The Leftist magazine Mainstream in a recent issue carried a very interesting article by Shree Shankar Sharan, representing a Gandhian organization Lok Paksh. The article offered a constructive and rather innovative solution to deal with the Naxalites of Andhra Pradesh, a festering sore that refuses to go away. Drawing on their experiences in dealing with Maoists in Bihar, they suggested that the Naxalites be dealt with using Gandhian tactics (not Gandhigiri!). Considering the relevance that we give Gandhiji and his methods today, and especially the questions that were often raised as to whether his methods and ideas would work with anarchist groups, it could have been thought to have been a utopian idea unworthy of any serious consideration.

As I think about it, I wonder why I or any one else should think of the idea as so far fetched and why we have always looked upon the Naxalites and other forms of extremist violence as something to be countered by force and not by any other means. There was a time when another group of people who were as lawless were actually won over to the path of peace through peaceful methods. In fact , one of Jayaprakash Narayan’s lasting contributions which has lasted(the Janata Party experiment of course did not last!) was to bring about a mass surrender of the Chambal dacoits in 1972. It was an event that TIME magazine, no friend of India then, deigned to cover in fair detail.

Nor was JP’s effort the first of its nature. Our story goes back to the 1960’s when “Tehsildar Singh, son of legendary dacoit Man Singh wrote a letter to Vinoba Bhave from his cell in Naini Jail. He was serving a death sentence and wanted to see Vinoba once to discuss the problem of dacoity in Chambal and how to rid it of the curse. Although Vinoba was on a padyatra in Kashmir at that time, Tehsildar Singh’s letter drew him to the Chambal. In May 1960, he went round the valley, spreading his message of truth, love and compassion Twenty dacoits surrendered their arms before him: it was a triumph of non-violence and human good sense. The dacoits were prepared to face the law courts and jail sentences courageously. The specially constituted Chambal Valley Peace Committee helped them in their efforts. After their release, they were given Bhoodan lands to lead a simple and peaceful life—they had no ambition of becoming film stars or politicians or gaining cheap publicityâ€?

The story was again repeated when Arjun Singh was the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh when the then bandit chieftain Malkhan Singh surrendered and then possibly for the last time in 2005 when a gang led by Arvind Gujar surrendered to the Madhya Pradesh police. The surrender was slightly different in the sense that the police admitted that the surrender took place as a result of as a result of pressure mounted by the police. Surrender enforced at gunpoint is not exactly the Gandhian method but perhaps still a better method than encounter killings, deaths and counter killings in retaliation.

In fact after this incident, the whole route of peace and reconciliation seems to have been abandoned and all that one hears of are deaths, killings, ambushes and an ever increasing number of orphans and widows. Perhaps the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister should pay heed to the letter from the Gandhian leader and open the door for repentance and reconciliation and talks rather than go down the path of ruthless revenge that every one else seems to be taking.

                                                                  

After reading from Tehelka and Aaj Tak about the way we treat our minorities in some parts of the country and then gloat about it , I watched a TV news feed where a Sikh cadet was just commissioned into the Pakistan Army. Until then, the only other minority I had heard of who was holding some post of distinction in Pakistan was a Hindu, Justice Bhagwan Das, who was officiating as the Pakistan Supreme Court Chief Justice. Of course, I am sure there must be more at other levels like Danesh Kaneria in their cricket team but we don’t hear of them much  

In a sense there is nothing unusual about this – Pakistan is an Islamic state but inspire of the many attempts at Islamization, strands of other original vision of a secular state do survive and find utterance through such instances. But I wonder if people like this, religious minorities in an avowedly religious state at least officially lead a schizophrenic existence with an identity that only complicates life in many situations. Partly it is complicated because Pakistan itself seems some times to be a confused identity – not quite an Islamic state like the Taliban’s Afghanistan or even theocratic Iran where minorities know their place(next to nothing!) or a avowedly secular state where religious identity does not mater – most of Europe at perhaps !

