Bedriwal

Why should Kiran Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal have it good, when we have been subject to the cinematic antics of Brangelina and Saifina? Hence, let me present to the world the great adventures of Bedriwal: yes, it is time to watch the fireworks between Kiran Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal.

Let me take the case of Kejriwal first. I always felt that this guy was a bit doctored. I mean - look at him. He tries really hard to appear like the common man.

You will know what I mean if you take a walk in any small village of Haryana in the winter. Most of the men on the streets walk around with a shawl or a muffler draped around their head and shoulders. And if you pass by one of these Haryanvi men, they will look up at you and call out, "Ram Ram, bhai... Ram Ram."

Kejribhaiyya must have tried hard to ape their dress code to appeal to a particular section of society. His trademark cough and the muffler round his head have made him the butt of many jokes.  But the one thing he did not copy was their call of 'Ram Ram, Bhai," for fear, no doubt, of insulting the religious minorities in India, of whom we have plenty.

But there are two things about Kejriwal that will make any one with an iota of common sense see through his hypocrisy.

First - he breaks his own promises with so much aplomb and ease, that it will leave you watching his antics with a growing sense of despondency.

He promised us he would not enter politics. He did.

He promised us he would never tie up with the Congress. He did.

He promised us he was not going to become CM. He did.

He promised us he would deliver corruption-free governance. He did not.

He promised us he would listen to the common man's grievances and hold a Janata Durbar. He abandoned it.

He told us he would change Delhi if he was given one chance. He ran away after 49 days.

The second thing about Kejriwal is that he thinks dharna and protests are the only way to govern. If only life was that simple.

While watching his antics after he turned CM for a brief period, I was reminded of a little child cooking a make-believe meal in a toy kitchen. A child is not usually qualified to cook in a real kitchen nor does she have the expertise to do so. Hence, cooking a make-believe meal in a toy kitchen is the safest bet. Similarly Kejriwal was not qualifed to govern. Nor did he have the expertise to do it. But he was constantly doing drama-baazi to appear as if he was governing when he was not.

I cannot forget the big drama he enacted by going to his swearing in ceremony by the local metro. I mean - come on - the police blocked a whole train for his private use in the name of security. Did Kejribhaiyaa not have the common sense to understand that blocking a whole train instead of a simple fleet of cars for his personal use was more expensive, more troublesome and much more annoying than anything else? But no, the symbolism of going by train as a 'commoner' was more important to this drama king than any inconvenience to the common man.

Heaven help us all if this man becomes CM once again and starts his crazy drama-baazi all over.

Kiran Bedi on the other hand appears saner and simpler. She too has made many u-turns in the past year. From being a fierce critic of Modi to a worshipper of everything he does.... to mocking Kejriwal's entry into politics and then entering the fray herself, Bedi is no stranger to flip-flop tactics.

She had a string of bad luck after she was by-passed by a junior on her way to becoming Commissioner of Police in Delhi. There were good reasons for blocking her, we were told. But Bedi did the wise thing and retired early to start her other activities.

Whatever one might say about her, she is definitely a new face in the race for Delhi. She brings in a new challenge to Kejribhaiyya. Amit Shah who delivered this master stroke must be rejoicing at the outcome already. Even though some senior BJP leaders are sulking, especially those whose personal ambitions to rise in the ranks has been dealt a death blow, the Bedi brand is one of the best things ever to happen to the BJP's hopes in Delhi.

If the BJP wins - all credit goes to Amit Shah and Bedi. If the BJP fails, oh well, we tried our best, and Bedi after all is a new comer and she has lost after putting up a brave fight. Either way, the BJP wins.

Why should war be celebrated with an award for peace?

You could have knocked me down with a feather when I heard that the European Union was awarded the 2012 Noble Peace Prize.

I must have visited the offices of the European Commission and the European Union scores of times in Brussels during my years of public service in Britain, but never once had I imagined that the entire bloc of nations - boils, warts and all - would be awarded the world's most famous peace prize.

I don't have anything against the EU. I think it was a fabolous idea to bring people and economies of such diverse and war-torn nations together on a single front that hoped to transform an entire continent and make it a second shangri-la. But it has been a bag of mixed results.

