SYRIA - WESTERN U.P.

Really what is the difference between Obama planning to strike Syria to boost his popularity and the SP party and the BJP setting western U.P. on fire to gain electoral advantage?
The only difference is that Obama wears a tie and suit and shows gravitas on TV and the leaders from our desi parties fanning the fire resemble the goon squad.

Discordant notes in Srinagar

Ever since my earlier days as a TV correspondent, when once in a while one went to Kashmir, I have been struck by a deep sense of racism, barely concealed, infecting the so called civil society movement and the separatist movement out there.
Most of these worthies have never identified with the problems of Muslim brethren in other parts of the country. In private conversations they have always looked upon themselves as a race and a community apart and most of them are extremely colour prejudiced.
The same disease has surfaced in the Zubin Mehta concert to be held today. The real reason why many of these groups are opposed to this concert is that Zubin has ostensibly been close to Israel and has conducted the Israeli philharmonic orchestra for a number of years.
Sadly one had thought music cuts across religion, caste and ethnic divide.

Vietnam - Syria

The United States has a history of repeating history not as a farce but as a comic strip. Sure Assad is a monster but he will get his just desserts from his own people. Why should the US start yielding the lathi?
The striking image of the Vietnam war was US B-52 bombers bombing from safety up above on a helpless Vietnamese people. The US will do the same in Syria when they launch cruise missiles in their so called limited strike. Wars are won by feet on the ground and not by remote controlled, computer driven missiles.
The US lost the plot in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and they will do it again in Syria.
As we say ' rasi jal gayee par bal nahin gaya.'

Taliban terror

A moment's silence for author Sushmita Banerjee who was shot dead by the Taliban yesterday in Afghanistan. The enemies of a woman's right to free expression and aspirations are spread all around - the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Geelanis of the world in Kashmir, Mulayam Singh Yadav and his lieutenants for opposing all women related legislation in Parliament, the Khalistanis in the United States and other western countries who threaten women with being branded as 'tankhaiya' (outcast) if they were to marry outside the community.

And finally what about our great brown hope Narendra Modi? Does anyone know where he has dumped his wife?

IITian TURNED ‘ELECTRICIAN’ CRUSADER’s ELECTRIC SONG!

Dukh bhare din beete re bhaiya Ab Kejriwal aayo re!

Rang politics Mein Naya Laayo Re

hoy Hoy Dukh Bhare Din Beete Re Bhaiyaa, Beete Re Bhaiyaa

Dekh re paapi Kejriwal ka khulasa 440 volt ka current layo re

O dekh le paapi dekh le paapi

Chhup le Vadra DLF ki kholi mein, Khulason ki rut chhai re

O 440 volt jhatke ka yug chhayo re

Dukh bhare din beete re bhaiyaa, beete re bhaiyaa

Madhur – madhur mango-man gaaye apne bhi din aaye

O madhur geet mango-man gaye

Ho electric khulason se jeevan puran

O madhur geet mango-man gaye re

Aaj to bhaiyaa enjoy kar le ek naya khulasa har ek pal

Paagal, kal na jaane, mango man ko shayaad hosh aa jaye re

Hoy hoy dukh bhare din beete re bhaiyaa, beete re bhaiyaa!

AUSSIE DIARIES PART – 2

‘THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH’ for Indians in Sydney

20 years back, in the  pre-reform days, Indians would walk into Heathrow, JFK, Sydney airport unsure of themselves, heads bent, afraid that they would hear the ubiquitous catcall ‘Paki’ from somewhere behind them. But today tides of skilled Indians are changing the social and economic landscape in many of these countries breaching borders and showcasing to the world ‘how the west can be won.’  Let me give you snapshots of some of these success stories I saw for myself in Sydney.

Let’s start the fact telling from literally the home of my dear friend Anup, working in Sydney, who hosted our entire stay in Sydney. Anup is at least ten years younger than me. He passed out from Delhi College of Engineering and then did his MBA from FMS, Delhi. He had made a name for himself as a marketing whiz kid in companies like Whirpool in India. He later joined Yum! and after a couple of years they posted him to Sydney. Anup is from a new generation - free from the baggage of the past. He and his wife Surubhi made a conscious decision to stay away from traditional Indian quarters in Sydney and opted for an all-white neighbourhood in Manly, an upmarket suburb of Sydney. When he moved in Manly, his immediate neighbour thought that he must be an ‘IT’ guy. After all aren’t all Indians supposed to be brilliant in maths and tech? Anup’s neighbour was surprised when Anup told him that he would be in charge of all marketing operations for Yum! in Australia. The point Anup was making was not lost on the Aussie. This new breed of Indians refuses to be tied down to ‘traditional roles’ that were once assigned to them. Anup is now literally teaching the Aussies how to sell pizza in their own country!

And why confine the new role of Indians just to work? Anup, every Sunday morning, goes ‘kayaking’ in the choppy waters off the Manly Beach. And one would have thought he would be following cricket in that country!

And then my wife and I met Warrier who could easily be one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Sydney. 25 years back the boy from Kerala immigrated to Australia and started work as a help in a Sydney restaurant. Today Warrier owns Majestic cruise liners that sail in and around Sydney harbour offering adult and cruising entertainment (see pictures). Warrier still retains his ties to Kochi – his hometown but he is always on the lookout for an opportunity where he can move in without fear or prejudice to set up new business.