I wonder what goes through the minorities’ minds. The thought of a Sikh soldier shouting Jo Bole Sonehal and charging at an Indian soldier seems to be a little incomprehensible. Try to picture this mentally. A large number of the Sikh Gurus lost their lives at the hands of the Mughal emperors and the Sikh war cry was coined in the battle fields fighting Muslims. The turban that Harcharan Singh wears is a symbol of the Khalsa, a military style brotherhood created when the initially pacifist community established by Guru Nanak was under threat of annihilation by the Muslims. Yet the Sikh officer Harcharan Singh shortly after the passing out parade has to assure his country men that if and when the time comes, the Sikhs would prove no less loyal than their Muslim brothers.

Who was the enemy in mind when Harcharan Singh made the statement? The pro-Taliban militia that the Pakistan Army is fighting on the Eastern borders? Unlikely. No one’s heart in Muslim Pakistan would have wanted to hear that a Sikh officer would go the extra mile in fighting a battle which a large section of the Pakistan Army believes to be fratricidal in nature and which they are carrying out largely out of political and other compulsions. It is obvious that the young Sikh officer was making these comments alluding to India as the shadow enemy.  But the fact that he had to make such a statement is significant.

The minorities have this peculiar need that they need to deal with; the perennial need to make known that they are loyal and though the article in Indian Express was the one that caught my attention and the article referred to Pakistan , the same holds true in India as well.  Much like the medieval serf from whom nothing was explicitly demanded but a tribute was always expected, minorities, not only are often expected to cough up the tribute to the mai baap majority but deliver it up front the at the first instance or be taught a lesson by the likes of Narendra Modi and this appears to be true as much as in theocratic Pakistan ruled by the blasphemy laws as much as in secular India with its Freedom of Religion Laws

I thought ‘JD(S)’ stands for ‘Janata Dal (Secular)’. Oops, it turns out - that’s the wrong expansion. The accurate one is: ‘Just Doing the State’.

Yes. They really are doing us all.

When H D Kumaraswamy took the hot-seat in February 2006, we were slightly surprised, weren’t we? I mean, here’s a son rising against the father, and while Gowda Sr. quietly mumbled his discomfort at the BJP alliance, the son makes a promise to the people of a state.

Only to break it, rather unsurprisingly, a year and a half later.

If the son is the icing, big-daddy Gowda is the cherry on the cake of cunning politics. They say looks are deceptive - in his case, they’re mindboggling. He comes across as a person who would struggle to rule an acre in Kanakhpura, and he actually went on to become the Prime Minister of the Nation. But beneath that expressionless face, beyond that plain-vanilla raagi-hittu diet, there is something about the man that stands out. And it’s quite evident.

Too bad for him it’s his lust for power, an omen of which is the recent influence on the son to halt the power-transfer, which left a power-erect Yediyurrappa who had to suddenly go limp, forced to retreat as a result of what the BJP famously overtitled ‘the betrayal’.

And just like your local Bangalore rickwaala would take a shocking U-turn from under your nose without any indication, the JD(S) have come back wanting to support the BJP. It’s like divorcing a woman, and when you realise you aren’t getting any action at night, and you go back to her, ‘will you marry me?’

But even the women would have better sense. However - The Brainless Janata Party (or the BJP) - who were actually in the middle of their election campaign, agreed immediately, as if they are a powerlust-starved entity and not a party responsible for the welfare of the people.

Had Yediyurappa really gotten this hard?

The trigger for the JD(S) thrusting into reverse gear, undeniably, ought to be the actions of a certain rebel JD(S) leader who goes by the name of M P Prakash. I’ll forgive you for going ‘M P who?’ as it’s usually the Gowda household that hogs all the limelight. Prakash - himself an accomplished and respected leader - who enjoys a following even within the Kumarasamy camp, went on spawning his own thread in alliance with the Congress. Prakash also enjoys more support from a dominant Lingayat community, and the window of opportunity to go on and become the CM in a Congress alliance would’ve sent Godwa’s panic-o-meter running.

And somehow, base-Gowda has come out tops again, with the majority.