The Euro has failed miserably, and it is only the egos of the German Chancellor and the French Prime Minister who refuse to see its failure that's  keeping it propped up. I still remember the days after the Euro was introduced and I would visit countries such as Italy or Spain. The people there seemed really angry. Suddenly, everything was costing double, but everyone was still being paid the same.

Anyway, my main grouse against the EU being awarded the Peace Prize is two-fold.

Alfred Noble, who has often been described as the 'merchant of death' doling out the world's most famous peace prize as he invented dyanmite, had instituted the Peace Prize to be given "to the person or society that renders the greatest service to the cause of international fraternity, in the suppression or reduction of standing armies, or in the establishment or furtherance of peace congresses."

Thus there are two problems about awarding the prize to the EU.

When Noble said he wanted to give the prize to a person or a society, he meant just that. He wanted to recognise individual contribution or organisational contribution - the word society referred to charitable and other organisations rather than to society at large. And by no stretch of imagination can the EU be called an organisation - it is at best an entire bloc of nations. One just doesn't award a prize of this magnitude to a whole bloc of countries. It sounds downright stupid. Imagine what they will do next: a prize for SAARC, another glorious one for OPEC, followed by another silly one for NATO or ASEAN.

The second reason - and this is the stronger reason - for not awarding it to the EU is that this is one of the most war-torn regions in the world. Their recent history is full of war, and not peace. The list of wars in the last 40 years in Europe have claimed millions of lives and they show no sign of easing:

1989 Romanian Revolution

1991 Ten-Day War

1991–1992 South Ossetian War of Independence

1991–1993 Georgian Civil War

1991–1995 Croatian War of Independence

1992 War of Transnistria

1992 Ossetian-Ingush conflict

1992–1993 First War in Abkhazia

1992–1995 Bosnian War

1993 Cherbourg incident

1993 Russian constitutional crisis

1994–1996 First Chechen War

1997 Unrest in Albania

1998–1999 Kosovo War

1998–present Dissident Irish Republican campaign

1998 Second War in Abkhazia

1999 Dagestan War

1999–2009 Second Chechen War

1999–2001 Insurgency in the Preševo Valley

2001 Insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia

2002 Perejil Island crisis

2004 Unrest in Kosovo

2004 Adjara crisis

2007–present Civil war in Ingushetia

2008 Unrest in Kosovo

2008 War in South Ossetia

2009–present Insurgency in the North Caucasus

2011–present Kosovo–Serbia border clashes

So here is a whole continent that is now a failed experiement in economics, has the most volatile political landscape in the world, has a list of wars and conflicts in the last 40 years that has led to the loss of millions of lives and the displacement of several more, has certainly not reduced its standing armies (one of the conditions for the Noble Peace Prize), does not seem to have leadership that can lead the region out of their current predicaments, and yet... what does the Noble Committee do? It thinks it can award the world's most famous peace prize to this region beacuse it either did not have the ability to find someone or something more deserving, or it decided to pull wool over everyon'e eyes by becoming as politically correct as anyone can get.

Too much fasting is injurious to your health

anna hazare meant a lot to me in the good old days. here is someone who cares about corruption, i thought. here is someone who is able to get the masses behind him in his fight against corruption. this looked just like what the doctor ordered.

i even went to one of his rallies in bangalore when i was visiting there, made a donation, shouted a few slogans and felt the mood of anger in the general public. and what is more, i even bought a sticker that said 'i am anna hazare' and stuck it on my suitcase.

now of course, i am having second thoughts about this whole thing.

let's start from the sticker: what does 'i am anna hazare' really mean? i am NOT anna hazare really. anna hazare is anna hazare, and all the rest of us may if we so desire, love him, hate him, follow him or trample him. but for heaven's sake how can all of us be anna hazare? something did not sound just right.

the second problem is that anna's own sidekicks don't seem all that pure-as-snow types. i mean - if u r pointing an accusing finger at someone else for corruption, you should be free from that painful malady, right? but look at what good old kiran bedi got accused of. we read that she had smudged her travel records and collected more dosh on train tickets from charities than she ought to have. come on everyone - how can one accuse others of corruption and do the dirty oneself to earn a wee bit of moolah? how often have we heard that you shouldn't throw stones if you are living in a glass house?

then there is this kejriwal chap and his income tax scandal. i couldn't understand how one can face charges form the tax authorities if one was above board and below corruption. physician heal thyself - is an old adage that is still very much valid.

