackeray and went on record to say Mumbai is for all Indians. The kindest conclusion we can draw about Afridi’s comments is that he has buckled under pressure exerted by the clergy in Pakistan.

In one of his Initial tours to India after he started playing for his country, Afridi was linked to an upcoming starlet of that time Sonali Bendre. Those days Star TV had a program on Pakistan that was aired on Sundays. Afridi was interviewed in the show and when he was quizzed about the link up, he preened “ Mujhe lagta hai Sonali ne hi mere bare mein yeh afwah faila di.” He sounded juvenile then. He hasn’t grown up much now.

And yet it’s not just about Afridi. It’s about Pakistan. About how an entire nation has just refused to grow up. I love Muslims. I love Urdu. I have huge regard for Islam, the first religion to foster equality. I love their food and I dare say if I ever visited Pakistan I will fall in love with the country too. That’s one country I really want to visit. Despite 26/11. Despite Kargil.

Because we have done a lot of unsavoury things to them as well. It’s like a family feud. If the younger sibling has displayed the occasional delinquent behaviour, we as the older sibling have been too quick to condemn them without getting to the root of the problem. We were hasty in labelling Pakistanis as enemies when the truth is we are family. I guess they carry that hurt and occasionally that leaks out in subversive acts. But how different are we to them? Once upon a time they sucked up to the US. Now we do the same. And the truth is the US took them for a ride and dumped them when it suited their purpose. We don’t need the Wikileaks to tell us Uncle Sam will do the same to us if we let him.

Pakistan has always needed our compassion not our condemnation. We know what one Bal Thackeray can do to the liberal ethos of Bombay. Forget the common man, how even the rich and powerful in the city are forced to play ball with him. Or for that matter what lies behind the progressive facade of Narendra Modi . Pakistan has many such Thackerays and Modis. And the state backs them. We know what’s been happening to liberal politicians in Pakistan opposing the blasphemy laws. They are shot down in cold blood. Even if Afridi wants to he can’t stand up to the bullying.

After all, he is no Tendulkar.

Launches, Writers & Friends...

Last Saturday was a ‘learning experience’ as the organizational cliché goes. I have never been nostalgic about the management institute I left behind 24 years ago. I made good friends while I was there and keep in touch with them. But I avoid reunions and alumni meetings because I find them to be full of fake bonhomie. I am also scared of running into some classmates who I have spotted in airports and ducked behind pillars just to avoid bumping into them. So it was after a lot of trepidation that I decided to approach Abhijit Bhaduri and Vasanthi Srinivasan to join me for a panel discussion during the Bangalore launch of my new book ‘The Boss is Not your Friend.’

Abhijit is two years my senior from XLRI and he graduated the year I joined. He has taken a lead in the writing too. His first novel was published a couple of years before Harper Collins published mine. I wanted to be the pioneer from the institute to have a work of fiction published by a leading publisher. Abhijit’s book took the wind out of my sails. I was sullen about it for years. Things got worse when my book came out and the classmates I ran into dismissed my achievement by saying ‘You have written a book. Like that senior of ours Abhijit Bhaduri.’ That was like rubbing salt to the wounds. Every time I spotted his book in a store, I moved away from the shelf that displayed it, pretending I hadn’t noticed a title that mocked me-‘Mediocre but Arrogant'.

A few years later I heard another book of his had been published and I didn’t react as badly as I had to his first one. By then two of my books had come out, I had been on two international writing residencies, wrote columns and reviews for newspapers and had learnt to introduce myself as a writer without feeling embarrassed. A couple of months ago, I came across a really kind review of my novel ‘Master of Life Skills’ by Abhijit in his blog. He had recommended the book to his fans and readers. I felt bad about having been so churlish towards him although he wouldn’t have known of all the hang ups I had about him and his book. I wrote to him thanking him and we broke the ice. But I was still apprehensive when I asked him to help me with the launch. To my surprise he agreed without any fuss.