When will the leaders realise that this a promise they make to their people, and not a game of musical-chairs?

Anyway, here we are back to square one.

- - -

It is no secret that the mean-supreme Gowda’s eyes remain shut more often than not. So, it seems appropriate that while the party is led by namma Kumbhakarna, typing JD(S) on MSN Messenger yields this:

After feeling totally dejected with the movie Shoot ‘Em Up, almost decided that i wont go for any movies for a long time. The movie almost killed all my movie spirits. But my friends’ revenge against me couldnt be contained after i dragged them for the movie. They threated to make me watch all mawkish movies in the whole world as a punishment.

So when i was asked to join in for the movie Jab We Met, i couldnt say no. So a cold sweet Sunday morning, i dragged my ass out of the blanket and headed out for the theater. All i was thinking was that if everything goes wrong i will sleep in the theater, hell with the amount that i paid for the ticket. Sleep does matter!!!

WOW!!! a good movie finally, thank you lord. Thanks to my pals too. A good entertainer from Bollywood after Chak De India. There isnt a scene where you will feel bored. Well crafter. For this one i dont care if its plagiarized or not as its crafted really well.

Plot - Excellent, though i have to admit that it gave me a feeling, hey i have seen a similar movie.

Aditya, a demoralized industrialist running from all the responsibilities afraid to handle the pressure and heart broken after his girlfriend marries someone else. Aimlessly he boards a train and meet a chatter-box girl Geet, who is going to her home town and then planning to elope with her lover. She misses the train because of him and … (enough go watch the movie ).

Worth every penny you spend. The girl who was sitting behind me was almost singing the whole song “Yeh Ishq Hai“, stands as a testament to the movies entertaining capabilities.

Bollywood again proves that good films can be made.

Though not a big fan of Shahid Kapoor or Kareena, they both have done a laudable performance. The movie still carries a very high threshold for predictability excluding some of the best scenes.

Go Watch It!!!

                                                                                   

Some hotels have history etched all over them. The Imperial or the Maidens in Delhi, the Grand and the Great Eastern in Kolkata, the Cecil in Shimla for instance. Eminent personalities stayed in these places, delicate negotiations took place there and the history of many of us is shaped by papers and documents drafted in the lobbies of these grand edifices. The eminent Bengali author Sankar has woven a tale around a fictitious hotel, the Shahjahan Hotel which he portrays in his book, Chowringheei, which is as much as about the evolution of the city of Calcutta as about the decay of the hotel which is a thinly disguised veneer of a legendary Calcutta Hotel.

The book is all about Calcutta and the glitzy Shahjahan Hotel in the 50s and centers around the lives of the hotel manager Marco Polo, the receptionist, Sata Bose, the narrator Sankar himself and an Anglo-Indian private detective, Byron. Through their lives, the author sketches the lives of the expatriate community in Kolkata and their pathos, the fractured Anglo-Indian community looking for an identity and prominent society figures seeking to lead another kind of life behind the hotel façade.

Guests staying in the hotel, performers gracing the hotel for a season as also the employees have a past.  like for instance the story of Dr. Sutherland a guest working with WHO’s small pox eradication program but also looking for hi roots in a dilapidated Calcutta slum, the progeny of a pauperized English bar woman working in the Shahjahan Hotel in another era and an English patron of the Hotel who was hounded out of the class conscious society of the time but found acceptance in the local Bengali community before dying of small pox in their hut abandoned by all by the local Anglican priest and the local urchins. Similarly the lonely, strict but fair manager Marco Polo is on an unending search for his wife, a small time night club singer who made easy money in the shadow of the Second World War and then left him for an American soldier.

Connie is a glamorous cabaret dancer specially procured by the hotel to perform for its wealthier patrons and every night she puts on her mask ands dances to pleasure the assembled guests accompanied by her dwarfed brother, helplessly watching his sister being ogled and heckled. Every morning, she is the loving sister always consoling and comforting her brother because they have no choice in the act they have to put on because they come from a poor family back home and have no other skills.

