Happy Freaking New Year!

Happy Freaking New Year!

It's always the same thing this time of the year, isn't it?  Of course a New Year has to come by, and of course we must be happy that we survived the last one, but can it ever be Enlightened New Year! or Healthy New Year! or Peaceful New Year!?  After all, there is precious little we can do to be happy if we are not healthy, peaceful and/or enlightened.

It would tax our poor minds to try and be any of this.  But we can be happy, freaking happy, without any risk of mental, physical, or spiritual overheating.  It always comes down to the lowest nonsense we can be sold.  And yes, it is official, it is all about selling us something.  Happiness can be sold.  In ridiculous quantities, just like sadness, but for now I will stick with this disease called happiness that many of us would like to be addicted to.

When I see that svelte model selling me a car with a huge big smile on her face, I want to slap that bitch.  No, not the bitch that is doing the modeling for she needs the money and the uplifting experience of showing up, but the bitch that was conceived in some advertising hero's head that if there is a svelte bitch grinning at me invitingly, I am unlikely to notice the shitty engine, the lousy engineering, the extras that don't come with the base model, and the terrible service, and actually shell down a few lakhs of my hard earned money on a stupid car.  That is the insult I can do without.  Happy freaking New Year.

When I see the troupe of little shits telling me to put my AC at a certain temperature so that my cooling is "sensible", I want to boot those smiling germs out of my sight.  Again, not the pampered upper middle class urban Indian little shits, whose parents are busy shagging every rupee out of their jobs and businesses imagining modeling is some sort of career for their little shits, but the little shits that got approved by the marketing manager of this air conditioner company that believes I can be sold a fucking air conditioner by attaching this cute little bunny train of smiling satans to his stupid product.

Yeah, I'd like to be happy as much as anybody else, and most of the time, I am.  But these times are when I am distinctly disjointed to the "idea" of happiness.  I don't want any symptom of happiness to be ever present and showing itself.  It is fucking fake and I am sick of it.

I really don't want plastic air hostesses smiling at me when I enter a plane.  I have done it many times before and I'm hardly likely to refuse to fly after buying the ticket and going through that harrowing nonsense called check-in and security check, including the statutory rape carried out by the assholes with the metal detectors that have so far not managed to nab a single terrorist, but have indeed allowed many to pass through and hijack planes.  But I can put up with collective dumbness, since that damn airplane is a damn good invention if it can spare me from the piss and shit smelling railway stations and bus stops and get me very quickly to my destination.

I acknowledge I love some air hostesses.  They are just sexy enough to let me remember what to grab if the plane goes into a tumble mid air.  I'm sure God will be very happy to welcome the bastard who remembered to live in the moment, even in his last moment!  Happy Freaking New Year!

After going through the horrors of delays and bad food and terrible in-flight conditions, OR the miracles of on time departures, landings and safe exit from the plane, surely, we can be spared the electronic voice telling us we are welcome at the arrival airport, where we really want to spend the least amount of time!  I cannot understand why it takes us about an hour to fly five hundred kilometres, but it takes our bags one third of that time to get to us from the same plane we came on, to our hands.  But I am happiest in that waiting period at the baggage claim area, because there is a quiet, a calm, nobody selling us anything, and no grinning asshole there handing our bags to us!  The luggage just shows up, with minimal fuss, as the coldest, most impersonal machine keeps all nonsense out of the way.  Thank you very much, dear machine and thank God for the inventor that removed the human element from this one.  I really appreciate this not being one more fucking happy experience to soak up.

Insincerity I can handle - salesmen doing their job, being competitive - I get that.  But why the fuck do they have to sell me something based on THEIR assumption that I am not content?  This is the part that really pisses me off.  It's just hard for me to sympathize with presumptuous assholes who go to business school and "learn" that they can take it upon themselves to "sell" me something, which necessarily means an intrusion into my mind space.  Who the fuck gives these motherfuckers the permission? 

If there is any law that prevents one kind of nuisance, like taking a piss on the wall, why can't there be a law on other kinds of nuisance?  Get off a train at 5 in the morning at Chennai Central, and the TV screens attack you with loud music and dancing chicks gyrating and welcoming you to buy clothes, another bunch of whores asking you to buy spices!  They are all grinning orgasmically. and being really inviting, but at 5 AM, I could really use a peaceful walk to the exit.  End result?  This irritation is what I remember and I have remembered never to buy clothes at those shops and never to buy that brand of masala.  Happy Freaking New Year idiots!

There are a couple of very happy fat bastards on TV that I'd like to really send running into a desert, chased by hounds.  They show up on food programs, and go all over India tasting a variety of foods.  They do a very good job of showing us and teaching us how a variety of food is cooked, but how the fuck are these bastards happy with every fucking thing they eat?  I love food, too, but I don't swoon with every new dish I taste!  I just cannot buy the monkey's expression when it grins to the lens after eating something someone in a totally strange land and culture just made - every fucking time!  Even my dog takes a few seconds to totally sniff out and check out something new I may feed him.  He doesn't fall for it, so why would I, motherfucker?

Now, I can be kind and assume these fat bastards are happy they are getting a lot of food to feed their big guts, but then what about the bitches that are there at the flick of a button, selling me shit to lose weight?  They are giddy whores, grinning their asses off, working out on contraptions that resemble nothing in nature.  Some of them are even torturing others in groups, and I can tell not all of them are happy.  Physical exercise is hard, and the payoff is good health and fitness, and of course the release of endorphins, also called "happy hormones", but endorphins just make one feel stress free and relaxed.  I have had enough number of endorphin hits to know I don't feel like grinning at some unknown asshole.

I don't need a grinning Mr. Universe telling me how good this piece of equipment is.  He just has to tell me with a straight face what the benefits might be.  If I wasn't interested in fitness, would I be listening to his spiel anyway?  So what is he selling me?

How come teachers do not grin when they teach us, say, geometry?  Sex sells.  We know that.  And sex is supposed to deliver us to ... what else?  Freaking Happiness!  So, what if teachers were to turn on sexiness while explaining what happens when one line bisects another?  Are you kidding me?  A lot of people would be up in arms against this kind of teaching.  But we have no problem whoring our kids out to sell other people some shit with their cuteness?  Adults have sex to sell us shit, kids have cuteness.  What's the difference?  Both look pleased as punch!

Why would ANYBODY be happy to sell us insurance policies?  Insurance is always against bad news, like injury, death, disability, illness, and the lot of miseries is it not?  So, why are insurance agents always grinning like their policy will bring us happiness?  It might deliver us out of misery, but it sure as hell won't deliver any happiness.  And why are those little shits put in this game too, and why are they too grinning while doing this shit?  I swear, any kid that ever talks to me about insurance is going to need dental insurance.

We really should groom our children to regulate their happiness quotient.  They should bloody well not be happy all the time.  It can without a doubt affect their emotional growth if they know only giddy happiness and do not know what it means to be reflective, sad, disturbed, anxious, worried, peaceful, euphoric, light, thrilled, giving, emotionally generous, neurotic and even crazy!  There is much subtlety to be lost by prescribing happiness and by subscribing to it like the dumb assholes we are taken for.

I've had enough and more Happy New Years.  This time I hope to have something of substance.  And I wish you a wonderful, substantial New Year!

If you don't care - hey!  Happy Freaking New Year!

- BSK.

Rest in peace, you lucky rascal!

MF Hussain is dead.  He did live bloody long.  Freaking 95 years!  That's a helluva lot longer than most Indians manage.  And, he led a charmed life, doing what he wanted.

For some reason, a lot of people have expressed that he was somehow shortchanged by an intolerant India.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article2091330.ece

A nation has moral dilemmas when it has to chart a course to a new existence, accept a grave mistake, or when it reaches a cathartic moment in its history.  Has MF Hussain contributed to any significant moment of India's history?  Not one that I can remember.

Somehow nobody seems to remember that it was INDIA that produced MF Hussain, and it was INDIA that gave him the platform for him to be himself for 70 odd years.  He was our celebrated artist when he was doing horses.  Nobody understood what all the critics were neighing about, but we accepted that after Raja Ravi Varma and some other great artists that everybody can understand easily was great, here was a modern artist that perhaps normal people could not understand, but everybody had to appreciate.

We DID appreciate his shit for a long time, some out of some artistic sensibility that could tolerate the abstract, and the rest out of respect for an old man.  In India, everybody has the freedom to bullshit everybody else and sell a lot of bullshit too!  Nobody bothered Hussain for his caricatures and his lousy art.  Of course this is just an opinion.  Let us assume for a moment that he was indeed a great artist.  Clearly he is no Picasso.  He is no Van Gogh.  So he is a level below those greats?  Okay, so we still haven't produced any true great so we have this guy MF.  That's fine.  When we have no stallions or horses, a donkey can fill in for the post of Fastest Indian On Hooves!  Since India could not tolerate this great artist, why not look at how well the rest of the world was dying for his awesome talent?  So, how good is this guy?  Considering how much he could sell in an international art exhibition, pretty shit.  So, first and fucking foremost, let's accept this guy wasn't any great shit with his art.  I don't understand Mark Rothko either, but his window pane crap sells for millions.  MF Hussain's crap doesn't do even thousands.  In the world of art, he ain't shit, this MF.

All art is appreciated by those who like it.  Some can be made to like it with a lot of bullshit marketing around it.  Modern art has no measuring scale.  I can draw a long straight line and a short straight line, and it can be my interpretation of a fighter plane leaving an aircraft carrier or a male orangutan ejaculating.  I am free to do any of that, and if you like it, you can buy it.  For a long time, people did buy MF Hussain's work.  The guy made a living through his art.  Considering how good he became at this, he was more than making a living.  He was making a killing!

Again, this is purely opinion, but since it is established that he is not amongst the best in the world, we can call his work SHIT.  If a cricketer can be cursed as SHIT for not performing as part of our world champion cricket team, surely, a nobody in world standards can be cursed as SHIT.  But a lot of Indian fools bought his rubbish work and paid him a fair bit for it.  Was he grateful?  He probably was, for there is no evidence the old coot was not.

Then came his controversial crap.  For those of you who don't know what that "Shwetambari" fiasco was, he threw open an exhibition of his under this name, with absolutely nothing but plain white canvasses.  Shwetambari is a celebration of white, get it?  I think the crusty bastard had a sense of humour!  Who can't hang plain canvasses?  But it takes a conman SHIT artist like MF Hussain to pull a con like this, and give it a name!  India did tolerate this, even gave him credit for doing something artistic.

I don't have a problem with super liberal, experimental, modern, edgy, controversial artists and their creative exhibitions and expressions, if they are not trying to make money or making a living from it.  As soon as they depend on the world outside for reactions, appreciation and money, they should know that along with appreciation, they might get some brickbats.  Sometimes, the criticism may not be as simple as, "I'm not paying for that SHIT!". 

I am all for freedom too.  But even for playing loud music, which is my freedom, I suppose, there is a limit where my neighbours cannot sleep.  Now, I'm not asking my neighbours to pay for it, so they probably won't get mad at me beyond telling me to keep it down.  This is purely social contract.  It is not my intent either to get them mad at me.  I really have no business offending them. 

What people can be offended by is wide in variety.  However, a person's religion is deeply personal sometimes.  It is hard not to offend someone when you make a statement, however open to interpretation, that runs counter to all perceptions held sacred in that religion.  It's not hard to see why practising Christians could get mad if I say, "Jesus was a pedophile!".  There will be a few who would just say, "You're mad!" and move on, but if I stood in front of a Church and shout, "Jesus was a pedophile!", it is likely to get some pretty strong reactions.  I should be intelligent enough to know when the line from opinion to offense is crossed.

If an 80+ year old man, after living in India for most of it, does not know he will offend people of the Hindu faith by drawing Hindu goddesses nude, and that too with his SHIT quality of art, then he isn't just a fool, he is a distilled moron.  If he should not be jailed for offensive artistic expression leading to religious and social disharmony, he should be contained from being a lunatic causing nuisance.  So, pretty please, if this kind of moron wants to leave the country, we should be very happy to see the average IQ of our nation's residents go up in one shot.  Book the guy on the first flight out!

It was MF Hussain's choice to leave this country, only AFTER the reactions he got to his work.  If an artist is free to express whatever s/he wishes, then the reactions must have the same expressional freedom.  India allowed those reactions too, like a true democracy.  What is everyone complaining about?

And then, which country did he go to?  Did he go to a country that is known for great artistic freedom?  No!  He went to Qatar!  Not a secular country, but a Muslim country!  Is this just a coincidence?  I can understand Qatar must be happy that there is at least one Muslim in the world of contemporary art - kind of like the one cross country skier India had at the Winter Olympics.  Who cares if he is any good?  He's got our flag there!  Make some noise!  Chances are, those Qatari rascals must have perceived some value in a guy who could get all the fundamental Hindus riled up. So, pretty please, Qatar, keep this son of our horse shit and his remains.

I'm all for a guy who had his fun, lived a full life, enjoyed the blessings of the journey, and tried his best to be a good artist.  But if he got into trouble for being stupid, for being insensitive, I don't have a problem if he got dragged down to earth by a bunch of hooligans.  Someone had to do it.  Resentment doesn't wait 70 years in most cases.  India has been mighty patient.   So, enough already about not treasuring this fool.

MF Hussain was a celebrity just because he fulfilled to some extent India's home grown pseudo liberal farts' need for someone to throw hurrahs at.  Most of them wouldn't recognize art from a horse's ass.  Except maybe, that of one of the horses MF did.

- BSK.

Osama, friend of India!

It is official now.  News is out that Osama Bin Laden has been killed by US forces acting on their own inside Pakistan.

Nearly ten years, billions of dollars spent, 600,000 Iraqi lives lost, thousands of Afghani lives lost, all because the USA chose to attack the wrong country, refused to listen to India when India offered its frontline air bases, naval support and fuel to take out terrorist camps in Pakistan AND Afghanistan.  The USA thought India was just needling its neighbour, and indeed supplied Pakistan with plenty of arms and ammunition to ostensibly fight the terrorist networks Pakistan had set up, supported, armed and colluded with over the years!

As it turns out, Pakistan turned all its weapons against India, the ISI sponsored terrorist attacks on Indian soil, and built Osama Bin Laden his own luxurious compound with twenty foot walls and barbed wire and all sorts of comforts inside, no doubt!  Any surprise this place Abottabad is close to the Pakistani Military Academy?

A billionaire can take refuge anywhere, but a billionaire terrorist can find refuge with all luxuries only in this rotten piece of garbage called Pakistan, WITH the active support of the government there.  The USA had been hoodwinked a long time ago, and India said as much.  But for a long time, because this idea was too complicated for the cowboys and Bible belt voters to come to grips with, the USA continued to ignore India and continued to supply its enemy!

Now, an educated half black president comes to power in the White House, totally understands what India has been saying all along, and it doesn't take much to take out that six foot five langur called Osama Bin Laden.  He was always in Pakistan!  Where else could he be?

But unwittingly, this Koran thumping prick and his supporters in the Muslim world have supported India!  Whatever India had said about Pakistan all along, about it being the epicentre of terror has come true!  Well, not exactly "come" true, but proven true.  Without further ado, the USA should finish the job, and take out all the terrorist camps there, and kill anyone who doesn't look too agreeable to "one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century".  Can the USA do that?  Yes.  Will it do that?  Probably not.

Without 9/11, the USA would never have thought of international Islamic terrorism as anything serious.  It could not give a shit about 60,000 Indians losing their lives, could it?  Of course not.  That is chump change for a country that can inflict a lot more in just weeks in some unknown country without even putting its troops on the ground.  Without 9/11, the USA would never have woken up to the reality of international terror networks.  So, thank you OBL!

There is plenty of mistrust between Pakistan and the USA at the moment.  This is great for India's PR, because this is the time for us to be smug and grin from ear to ass as our cunning neighbours come under scrutiny, under heat for  harbouring terrorists like Osama Bin Laden.  We have been saved very complicated and expensive efforts, by Osama Bin Laden choosing Pakistan as his haven.  We just have to point, and the Americans will be ready to bomb!  Told ya so!

Now, finally, the USA will begin to trust India, well, actually, begin to hear India, when we tell them where the Mumbai attack perpetrators are hiding and training, and how one of their drones can kindly kill some more terrorist pigs who might, shit, bomb New York next!  Thank God for another stupid Pakistani called Shahzad trying to do exactly that.  Shit!  These damn Indians are right!  Go, USA, go!

India should build a monument for Osama Bin Laden, right in the middle of a pig sty.  Our greatest friend, in the middle of the friends he most belongs with.  OBL, may your soul rot or rest in peace, as your God pleases, but we're sure glad your soul has been released from that lanky body of yours.  After all, the Americans are bloodthirsty and just want the gratification of seeing your dead body.  They do not want to see a change in ideology, a change in the way the Muslim world views them or other such "infidels", for all that is far too complicated.  For now, all they want is a dead body, and all the "woo hoo"s and "U S A, U S A!" chants that ring out on the streets of the USA is just that bloodthirst quenching itself a little bit.

Chanakya was right.  Our enemy's enemy is a friend!  In this case, our enemy's friend is our friend, because another friend was too stupid to see it early enough, and is currently stupid enough to fight our enemy and his friends FOR us!

OBL, we Indians thank you, for getting the USA to do our dirty work.  That is all they are fit for these days.

But are they paranoid enough to continue doing this "good" work?  It all depends on Al Qaeda and how they can keep the USA on their toes.  Or else, the American public have very short memories and they will be too happy to forget about their "largest democracy in the world" friend who warned them a long time ago, and simply pull out, all in the country's interest of course.  How many military campaigns can the USA sustain, now that OBL is dead?  Congress will ask this question, and Pakistan will be left to continue its nefarious activities again, with a strict warning of course before the last US soldier leaves Pakistan.

Indeed, the USA will be miffed about India choosing the Eurofighter and Rafale for its massive Air Force purchases, and ignoring all US products.  Pakistan will be too happy to buy America's wares to keep big brother happy.  The USA will see it is in its interest to supply Pakistan with all the military hardware it wants to buy, citing India's purchase order that is indeed, distinctly non American.

This shit will continue, as long as the USA continues to slant its foreign policy based not on ideology but on opportunity.  Osama, we thank you for making this clear.  In choosing your place of death, you have unwittingly made this pretty awkward for the Americans, but they're too shameless to get it.

Now, get lost!

- BSK.

The Royal Wedding Bash.

What's so great about two people getting married?

What's so great about two people getting married that attracts the attention of a lot of people?  The pomp?  The kissing style?  The media attention?

What the heck is a duke?  And how does one become a duchess by getting married to the duke who also doesn't have any power over any territory?  What is the bridegroom the duke of?  Nothing.  What is that old hag the queen of?  Nothing.  And what are all the fools, the bridegroom's relatives princes and kings of?  Absolutely nothing.  The UK (God knows why the fuck it is still called a kingdom when the king NEVER had any power!) is a democratic country with elections and haggling and corruption and issues, much like most democracies are.  So why they even keep the queen and her stupid, underachieving, royal family is beyond me.  Maybe that is all that is left of their glorious past? 

Their glorious past by the way primarily involves invading other countries, colonizing people, raping their wealth and carrying it home, while creating an atmosphere of progress and change that confused the hell out of other civilizations for long.  It wasn't built on military might, since there was no military might to talk about.  It was built on deceit, on pitting one against the other, playing wicked games of politics and power, and all their ships were not called the UK's ships, they were called Her Majesty's ships!  In other words, all the raping, looting and pillaging went on in HER name!  So, why the fuck are we even celebrating anything that goes on in that thieving family's life?

The UK has not, ever before, since the heady days of the British Empire, or recently, contributed anything to the world in terms of inventions, service to mankind, or anything else worthy of mention.  It is a conniving little shit nation ready to tag along with the US on any misadventure those clowns in the West can conjure up.  The educational institutions of the UK are great, got to give them that.  But what does it serve?  No research has taken place there any time in the last one hundred years that has yielded any wisdom to change anybody's life.

This clown who calls himself the Prince of Wales is the "prince" of a piece of land that is as big as 20,777 square kilometres - roughly one sixth the size of Tamilnadu.  And he doesn't have any power over that tiny piece of land either.  So, why the fuck does he even show up in the news?  ANSWER - That is ALL he does!  Show up and look good!  Charlie boy never had any power, not even over the woman he married and later arranged killed.  Sure enough, this is just an allegation, but what rotten history even with such a lovely Diana involved!  Then, he marries his "long term" friend, who I'm sure played no role in Charlie breaking up with Diana.  Sordid enough?  Not really, and actually fun when you think about an Arab banging the crown princess who is still unhappily married to the clown who thinks he owns that piece of land one sixth the size of Tamilnadu!  May those two murdered lovers rest in peace.

The real story is in how, after so many years since relinquishing all "royal" power, they are still being paid so much attention.  ANSWER - it is ALL the culture the UK ever had!  Their literature was great, but their art sucked when compared to the French.  Their food was abominable, which is why they needed Indian spices in the first place.  Their technology was no big shakes and the rest of the world didn't need any of it the last century.  Their market wasn't big enough for the rest of the world to want to sell anything to them.  Their sports teams aren't dominant in any discipline, their movies cannot compete with American and Indian produce, and nobody ever sees any product "Made in the UK" anymore.  But they still have the fucking flag and their stupid palaces and the dumb royal family!

After all these years, we have another descendant of this useless clan marry a none too flashy girl, who he's been in love with for a while.  So, girl marries boy.  Great.  Anything beyond that?  For the media to attach words like "romance" to an ordinary affair is already a fair stretch.  For the world to be expected to wait for this stupid event like it is a spectacle of their lifetimes is a holler and a hoot.  Who gives a fuck?

Here's the reason we're being asked to give a fuck - White countries, namely the USA, UK and Australia (because of Rupert Murdoch alone), control the popular English language media around the world.  There is very little "white" audience specific programming that is sustainable any more.  This royal wedding is one of the last bastions of events that silly white people still control.  The Olympics have moved on to China in a rank of importance, cricket is owned by India, and in terms of sheer strategic interest - almost all the oil of the world is in the hands of Arabs and non-western powers.  So, how else can the white race still stand up to be counted?  By SHOWING UP!  They are very good at that and they will show up.

It is the same white mentality that never bothered to even nominate Mahatma Gandhi for a Nobel Peace Prize, (while this half white Obama gets it just before agreeing to bomb Libya), and Hitler was Time Magazine's "Man of the Year"!  I am sure thankful Gandhi is not in such lousy company.

The biggest crown joke - the new couple is busy asking the media to give them some "privacy"!  Shit, whoever thought they were public?  They happen to be from a family that knows how to stay in the news.  They are all pompous "used to be"s.  Nothing else.  Let's spare the children, for they probably have some sense, but let's not forget the atrocities of their elders who had their chance to ruin the world and took it eagerly, before being thwarted.  Let's make sure no other "family" gets such notions again.

By the way, isn't there anything going on in the UK that is worth reporting?  Like any of Nehru's legacies coming down the line in the Mountbatten family, perhaps?

- BSK.

Do we really support the Lokpal Bill?

Anna Hazare has made some great noises and started a great process.  The government has buckled under the pressure to offer us the passage of the Lokpal Bill, which, when it comes into law, will allow us to prosecute the corrupt, rather quickly, and effectively, depending upon the final draft that comes into force.

This doesn't mean we will suddenly see corruption go away.  It means, if we want, we can prosecute without the usual hindrances.  It will still take considerable effort to use the Lokpal to put away corrupt individuals.

The urban middle class of India is the most politically inactive but fashionably righteousness conscious demographic of this country.  It is a mindset, indeed, and we are mad about a lot of things, but unwilling to unleash that anger on anything that will get something done.

So, how about including a small clause in the Lokpal bill that makes it a crime to notice a crime and not report it?  After all, corruption, as we call it is a bloody crime.  It is thievery, blackmail, denial of rights to people coming through the fair competition route, and anti-national to the core.  So, let's bring in a healthy dose of the words "crime" and "criminal" into this revolution!  In other words, if you pay a bribe, you're a bloody criminal as much as the pig who takes bribe - for whatever reason!

Unless we, the people of India are under threat of being prosecuted for a criminal offence, we will not report crime like we should.  So, how about making this Lokpal Bill include us and our brothers and sisters across the expanse of this nation of India not just responsible but actually culpable to the crime of corruption?  Should it not be our duty to report crime?  How about enforcing this duty as well?

Blackmail is a crime, and bribery more often than not, is blackmail, when demanded for a legal procedure.  If the procedure is illegal - well, that is already a crime, isn't it?  We seem to treat corruption as some kind of common cold, while murder, rape and other more spectacular deeds are more like heart attacks!  This must change.  If it is illegal, it is a crime against the nation's rightful progress, and a bloody crime against the nation.

Why do we suddenly want more laws?  The Lokpal Bill is just another law coming into effect, isn't it?  We already have plenty of mechanisms that we have eroded, ignored, or abused, like the Vigilance Commission.  Why is the Lokpal going to be any different?  Legislation is not going to solve any problem we face in India.  Enforcement can.  We are not good at this.  The first step to enforcing any law or prevent the escape of those breaking the law is reporting.  We need at the very minimum, a robust reporting mechanism, that should not be reserved for spectacular crimes.

Can we please let the Lokpal drafting committee know that it should be legally incumbent and binding upon the citizenry to report crime?  After all we are, by virtue of half the members of this committee being from civil society, absolutely responsible for making it work, whether the government does its part or not!  Also, when the government would love to prosecute its citizens for not reporting, it would have to acknowledge the crime as having taken place, and will have to prosecute the other side as well!  What a beautifully binding marriage this!

The most spectacular crime, by the sheer scale of practice, that most Indians participate in, is apathy.  If we support the Lokpal Bill's passage, we should have no problem accepting an anti-apathy clause as well.  What do you say, flag wavers?  Ready to do some real work?

- BSK.

IBM, pills and lies.

IBM claims in its advertisement that spurious medicines, which are about 10% of the medicines being sold out there, affect a billion people.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVEPdV_warU  Their tracking technology (which really is a bunch of bar codes and software not that different from what courier companies use) is supposed to solve this problem.

I'm really not that sure this is truthful communication.  First of all, if 10% of the medicines sold worldwide are spurious, and that affects 1 billion people out of the total of the earth's human population of 6.2 billion people, then who is eating the other 90%?  There simply aren't 10 billion people on this planet!

If this is a simplistic reasoning of an advanced, more complex truth, then please let's wager on some complications ourselves!  Let's assume for a moment that this one billion people eat all the medicines in the world.  So, they're the people who are getting the spurious 10% as well.  Sure enough they'd be affected.

IBM's claim of building "a smarter planet" should not be this dumb really - if there are 1 billion sick people, that in itself is a cause for worry, but for a technology company, this is "opportunity".  In other words, they do not want a smarter planet where we would know how to stay healthy and stop eating medicines.  Because if the pharma industry shuts down, IBM would lose business - exactly because of this "smarter planet" they set out to build!

North America consumes nearly half of the world's medicines. That is 330 million people in the USA+111 million folks in Mexico and 30 million in Canada = a sum total of 471 million people or roughly 13% of the world's population.  13% of the world's population is consuming about 46% of the world's medicines?  Clearly the problem is huge!  IBM is a North American company, trying to build "a smarter planet" which is suddenly beginning to look a whole lot dumber now, doesn't it?

Now, let's look at this claim of the one billion people affected by spurious medicines.  If 10% of all medicine sold worldwide is spurious, then 47 million in North America would be affected.  So, where are the other 953 million affected consumers?  Come on!  We all want to be part of this "smarter planet" IBM wants to build, so let's buckle up and do something very risky - thinking.

While we're at it, let's consider the pharma industry - the most corrupt, untruthful, unethical and crooked industry in the world, competing only with the arms industry in many ways.  If most medicines have profit margins between 40%-100% and some go upto 300%, we know this is not an industry here to do any "service" to humanity.  So, why would spurious drugs not invade this space?  If any product is overpriced, cheaper alternatives will come!  It is the way of the free market!

Since the advertisement claims to affect people in India - let's take a look at how easy it is to buy medicines of any sort in India.  Just ask and you will get it, no problem.  If it is spurious, the spurious manufacturer is not only in cahoots with the doctors that prescribe what they sell, they are also in cahoots with the pharmaceutical distributors and shops all over the place.  Think they give a shit about some barcode in the ass of the bottle?  I think not.  Before you start thinking this cannot happen in other parts of the world...

The Food And Drug Administration of the USA is one of the shadiest organizations in the world.  So shady and so adamant, that it refuses to acknowledge that substances other than drugs can also cure people from diseases.  The FDA does not allow anything other than a drug to be sold as a potential cure for any illness.  Homeopathy is not even considered a science in the USA.  Forget about Ayurveda and Naturopathy and a host of other healing methods.  The FDA approves all drugs for sale, and today it takes US$200 million for all clinical trials and formalities for a new drug to be approved.  The company producing it must produce this money as well.

In other words, no company has any incentive to produce any cure that it cannot recover a minimum of US$200 million from.  It is a convenient relationship, and you can bet your bottom dollar, FDA officials are being nicely oiled by pharma companies.  There is just no way corruption cannot exist in such a sweetly inviting environment.  In fact, who can afford to do research costing millions and not having a drug approved?

If the North Americans weren't such big consumers of drugs, it wouldn't have any sense to have such a big drug industry either!  The Europeans are not much behind, but that is their choice.  It wouldn't cost Obama so much effort to keep healthcare in priority, and it would sure as hell keep the USA a lot more productive if people didn't buy into this crap idea that eating medicines can keep them healthy.  It simply cannot!

And IBM wants to tell us proudly that they are part of this dumb thought process?

Think about the wastage caused by unhealthy habits that lead to illness and sickness and the fattening of the legendary pharma industry.  Making medicines, packing medicines, tracking medicines, storing medicines, shipping medicines, selling medicines - none of this shit needs to happen if we know how to stay healthy.  THAT would be the smarter planet.  Not this dumb IBM slavery shit.

For those of you who still doubt IBM's ugliness in its very existence - consider this - IBM was responsible for the speed and efficiency of Hitler's holocaust.  IBM managed to collect and make efficient the flow of data that the third Reich needed to single out and persecute jews with great speed.  IBM did that as a service to Hitler - for profit.  You would like to read more?  http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com

- BSK.

Kill the bloody losers!

A billion of us drooled over the Oscars last year and didn't give a shit this time.

Slumdog Millionaire came and went.  It also dropped a few Oscars on Indians.  Resul Pookkutty and Rahman brought something to India that had been brought before, but with much more fanfare this time.  Nobody remembered that Bhanu Athaiya won the Oscar years earlier for her work in Gandhi.  The young media junkies ran amok with Rahman winning not one but two Oscars.

But that was all last year.  By the time the Oscars came around this year, Slumdog Millionaire was an official dud at the box office in India, did nothing to inspire anyone, and didn't even leave enough of a buzz for the same director's next film, "127 Hours" to stay longer than a week in the theatres here.

Nobody cared to watch it for Danny Boyle or for A R Rahman who scored for his English master once again.  Nobody even noticed the film came and went.

Moreover, what kind of moron would watch the Oscars when India is playing a match in the cricket world cup, especially on home turf?  The hype of last year to recruit one billion Indians to the Oscar show viewership was palpable.  The lack of it was curious this year.  Nobody wins against cricket in India.  And judging by yesterdays' game, nobody wins against India either!

But today, The Hindu reported that AR Rahman failed to win an Oscar.  http://www.thehindu.com/arts/cinema/article1497148.ece    "Failed"? Yes, according to the Press Trust Of India, this is lost ground!  It is competition, it is "losing" and "winning", and it is another notch on the great Indian achievement pole when one of us brown skinned guys gets something from some white skinned judge.  The bloody Oscar is a target.  And Rahman missed it.

In fact, The PTI on The Hindu thinks Rahman returned "empty handed", just like Danny Boyle's movie "127 Hours", despite having a handful of nominations.  So that is what we are without actually winning - empty handed.  We're impoverished, useless.  This is bad, bad, bad.

While all this is going on, this whole Oscar business is such a ho-hum for India, that it has even less buzz than one of our lasses strutting her butt trying to win Miss World.  This is all in the "been there and done that" territory for new age India.  No longer that interesting.  But we recognize the "decline" if one of our dogs on any course doesn't come absolutely Number Fucking One!

Even though we were not watching the Oscar show, we had to check on our investment.  We've called Rahman the "Mozart of Madras", even though his Oscar winning song from Slumdog was composed for a Hindi movie and thrown out by the producer of that film!  As long as whitey is willing to clap, we are willing to encourage one of us to get more claps!  That's all we care about.  Our phallic feeling of "India rising".

We Indians are grooming all our children to get to thousands of targets.  We don't give a shit about them being artists, or statesmen and stateswomen, or even being human anymore.  We just want them to fucking win.  Or else they might return "empty handed" like all the other useless nominees.  Please fucking watch out for our monsters going on the rampage.

The cricket world cup is a much bigger prize than a stupid Oscar, and our boys on the cricket field win a whole lot more internationally than our clowns in cinema.  So, why would we even give a shit about anything except cricket?  Because there is so much shit to be WON!  Because there is so much to gloat over.  Not because we love the arts, or sport, or true human merit.  But because we want to trample over everything and fucking get shit. 