but to top it all - and what i found immensely frustrating - was that anna and his camp seem to be overdoing  this fasting  thingy.

i mean one can fast for health, for austerity, for religion and even in protest, i admit. but you cannot keep threatening everyone that you will keep fasting at the drop of every murky hat in existence. people get tired after some time. you can only fast so much and you can only hold the nation to ransom with your threats of fasting so much. after some time, people stop caring whether you fast, feast, stuff your belly or go hungry. and lets all be honest - how much fun is it to keep watching an old man who has very little oratory skills, and his bunch of sidekicks all of whom look like do-gooders-gone-berserk on tv every other day? it's not even like they are doing anything new: its the same old story of 'i-am-gonna-fast-and-all-of-you-better-listen-to-me-when-i-fast' that people feel tired and weary of hearing.

now of course, and very wisely i hope, they seem to have got on to the fact that people are tired of their fasting antics. remember what anna tried to do in mumbai, and gave up fasting when no one turned up to support him? he must have learned from that experience because all they seem to be busy doing nowadays is to fast one day in between when they feel that they have not had some limelight or media attention for some time. i guess a one day fast is not that bad on the belly - even my grandmother used to do that every fortnight on the ekadashi day in the hindu calendar, but no newspapers or tv channels ever covered the dear lady's fasts.

but what really put me off anna hazare and his team of do-gooders is that they say one thing and do another. they said they would not play a part in politics, but what did they do? they went all out to get the congress in the up state elections. they promised us they would not indulge in character asssination, but they went all out to malign pranab mukherjee after his presidential election.

to me this was disgusting. mahatma gandhi rightly said that one should become the change one wants to be. anna's group does not seem to have heard gandhi right.

but what is bewildering to me is that the media have suddenly started calling them the 'civil society group'. since when have anna hazare and his movement represented the entire civil society in india? they probably have a large following in some sections of civil society - predominantly the urban middle class who are educated and fed up with corruption and have a lot of time on their hands to stand on street corners waving 'i am anna hazare' flags - but they most certainly don't represent me. and i am also a part of the civil society in india. i am sure there are many others who feel the same.

anna probably means well - i am not disputing it at all.

but he should know his limits. he should not keep people who have questionable backgrounds as his flag-bearers. he should stop treating every politician as suspect. he should not allow his people to use character assasination techniques to make a point. and most importantly - he should stop threatening everyone with a fast at the drop of a hat.

too much fasting will be injurious to his health - and the nation's.

India ahoy!

When I decided to migrate back to India, my employers in UK (Fujitsu) found me a role in their Indian headquarters in Pune.

So I shifted the entire Kallidai family from UK to India – lock, stock and barrel. Well, almost. My house still stands in Hemel Hempstead just outside London although occupied by tenants. My friends still send me regular mail and text from UK, and some even visit me in Pune.

We settled down quite well. My new job was fantastic and my wife and son enjoy the change in the lifestyle.

“Do you like the school in London or Pune,” I asked my son, Neel.

“Pune of course Daddy,” he replied emphatically. “The school here has two computer rooms and much better computers than London.”

“And what about your friends here?” I asked him, pleasantly surprised.

“I like my friends here better too,” he drawled. “I get to play with them every day.”

In UK, the weather was so dreadful most of the year that playing outdoors was unheard of, except for the occasionally clear days in the summer.

When I asked my wife how she was getting on, she smirked and said, “Well there’s nothing much to do here really! I don’t have to drop Neel to school every day – he gets a bus at his door step. I don’t have to do the washing up and the cleaning up as the maid does it every day. I don’t even have to drive as the driver takes me wherever I want. I quite enjoyed the busy routine in London.”

I helpfully offered to cancel the school bus and sack the maid. She looked at me as if I had gone quite mad, and smirked a bit more. I could see that she was getting used to the little luxuries that matter so much in India.

Even my mother and father seemed happier. “I can take a walk any time I like in my slippers and flip-flops,” my mother beamed at me. “I don’t have to be burdened by the heavy jackets and sweaters like London. India is so much better for us retired folks.”