I also read his second book “Married but Available’ before the launch and enjoyed it thoroughly. While I was reading it I was constantly admonishing myself that I shouldn’t like his book just because he had liked mine. Besides I was reading it just after I had read Kazuo Ishigaro’s ‘Never let me go’ that felt so precious that I wanted to never let it go. But Abhijit’s work had me captivated right from the first chapter. Partly because I could identify with it and partly because he practices an economy and precision with words that shows more than it tells. I especially like the portrayal of women in the book. They are real and substantive without wearing their feminism on their sleeves. I suspect Abhijit is a far deeper writer than the titles of his two books seem to indicate. I am waiting now to read his third novel whenever it comes out.

Vasanthi was my classmate in XLRI. She was a hardworking student who spent a lot of time with books unlike me who hardly ventured anywhere near them. She was also friendly and helpful. We used to have a horrible subject called Quantitative Techniques and a sadistic professor taught it. He used to revel in giving us one question in every paper that he set, that couldn’t be solved by anyone in class. He turned peevish if someone actually solved it. Vasanthi did it once and he was in a pretty foul mood for a week after that. I have always respected Vasanthi for that.

Although we have been in the same city for years now and I am occasionally invited to offer an elective course in IIM Bangalore, where Vasanthi is an Associate Professor, our paths have rarely crossed. That’s how it is in colleges and post graduate institutes. You settle down with your bunch of friends and you are in touch with them after you leave the place. Vasanthi and I were in different groups and so we didn’t remain in touch. As with Abhijit, I was apprehensive when I called Vasanthi to help out with the launch. She is well known in management and academic circles and her papers have been published in leading international journals. I thought she would scoff at a book like mine. To my surprise, she agreed immediately.

Thanks to Abhijit and Vasanthi, I had a launch that I have always dreamt of. They kept the event lively and entertaining. The audience was with us all through the discussion and the commissioning editor from another publishing house (not the one that published “The Boss is Not your Friend’) pointed out this was one of the few launches she attended where there were more questions than the time allotted for them.

Sometimes we wait for too long to have the right kind of friends in our lives.

Hospital Blues

An old lady in my apartment block got seriously burnt, a few days ago. She has a habit of lighting a candle after she had switched off all the lights in the house to guide her to her bedroom. The accident happened due to this quirk of hers. Her family rushed her to a hospital immediately only to be told she can't be admitted. The second and third hospital they took her to reacted in the same way. Finally, a fourth hospital they approached agreed reluctantly. The reason given by the hospitals that refused was that the victim was too old and likely to die on them.
The victim's family is affluent and they were willing to foot the expenses of the treatment. So you can well imagine what happens to the poor and deprived in this country.

It has been the turn of healthcare to be corporatized in this country in the last couple of decades. You have all these swanky looking hospitals in every city worth its salt that are run on the philosophy of greed. I was once asked to design a performance management form for the doctors of one such hospital. One measure they wanted was how many tests the doctor being assessed recommended for a patient who came to the hospital seeking treatment. The logic being the hospital had imported a number of expensive machines and needed to recover the cost of equipments. It didn't matter whether the patient needed the test or not.

Dr. Devi Shetty, one of the few doctors in this country who is honest and runs a hospital in Bangalore that caters to the underprivileged has protested strongly against the government's decision to impose the burden of service tax on hospitals. He is calling it the 'misery tax' and with reason. It's not the hospitals but the patients who will bear this cost. The client pays the service tax.

The origin of taxes lies in the protection money our ancestors had to pay to bandits to be left alone. With this government, the wheel has turned a full circle. They insist on adding salt to our wounds.

Three Gems

Looks like, this is an extremely interesting year for the Hindi film industry. The last three movies I watched in the next door multiplex, in as many weeks were riveting without me having to dumb down my sensibilities. I hope I am not being carried away when I say they played out like meaningful European cinema from an Almadover or Kieslowski.

‘No one killed Jessica’ is a fictional narrative based on a real tragedy we are all familiar with and rides on the sheer power packed performance of Vidya Balan. Playing Sabrina Lall, sister of the murdered girl, Balan is a revelation. She communicates the anguish and turmoil of the character without resorting to any melodramatic gimmicks. There is a certain internalization she vests the character with and we sense her grief only through her silences and body language. Here is an actor who knows her craft and I found myself imagining her acting in that Bergman classic ‘Autumn Sonata.’ Balan would be perfect as the daughter.