Now, do you get it?

- BSK.

Not good enough, Jim Carrey!

Even being an Indian, living in independent India, I have never agreed with Mahatma Gandhi's principles.  It is one thing to be non-violent, quite another to be inactive, and I am beginning to know the difference, but for some reason, in the perception of India and its values and beliefs, the line between the two begins to blur.

Even for someone not vested in the either the nation state concept or the concept of religion, it is sometimes irritating.

An actor by the name of Jim Carrey has angered a lot of Hindus by his portrayal of Lord Ganesh in a sexual act on NBC's Saturday Night Live.  http://www.indianexpress.com/news/hindus-upset-with-jim-carrey-nbc-for-mocking-lord-ganesh/738479/

Apparently, NBC is a fairly popular and wide television network, reaching a sizable audience.  Whether this means it is a responsible broadcaster, I do not know.  However, it would seem incumbent upon any large corporation to take some care before broadcasting any content that is clearly not in good taste.

Lord Ganesh, the revered elephant God, is invoked by his believers, at all auspicious occasions, whether it is a festival, or the opening of a school.  He is loved by children, worshipped by billions, and is a lot more than a deity with the head of an elephant.  He is wisdom, he is patience, he is the remover of obstacles, and an adored non-controversial, ever present, celebrated child in every altar he finds a place in.

To a huge number of people all over the world - Ganesh brings peace and calm.  He is adorable and beautiful.  And he is the child of Shiva and Parvati, no less.  So, this is no vagabond sculpture that started a cult following either!  And Ganesh isn't going to lose his immense calmness because some fool tried to mock him.  He won't mind that.  But he will be disappointed that so little of his wisdom percolated down to an actor who took it upon him to impersonate him!

NBC does not need to know any of this.  Nor does this fellow Jim Carrey.  But what they should know in these tough economic times, is to not piss off a billion plus people.  There is going to be no fatwa.  No Hindu is going to make up his mind to kill Jim Carrey, but what will happen is this - Indian film distributors will come to know that this guy Jim Carrey is not good news.  A couple of Hindu organizations will call the Distributors Council and tell them they won't allow this idiot's films to be released anywhere in India.  So, they won't buy any of his films.  Let Hollywood decide if Carrey's market value goes up or down because of this achievement.

It is not as if India is dying without Hollywood product.  Hollywood films collect less than 5% of India's box office revenues.  But it is a billion plus market.  Ask the accounts department if that can be ignored.

Nobody in NBC may lose a job over this incident.  Hollywood may not really care if a Jim Carrey movie tanks at the box office.  The industry should however, really think about what Jittu Krishnamurthy, whom actress Janeane Garofalo has read a lot of, said - "In lieu of creativity, there is sexuality".

>>In a skit on NBC’s SNL (January eight) titled “The Wrath of Ganesh”, Jim Carrey (as erotic shaman Lee Licious) and Kenan Thomson (as Grady Wilson) demonstrate a sexual technique, mocking Lord Ganesh and his trunk in the process. Grady has traveled the world to find new sexual techniques to spice up the bedroom, the tagline of the episode (1587) “Grady Wilson's Tantric N'Tasty” says. <<

What?  You Americans mastered the Kamasutra in just 200 years?  Now you want new challenges?  Maybe the elephant is closer to your body shape these days that the Kamasutra is no longer a practical guide?

It was not that long ago that Hillary Clinton said of Mahatma Gandhi - "He ran a gas station down in St. Louis.".  No matter how she corrected herself, after a few morons in St. Louis thought it was funny, it shows some kind of residual stupidity in even grown up Americans.  If she had said Ahmedinajad's dad was a barber in Kansas City, the Muslim world would have issued a fatwa and she would have invited all sorts of condemnation, not for being a moron with a poor sense of humour, but for putting American lives at risk!

The USA almost has the patent on irreverence.  Reverence itself may be overrated, but many beautiful things come out of it.  One of them might be a unified Asian currency.  I can't wait for that to be unleashed upon the world, and I can't wait for oil to be pegged against it, instead of the US Dollar or the Euro.  The biggest consumer rules, doesn't he?

Dear "Americans", your idiots can mock other countries, religions, cultures, icons, and things they don't understand all they want, but for all the trumpet blowing about even your greatest achievement, democracy, think about this - At the end of the last parliamentary elections in India, an Italian Roman Catholic Christian lady headed the winning coalition, and she nominated a Sikh Prime Minister who took his oath before a Muslim president, in a country that is 83% Hindu.

Really, USA, you need to get over your puberty some time.  The world is fast losing its patience.  Your place in it is no longer a matter of what you can get away with.  It is clearly a challenge now, of what you can come up with.

Since some of you are probably so curious about this sort of thing -



Why watch Jim Carrey?