If the author is sympathetic to his major characters and paints them as tragic actors caught in life’s cameo, he also has a lot to say about the so called Page 3 people of the 50s, who patronized the hotel and their dubious morals, ethics and practices. Phokla( gap toothed) Chatterjee, Mr. Pakrashi the businessman and  Mrs. Pakrashi the fork tongued wife represent the henchman, the godfather and the fork tongued society lady who entertains lovers in a hotel suite by night and runs seminars on women’s’ welfare by day.

Chowringhee, with its multi layered but very human story line and detailed narrative is to the hotel industry what Khwaja Ahmed Abbas’s Mera Naam Joker is to the circus industry and was similarly made into a into a classic movie starring the legendary actor Uttam Kumar. Chowringhee is a memorable book with characters that will stay with long after the book has been put down.

                                                                      

In one of the overseas offices of my company, where probably a maximum of 20 people work, they have two toilets to service the office. One of them is meant for the disabled even though the office has no disabled employees. The folks working there told me that apart from complying with legal requirements and all that, the office did not want to make modifications in his architecture, at some future date, should they need to hire a disabled person making him or her possibly squirm with embarrassment. They wanted their place to be open and welcoming to the disabled, whenever they might turn up, be it in the distant future.

This reminds me of the Biblical story of the prodigal son where the father is ready and welcoming long before the returning prodigal son is any where on the horizon. He is always included in every thing and in every plan, even though absent from the scene. I suppose that is the truest picture of inclusion. Though the son is still absent , though the disabled person is still not present , I still think of him or her , include him or her in my plans, designs and thinking , so that one day when they come , they can merge seamlessly into the picture because the frame has always been ready to include them.

In our attitude to the disabled and most other disadvantaged, we have been welfare driven rather than inclusion driven in our approach. Simply this  inclusion is embracing, welfare is condescending. The inclusive approach has as its paradigm that the disabled are part of us, our family, our society, our community and our hearts, plans; budgets are large enough to include them. Whether they are actually at our door step today or not, we are ready to receive them, to welcome them.

The welfare approach, on the contrary says that, that the disabled (and other disadvantaged) are among us, some how they are here and though they dont really belong and are in many ways different, we need to do some thing about them driven by partly by pity and partly by the nuisance value that they can be if we dont do some thing for them. Welfare therefore some how demeans the self worth of the person receiving it even as it tries in its own clumsy way to help. The inclusion approach on the other hand infuses dignity and self esteem because it does not see the disabled as a burden to be borne, but as a resource yet to be explored.

In India, we have a Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment which looks at issues of disability. It has done some good work. The National Policy for Persons with Disabilities has been adopted under is aegis and it addresses issues relating to social security, disability pension and education. The Government has approved the signing and ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability. The Ministry has recently released a Report to the People 2004-07  on Social Justice and Empowerment. The report was released by the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh on 22^nd May, 2007.

In the otherwise excellent report available on the Press Information Bureau Website , there is a section titled Welfare of the Differently Abled which talks about all that has been done for them. Which is in some ways is a lot. The only problem is that welfare is disempowering. Inclusion is empowering. So why is the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment administering a raft of antiquated welfare schemes like providing subsidized motorized tricycles(better done by the Rotary Clubs) instead of pioneering inclusive , embracive and integrative policies, which the government alone can draft and legislate ? Now will some one of our honorable members of Parliament please raise this question in the House?

Hello folks, today we are going to talk to Balaji Sowmyanarayanan, the person behind Tag and Monitor. Tag and Monitor is a unique paper file tracking system. I met Balaji in the Bangalore Barcamp 4 and his concept of using craft with IT, really looked extremely interesting. Here is a little talk we had about tag and monitor.

Ujj: Tell us a little about Tag and monitor, whats it all about?

Balaji: Tag & Monitor FileMon is a very simple paper file tracking system that tracks the “When, Where, and Who” of paper files in circulation. As you might know, paper files have a tendency to get lost when you actually need it. The file tracking system addresses this pain point. The most interesting aspect of this file tracking system is that its key components can be produced by craftsmen. The technology portion of it is simplified such that anyone who understands how to connect a light bulb will be able to absorb it and incorporate it in their craft.