And then there is Ron (Ranjyoti Barooah) and his wife, Seema, settled well in Sydney. Ron is my wife’s batchmate from the Tata Administrative Service (TAS). Ron was part of  senior management in Tata tea and fairly well known for his football commentaries on Star Sports.  His wife Seema was HR head for Nokia in India. And then one fine day, ten years back, they decided to put it all behind them and migrate to Australia. Ron and Seema are among the new breed on Indians who are willing to take risks with career choices because they are so confident of their abilities to strike out in new lands and unknown cultures.

I saw the same kind of spirit in Sunny. Sunny is the brother of my school batch mate Anil Kumar, a Commodore in the Indian navy. Sunny and his amiable Banker wife, Jo, are thoroughly enjoying the Aussie experience. They invited us to a pre Diwali festive gathering (celebrations there have already started!) of more than a hundred Indians in Sydney. Okay so some of the Indians there did seem to be stuck in some kind of a time warp wearing nineties-style Indian fashion clothing, but just about everyone in that laughing, drinking, belly-dancing watching, merry making gathering has made it big in Aussie land.

So how do the Indians do it? What is their magic mantra that works for them in foreign lands? The average Aussie, or for that matter the Westerner, would rather not work beyond 5.00 pm in the evening and weekends are sacred for them. But the Indian is industrious and willing to put in long hours, not afraid to take risks, and does not rest till he has brought in his entire family from India.

Someone rightly said that even in India we tend to move in certain parts of the city and have friends, relatives in say not more than ten to twelve families. Well the Indians in Sydney have transplanted such little India’s’ for themselves in Sydney without any apologies!

Tailpiece: An example of the Aussie way of working:  At 4.00 pm on a Friday Evening the RJ on the radio was reminding her listeners, every ten minutes, that “Folks, Weekend is an hour away ! “  Wow …… can we imagine that in India?

THE AUSSIE DIARIES – 1

DUMB, DRUNK AND RACIST IN AUSTRALIA

No, I did not meet that creature during my recent Sydney vacation but the above mentioned title is the name of a hit reality show recently aired in Australia which caused quite a stir. So why should it concern you and me? Let me tell you why.

Some time back many Indians had been subjected to racial taunts and attacks in Australia, especially in the city of Melbourne. The Indian media had gone to war over these attacks as if Australia had become the new South Africa of the early sixties and seventies. A chance came my way to find out the truth in these allegations. Close friends of ours Anup and Surubhi had invited us to spend a couple of weeks with them in Sydney. I must confess that there was some bit of anxiety in my mind as my wife and I boarded the massive AB 380 Dreamliner Boeing jet bound from Singapore to Sydney. The last thing one would want would be to face racial abuse in an alien land and that also on holiday. I sank deep in the business class comfort of the new jet but my anxiety surfaced again as the plane landed and docked to its berth and my wife and I walked into Sydney airport. A friendly Indian face greeted us as we walked through the tube in the airport. And then from the airport itself and during our entire stay every third or fourth face I saw in the city was an Indian or a Chinese.

The racial mix hit me almost like a cultural shock because one had heard that till the late seventies, Australia had whites - only policy and immigration into Australia was frowned upon. Our host drove us through the city and I braced myself for the racial sledging behind the ‘How are you mate’ friendly greeting. Arnab Goswami and a host of other television channels had prepared us for that possibility. We reached our hosts upscale home in a largely white neighbourhood at Manly without an incident. The next few days rolled past as we hit the beaches, enjoyed the ozone depleted sun with skin creams, the sheer beauty of the Pacific rim, the malls and the cosmopolitan buzz of Darling harbour in Sydney. But the racial incident that was supposed to be waiting just round the corner never happened. And then it hit me. The Aussies are perhaps one of the easiest going people, a completely friendly lot and perhaps also a people who are misunderstood in many parts of the world, especially ours. That is not to say that there has been no racial tension in Australia. The racial riots that took place in Cronulla some years back dented Australia’s image. And there is some truth in the incidents of harassment that many Indians faced in Melbourne.

But then back home are we a society of seamless, communally happy people vested with moral authority to speak against societies and countries and condemn them at the slightest pretext? The truth is that countries like Australia like many in the developed world are fast becoming multi racial societies with incredible sensitivity to individual and community rights. The entire world is in the throes of incredible sociological change but we continue to lionise people who have been complicit in communal riots that killed thousands from a particular community.

The makers of the hit reality show ‘Dumb, Drunk and racist’ went into every aspect and detail of the racist incidents in Melbourne. They employed the unusual device of asking a group of three Indians to go back to the scene of the ‘crime’, to confront those who had tormented them in the past. What does this kind of a show achieve? It tells us that as a society they have nothing to fear but fear itself and that the wounds of the past are best cleansed by confronting the past and moving ahead course corrected in the present. Now can you imagine anyone in India doing a show where the victims of the Gujarat riots confront their oppressors?

Tailpiece: At a theatre show in a community college my wife and I and our hosts were the only Indians in an all white audience. During half time the lady behind the counter serving tea and coffee asked us whether we were visitors.

“Yes,” I said. “Our hosts live in Manly but we are from Bombay,” I replied.

“Oh you mean Mumbai!” smiled the old lady.