And of course, I have now bought a house and find it even more enjoyable. In London when we moved to our new house, I had to do everything from moving things to painting, and from assembling furniture in flat-packs to fixing the new cabinets and wardrobes. In India, labour is so much more affordable. Everything is one phone call away, usually followed by helpful people who do everything for you as you watch and direct them.

But the real icing on the cake is our ‘after-dinner walk’. One hour after dinner, I usually nod at my wife and son. They immediately put on their flip-flops and we saunter out in our bermudas (and yes this is December/January) to take a quick walk. Usually these walks end in the three of us ending up at a chat house or an ice-cream parlour or a milk-shake joint, usually eating paani-puri, licking some exotic icecream, or sipping a thick-shake topped with chocolate chips. This was unimaginable in the UK.

And to think that some of my friends and colleagues actually tried to discouarage me from moving back! Whoa!!

Acclaimed Statesmanship vs Modest Censorship

Whatever happened to the Hindu quality of modesty and humility?

I keep getting press-releases from one Rajan Zed, who is apparently a leader of great stature and substantial achievement. Zed is an Indo-American leader who was invited to read historic first Hindu prayers to the Nevada Assembly and the Nevada Senate, as well as the United States Senate in Washington DC.

This seems to be one of his major claims to fame, followed by regular press-releases he issues on various subjects on Hinduism. Most of his statements are confined to the misuse and abuse of Hindu icons, offensive use of language and so on and so on and so on...

Now, there is nothing wrong in that. We do need stalwart statesmen such as Zed to keep the Hindu ball rolling (do we really, I can hear a few voices asking in the background).

One thing I do find a bit irritating about his statements is that he keeps issuing comments about what is happening in Britain. There is no doubt that he has every right to be concerned about what is happening to Hindus in any part of the world, but surely he cannot claim to understand the issues of British Hindus as well as British Hindus themselves? Yet, in utter isolation, without any reference to British Hindus themselves, he keeps issuing statement after statement about our situation here. Most of them do not even help our cause here, but simply relegate themselves to the 'uh-oh, yet-another-statement-from-the-Zed-PR-machinery' pile.

But every time he issues a statement, I cannot help chuckling in amusement and raising my eyebrows in embarrassment. That's because he always describes himself in his own press-releases as an 'acclaimed Hindu statesman'.

That brings me to my original point - whatever happened to Hindu modesty and humility?

Should one describe onself in the choicest words of praise?

Perhaps you should not read too much into this. The chap is full of energy and plays an active role in dozens of organisations fighting the Hindu corner with aplomb and ease.

But I just wish he can stop describing himself as an 'acclaimed Hindu statesman'. Publicly displaying one's high opinion of oneself is a bit cheesy and embarrassingly corny, to say the least!

Bust up in Brum

My employers are quite generous - although they make me work in Birmingham three to four days a week away from home, they put me up in a serviced apartment right in the middle of the city centre.

I mean - how much more convenient can you get? I step out of the apartment and I am right there in the heart of Birmingham's coolest streets loaded with shops, restaurants, train stations, bus stops, malls, supermarkets, cinemas and all kinds of things a person living alone wants at arm's length.

This morning however I work up with a rude shock.

At around 7.00 AM, there was screaming and shouting outside. I popped my head out of the window, and to my horror discovered a young man (Indian or Pakistani) standing outside the club opposite my apartment covered in blood. He was swaying around while two policemen held him and two other men watched.

I became aware of another group of caucasian men and women standing twenty yards away, held in check by another group of policemen. It was quite apparent that there had been a fight between the two groups and the young Indian (or Pakistani) man had taken a rap.

There was a lot of shouting and screaming going on. The two men who were standing next to the blood covered victim gesticulated rudely at the caucasian men (and women) standing further away and used the choicest of four letter words. Not to be daunted, they responded in a similar fashion, while the police tried to restrain both parties.

In the meantime, the blood covered young man swayed a bit more and sat down suddenly on the ground. A scantily clad girl detached herself from the other group and came running to the Asian group, and I could see that she was actaully crying and pleading about something.

Four policemen had actually cornered the blood-covered youngster into a doorway and he suddenly sprang up and swore at them, "I am the victim damnit... do you hear? I am the victim. And yet you w**kers are holding me from all sides while the guy who hit me is standing there looking completely free."

The Police tried to restrain him back, while he became even more hysterical.