Rani Mukherjee on the other hand is happy with the Shahrukh Khan brand of hamming and managed to grate on my nerves. No doubt, Filmfare would give an award to Mukherjee next year as the best supporting actor and reserve the critics’ award for Balan. I plan to skip watching the award ceremony on television this year, because of their ridiculous decision to hand the acting trophies to Shahrukh Khan and Kajol for that lame ‘My name is Khan.’ And to add insult to injury, Kareena Kapoor shares the acting honours in a supporting part for “We are Family.” Karan Johar is the ‘best’ director. Clearly the awards have been rigged as they have been happening for years now. When I read the TOI headlines about the winners, I found myself wishing that all future collaborations between Johar and Khan turn into the biggest box office duds. They deserve it for all their machinations to deprive the deserving of their laurels. After that peeved aside, let’s move on.

'Dhobi Ghat' is a lyrical and languorous tale of Bombay. Kiran Rao makes a stunning debut as a director. Her vision is uncompromising and the experience of watching the film is like being in the audience in a classical music concert by a maestro. You warm up gradually and by the end of it you are ready to swear that it has been one of the most divine experiences of your life. The film is subtle and the screenplay nuanced and layered. While the film purportedly narrates the tale of four protagonists, the subtext is all about the resilient city that offers dreams and disappointments in equal measure.

'Yeh Saali Zindagi' is an edgy mishmash of romance, thrills and ribald humour. It is clear that the director Sudhir Mishra had a lot of fun doing this one and so did all his actors. The film is a fairy tale set in the underbelly of Delhi, teeming with corrupt politicians, fixers, nightclub singers, cross dressing gang lords and plenty of wicked fun. And the best thing about the film is it ends happily ever after for all the thugs you feel empathetic towards.There is a Jim Carrey- Kate Winslet classic 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' that wouldn't work as anything but a screenplay. You can't reporoduce the plot in a short story, novel or even a play without losing most of the zing the film carries. This one is like that.

Now if every week had something like this to offer instead of Akshay Kumar’s ‘Patiala House.’

May her soul rest in peace!

I have always been a murder mystery buff and I am not ashamed to admit that as far the Aarushi Talwar case is concerned, I have always reacted to it as a fictional thriller than a real tragedy affecting real people. Nothing about the case seemed real anyway. How can a fourteen year old girl be murdered in her own room in the middle of the night without anyone breaking into the house while the parents were at home? And to add to the unreality, there were all those surreal images the television screen threw up.

A day or two after the death of the unfortunate child, one of the Hindi news channel (I think it was Aaj Tak) had this intriguing visual of the parents entering their building and being hounded by the television journalists for a byte and the mother pinching the father from behind so as to warn him not to say anything inappropriate to the waiting cameras. The channel kept on flashing the visual for a day and then it disappeared, never to be flashed again. For me, both the visual as well as its disappearance was a significant clue pointing to the fact that the parents were involved; either in the execution of the grisly crime or in the cover up.

It may seem a heartless thing to say but a tragedy of this scale also imposed a certain responsibility on those who were meant to protect and nurture the child. The grief they displayed had to feel authentic. Something about the way the parents were reacting after the tragedy was patently false. They seemed more interested in appearing proper and saying all the right things to the media rather than being overwhelmed by the loss of their only child. Admittedly, this is a two edged sword. Because if they had seemed too distraught, we may have felt they were acting and the conclusions most of us drew about their guilt would have been the same. So the Talwars were always in an unenviable position – hanged if they did and hanged if they didn’t.

But the sad fact is they placed themselves there. However harsh it may sound, it was the parents’ responsibility to ensure the safety and security of the child. It does not matter like in any other pointless crime as to who wielded the knife. For even if the murder was committed by someone else, Aarushi’s parents should have seen to it that their daughter was not put in a situation in her own house where she was vulnerable to violence. If you and I stepped out in the street tomorrow and were mugged, we would blame the authorities for not doing their work. Similarly, if a child gets murdered in her own house in the way Aarushi was, the parents cannot escape responsibility. It is as black and white as that. The government or the authorities cannot be expected to come inside our safe middle class homes and guard our children.

For once, my sympathies are with the CBI. They have done the right thing by closing the case. Now, it is up to the parents not to fall back on legal arguments but to come out clean about what happened that night. The onus is not on the CBI but on them to ensure the dead child gets justice and her soul rests in peace.