Ujj: How does it work?

Balaji: In government office, typically an officers table will have a plastic ‘In’ and ‘Out’ tray for files. And nowadays in many officers table there is also a PC. The FileMon file tracking system consists of a electronic enabled replacement for the In/Out tray which connects to the PC. This can be considered as the equivalent of Reader mechanism.
For paper files to be tracked, the files are to be electronic enabled. This is easily accomplished by tagging the file with craft-based electronic tag shaped as a file jacket.

Continue Reading »

                                                                               

India has since independence seen largely three manifestations of terrorism; ethno linguistic, left wing terrorism and religious. Of course, there have been other movements which can be classified into one or more of these boxes – most prominently the Dravidian movement in the 60s and the Shiv Sena inspired sons of the soil movement driven originally by the fear that the States Reorganization Committee would take away, Bombay, the capital of the then composite Bombay State at the time when Gujarat was carved out. Subsequently the Shiv Sena began to be driven by the slogan – Maharashtra for the Maharashtrians and it certainly had and has a violent edge but can never though be classified as a terrorist movement. However this classification is only indicative and no water tight. For instance the terrorism in Kashmir is as much inspired in part by Islamiyat as by Kashmiriyat – the essence of what it means to be a Kashmiri – in terms of language as well as ethnicity.

If you look at the association of religion with terrorism, the two major non Indic religions – Islam and Christianity stand indicted covertly or overtly. The church has been known to be involved or known to be sympathetic depending on how you choose your words in many places in the North East where it has influence. India’s northeast is one of Asia’s up-to-the-minute trouble spots, with as many as thirty armed insurgent organizations working and making extortionist demands as well as political demands ranging from autonomy to secession. Four of the seven northeastern Indian states, Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura, witness scales of conflict that can be categorized as low-intensity wars.

The north east of India has a chequered political history. For instance, the Nags had declared their independence from British rule on the 14th of August 1947, a day before the birth of independent India. In fact in 1947, Mahatma Gandhi had told a delegation of Naga leaders, that Nagas have every right to be independent.� But after Gandhiji was assassinated, his promises die ended with him as the new Indian government decline to accept Naga hope for independence. Naga protests and resistance to the incorporation of their land into the Indian union began to steadily grow. Then in 1955 the Indian army occupied the Naga areas and martial law was declared. Violence quickly escalated.

Although the churches of Nagaland initiated some efforts at peace building which led to the signing of the Shillong accord of 1975, it is a fact that the church has often tacitly or passively sided with militants and insurgents for two reasons: 1) in many instances, the church though nominally powerful was still a distant second in commanding loyalties compared to tribal and ethnic allegiance. Christianity is only 125 years old in Nagaland and about the age in Mizoram, the two main Christian states but tribal and linguistic identities go back centuries. 2) The church tried to be a moderating influence in a spiral of terrorism which might have otherwise completely spun out of control. In Mizoram, the church was actually successful in bringing Mizo National Front Terrorists to the negotiating table and getting them to sign a Mizo accord which has largely lasted to this day. Be that it may, the history of terrorism and insurgency in the North East cannot be written without reference to the church and its involvement though the interpretation of this role will always depend on which side of the fence once is on.

Islamic terrorism in an organized fashion in India is to be found in Kashmir and the movement is relatively new though the separatist movement led by Sheikh Abdullah’s National Conference is old and is another legacy of the unfinished British business as they left. If it has received and continues to receive more attention than similar movements in the North East, it is because it became internationalized with the involvement of Pakistan and later the United Nations. But the movement in Kashmir was in its initial stages a secular movement and it was a separatist movement yes, but a terrorist movement no. it turned that way some time later ….. generally considered to be in 1989. The Pakistani Military ruler Gen. Zia Ul Huq who deposed Z.A.Bhutto in 1977 rapidly started injecting religion into the largely hitherto largely secular military and body politic. In neighboring Afghanistan, the Soviet troops began withdrawing in 1987 leaving a virtually open field for Muslim jihadists who had been fighting the Soviets thus far to be shipped across the border into Kashmir and lunch a fresh Jihadi there. In fact, the All Party Hurriyat Conference which is the public face of the Muslim Separatists was formed as late as 1993 whereas the secular Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front was founded by Amanullah Khan in 1977. but with the rise of Islamic fundamentalists globally, the older secular and nationalist forces were marginalized and sidelined.

Sikh religious insurgency is also relatively new and was inspired by a small section of the Sikhs who wanted an independent Khalistan roughly in the same time in the 80s as when Kashmir was simmering as the geo political forces operating in the neighborhood were the same. Post independence, to a large measure, Sikhs were satisfied with the division of undivided Punjab in to Sikh dominated Punjab and the Hindu dominated Himachal Pradesh and Haryana and for a long time Khalistanis were no more than a few disgruntled elements writing extremist religious slogans outside Gurudwaras walls. But with the rise of Sant Bhindaranwale in the early 80s with political support from the ruling establishment in Delhi and supply of arms from across the border in Pakistan, the dormant movement gained life. But it was a short lived movement self programmed to self destruct. Sikh history has its very roots of its evolution, the cruelty and death the Sikh Gurus experienced during Mughal rule, so much so that the present day Khalsa identity of the large majority of the Sikhs was forged in the furnace of the battlefield. Such an unholy alliance could not and did not have any thing more than the shortest of shelf lives and this lack of public support which rapidly waned along with brutal police repression broke the back of the short lived Sikh insurgency which was fuelled more by NRI dollars, arms from across the border and the huffs and puffs of unemployed youth.

The October 29^th issue of Newsweek describes Pakistan and not Iraq or Afghanistan as the mist dangerous country in the world infested with terrorists under a veneer of relative political stability. It probably had in mind among other things, the attack in Karachi just after Benazir Bhutto landed in Karachi. The authors Ron Moreau and Michael Hirsh felt that compared to neighboring Afghanistan or Iraq, things look fine, the system seems to function, there is even a semblance of democracy and there is the absence of total and complete anarchy.

The essay then goes on to dissect the origins of terrorism in the country , how in the time of General Zia ul Huq, it seemed expedient to the general to promote a brand of stern, forbidding Islam that the whisky swilling founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah would have balked at. Such a move seemed useful at the time when Afghanistan was a Soviet style client state with atheistic leanings and an appeal to religion was adrenaline to the forces battling communism and its fellow travelers.

But then of course as every on now knows, the genie released out of the bottle never ever went back in after the task was done and the Soviet backed regimes had collapsed. The Islamic fighters armed covertly or overtly or both with the Americans looking on were then deployed in Kashmir to destabilize India. And then after 9/11, yesterday’s holy warriors became today’s jihadists and as almost overnight the Americans turned against them, the tide turned. Americans and their supporters in the country, friends till the other day became overnight kafirs and infidels.

Compared to Pakistan, India’s own terrorists are home grown and not homogenous in the sense that in Pakistan, practically all terrorism is cloaked in religion though the vested interests behind them night be tribal or ethnic or even linguistic. Most of India’s terrorism concerns have a longer history and much of the insurgency witnessed in the North East today is a direct result of the messy manner in which the British dealt with their Frontiers, not quite claiming as their own territory and not quite giving them complete independence as was the case with say Nepal or Bhutan or Sikkim or even Tibet. These had their distinct political boundaries, own monarchs and traditions and customs.

But in the North East inhabited by numerous tribes each with their distinct language and culture, the British were satisfied with merely introducing an inner line permit restricting entry into the tribal areas but without the tidying up of political boundaries and the quasi independent autonomy that they any how enjoyed, independent India was left with historical debris it is still struggling to clear. The government of India’s’ insistence that all matters should be sorted out within the parameters of the Indian constitution doesn’t help either as the constitution which itself was largely based on the Government of India Act of 1935 which concerned itself with matters pertaining to mainland British India and the Princely States. When the post independence government started talking about the Indian Constitution therefore, it was analogous to saying to a tiger roaming free in the jungle that it would have to shift to a zoo but would be free to choose the shape and color of the cage. The rather unstatesman like approach has led to chronic low independence throughout the North East.

With the decline in governance in the Post Nehruvian era, other latent insurgencies began to surface. The communists had never whole heartedly supported independence from the British and were in the elusive quest of a revolution and seeking liberated territories in Andhra Pradesh and else where led by B.T.Ranadive and others. Eventually though most of the communists opted for real politic and the parliamentary path, the remnants remained and in time became the kernel of the Naxalite movement which originated in West Bengal’s Naxal Bari, was brutally suppressed and now has spread it wings to many parts of the country like an uncontrollable epidemic.

Religion based terrorism has been relatively low key in India. In its overt form, it was most visible in the Khalistan movement of the 80s and the 90s, when there was a demand for a Sikh state in a bloody campaign funded mostly by wealthy expatriate Sikhs and supporters across the border. The response of the state was the “bullet for bullet� policy of Julio Riberio and brutal suppression and Siddhartha Shankar Ray, the last Congress Chief Minister of West Bengal who had so ably crushed the Naxalites was brought in to lend his experience. Apart from this, in the numerous insurgency movements of the North East, the church is understood to be sympathetic to some but its support has been more tacit and covert than overt with prayers and alms being distributed more along ethnic and tribal lines than purely religious lines as happened in the case of Khalistan.

Oh? Hi there! Let me quickly introduce myself. I’m the new pimp in town.

And I’m also horribly incompetent. I can’t keep up with the competition out there. While journalists manage to dig up ground-breaking stories, I refine wine and serve it in a new bottle.

If you remember, a month back, a Kashmiri ‘terrorist’ - known for murdering Kashmiri pundits - was released. I sniffed for a bit. Indeed, it seemed a great story. So what I did, was promptly set up a panel of ‘experts’. I split the screen into quadrants and got them to dial in. Two of them had honest opinions, but I rarely allowed them to speak. I gave more time to the stupid diplomatic tape-recorded opinion of a bureaucrat, and once he hung up, I twisted the words, fabricated a baseless opinion and sold it on national television.

That is how powerful I am. Today, of course, I’m having a field day.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s trimmed those locks. Goodness me, isn’t that the next-big story, just a notch short of the aforementioned cricketer shaving the pubic hair (and then perhaps calling for a press conference to publicize it)? Indeed, this must be the year’s top story. So I sent out my reporters to Ranchi to cover the ‘homecoming’. I played the famous Musharaff clip about a million times, the one in which he goes ‘If you want my opinion, I think this look suits you, you look good in this’.

Then, I splash a huge headline with an orange backdrop: ‘Dhoni goes for a cool, new look’

I then send my reporters to interview the city on what they think about it. Does it affect cricket? Perhaps, sprinkle in a doctor’s report that links keratin to the bottom-hand muscle strength. Great, I’ve managed to fill in enough for today’s news.

But is that spicy enough? Nope. Too bland. Time to add a pinch of salt.

So I rope in the Deepika Padukone twist, and I make sure my reporters go ‘Dhoni’ and then ‘Deepika Padu-koni’ so that it rhymes. Creates an impact, you see? I then revert to my best technical capability - splitting the scene into two. On the left is Deepika, dressed in a to-die-for evening gown (atleast, it’s to-die-for now that I’ve mentioned it), and on the right is Dhoni pulling an offie for six.

I then ask my reporters to find out from the people of Ranchi - how would they welcome Deepika anyway? Will she fit into the household? I get public opinion, and share. Because I am all about awareness. My objective is to bring the news to the people. I want my viewers to know exactly what is going on in the nation. This is why I exist. This is what makes me sleep at night.

I am such a media pimp, making my celebrities look like publicity-grabbing whores.

I am Headlines Today.

Don’t miss tomorrow’s exclusive interview with the barber who trimmed the Dhoni locks. Live and exclusive on HT.