A few minutes later an ambulance roared into the street, and the young man was escorted promptly into it.

Exactly six seconds later, he sprang out of the ambulance without his shirt and started jumping up and down while the police ran behind him.

"Why is the guy who did this to me not getting arrested then ei?" he screamed at the police. "Why are you restraining me while he is free? Why is he not in this police car on his way to the station?"

The police had their best wooden expression, which they had probably spent years perfecting before being let loose on our streets.

In a few minutes the hysterical man was bundled in, the ambulance roared away, and the police hovered on taking a few more notes from both the parties that were left behind.

They put up a police tape all round the club - probably to gather forensic evidence later.

The incident set me thinking - Britain seems to be heading towards an overdrive based on alcohol, sex and drugs. Clubs and pubs have become breeding grounds for violence and frustration, not just entertainment and music.

From what I gathered during the screaming and shouting, the violence had erupted over a girl.

There was so much frustration and anger involved.

The Bhagavad-gita, that book of timeless wisdom spoken by the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna declares:

kama esa krodha esa rajo-guna-samudbhavah
mahasano maha-papma viddhy enam iha vairinam

"It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the material modes of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring, sinful enemy of this world."

His Divine Grace A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder of ISKCON explains in his purport to this verse that when a living entity comes in contact with the material creation, his eternal love for God (Krishna) is transformed into lust, in association with the mode of passion. Or, in other words, the sense of love of God becomes transformed into lust, as milk in contact with sour tamarind is transformed into yogurt. Then again, when lust is unsatisfied, it turns into wrath; wrath is transformed into illusion, and illusion continues the material existence. Therefore, lust is the greatest enemy of the living entity, and it is lust only which induces the pure living entity to remain entangled in the material world.

The Bhagavad-gita scientifically explains how lust and anger lead to loss of intellect and utter bewilderment:

dhyayato visayan pumsah sangas tesupajayate
sangat sanjayate kamahkamat krodho 'bhijayate
krodhad bhavati sammohah sammohat smrti-vibhramah
smrti-bhramsad buddhi-nasobuddhi-nasat pranasyati

"When a man dwells in his mind on the sense objects, an attachment for them arises. Desire is born of that attachment. From desire anger is born.From anger comes delusion, from delusion springs failure of memory. From wrecked memory results the ruin of the understanding and then he perishes."

The incident in the pub arose because a few men dwelled on a sense object which awoke desires. When there were obstacles placed in the fulfilment of their desire their anger led to violence. It was all fuelled by their alcoholic indulgence and in reality this leads to the forgefulness of one's originally blissful and eternal spiritual position.

As I was about to close the window I noticed another young man standing next door. Like me, he must have been a silent witness. He suddenly looked at me and smiled as if to say, "What a fuss!"

I noticed that in the early hours of the morning, he was sipping an alcoholic drink too.

I smiled back.

Will someone do something about the British weather please?

Everything in the UK is great - except for the weather.

I mean - here we were, enjoying perfectly fine weather sunning it out in the 25 degree heat, and the next day, it pours like a thingummy-come-torrential-flood. Someone should tell the weatherman (or the weather-woman in these days of political correctness) to just make up his (or her) mind.

The worst part of the rain is my utter helplessness in mowing my lawn. If it pours for days on end, the grass starts growing faster, and in all its wet resplendence it defies the blades of my lawn-mower.

Of course, right now my lawn looks like some tropical jungle. This is because while the sun was shining I was out cycling on the canal tow-path. And now that the rain has announced itself as the main deterrent to any lawn-mowing desires I had left, I am unable to swing a blade in its direction.

When I was holidaying in India, I got used to walking around in bermudas, t-shirts and flip-flops at 9PM in January. I was just about getting used to doing that last week, and the weatherman (er - the woman?) decided to turn.

I must admit - Lord Sutch of the ex-Monster-Loony-Raving-Party had made an election promise that, if practically possible, would have made me vote for him and no one else.

He had made an attractive promise in one of his manifestos, way back in the 1990s. The Party had declared that if it was elected, it would tie a rope around Cornwall and tug the British Isles back by 20 degrees South. The idea was for us rain-harrassed and cloud-covered Brits to have the same weather as sunny Spain.

If only that was possible, Britain would be the best place one could ever wish for!

And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride....