Lady Gaga’s Tricolour Hairdo:

What constitutes insult to the National Flag?

The Indian tricolour has aattracted enough Constitutional and Legal attention in the 64 years of its history as India’s symbol of sovereignity. Flag-burning, deliberate mutilation, illegal use by non-State entities barred expressly barred, use by individuals defined as ieligible except on the Independence and Republic Days, use as Standard by entities below a prescribed level of hierarchichal authoroity, use for commercial purposes, -- all are forms of Insult to the national flag. There must be a few more atleast under the penal code which are punishable as per the gravity of the offence. BUT the point is that they are Cognizable Offences.

Four or five years ago some one went to the Supreme Court asserting the right of all citizens/nationals of India to using the flag with due seriousness and honour without discrimination between officially eligble and and ‘non-eligible’ persons and purposes except clearly anti-national/ secessionist/ deliberately mischievous and frivolous use of the tricolour. I think the Apex Court responded with favour in this case.

Yet, when Mandira Bedi appeared on television on a cricket commentary panel in a plain coloured Sari with the little emblems of the Indian tricolor printed all over it a case was filed against her for using the flag in a manner that constituted the offence of insult to the symbol of India’s sovereignity. I do not know what happened subsequently, nor am I interested in the sense of insult suffered by the ultra-sensitive patriots who took exception to Mandira Bedi’s dress sense .

But , for two days running, the print media has carried photographs of some firangee named Lady Gaga, apparently a singer/entertainer, who visited India on the ‘auspicious’ occasion of the inaugural Indian Grand Prix F1 race ,October 30, 2011. This lady sported a tall hairdo with the three colours of the Indian flag sprayed on her coiffeur to ‘symbolize’ the ‘sprit of India’. This is BIG news and worthy of media attention and celebration. Surely there will be life size posters of Lady G in this hairdo in the bedrooms of adoring urban youth who will find pleasure and pride I displaying the poster-girl.NO ONE IS ASKING LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS about the propriety of the tricolor hairdo. Doe this not constitute an insult to the Indian Flag?

Or is it that Indians are punishable but foreign nationals ‘misusing’ the tricolor have inherited the rights of the erstwhile British Empire to ride rough–shod on Indian sensitivities without inviting opprobrium?

Come, let us be clear about this. Are Mandira Bedi and other nationals of India LESSER persons than Lady Gaga ,that their use of the national flag is an offence and the Lady’s use honourable or pardonable? Indeed, does Lady Gaga define the collective deferential attitude of India to White and non-‘dark’ foreigners?

Is Lady Gaga going to be booked or be scot-free?

By keeping discreetly quiet in this case India exposes its double standards, and insults itself.

Ghaddafy: America's Painted Devil

There are different ways in which America works the world towards one goal : what my writer –friend Rani Sivasankara Sarma calls Americanism in his most recent Telugu work bearing that title.

Americanism is a way of establishing its strangle-hold of power over all countries “great and small’. If God made the countries and the peoples, He appointed America its viceroy on earth. And the viceroy has virtually supplanted God and His order in the world. Except that America is Christian in some senses, America is a post-Miltonic Satan who has succeeded in replacing God as the sole power and arbiter of justice and rule of order. And has used that power with a degree of mischief that has no rival except in American comic-books.

From a Monroe doctrine which has been tweaked several times to suit the occasion for easily two centuries; to the interference in Vietnam, Korea and Cambodia; the two Iraq wars, the execution of Saddam Hussain; the Afghan adventures from the soil of a sovereign Pakistan; the use of NATO forces to neutralize Muammar Ghaddafy of Libya some hours ago; the use of nuclear thumb-screws on India whose energy requirements for over a billion people is as genuine as any other genuine cause in the world; the use of information technology for making its own economy and marring others—from theory to practice there is a range of strategies America uses to advance its cause and its alone. If China is tough to handle, let there be some ping-pong diplomacy. If Islamic terrorism is tough to handle, give plenty of aid to Pakistan and hope that it will be used to root out terrorism. If that fails, step into a military role and ride rough-shod over their sovereignity. Meanwhile keep an irresolute India, from speaking of retaliation, leave alone attempting it.. The way forward for America is to get different countries locked in shackles of hostilities and secure its own economic and political interests. Any one who strikes an aggressive posture is an enemy and must be neutralized. Even one of Ghaddafy’s little sons was a sufficient enemy to be killed in a bombing blitz, when Ghaddafy indulged in one of his ‘aggressive’ antics, over 20 years ago.

Now that Ghaddafy is gone America will need a new enemy as an international ,political red-herring.Pakistan’s General Kayani is reported to have warned America that it would have to think ten times before going into action mode from Waziristan. Is it Kayani’s turn after Ghaddafy?

America can not be at ease without a painted devil.

Pummelling Prashant:India Violent

The ‘treatment’ of Prashant Bhushan by two youth representing some ‘sena’ or the other was violent. Times Now camera and reporter’s presence notwithstanding, the youth slapped, punched and kicked Prashant Bhushan this afternoon in his office near the Supreme Court of India. It was a brutal show and Prashant was rather shaken.Who wouldn’t be?

As years go by since the days of Gandhiji, the violence has only grown. Names of some the ‘victims’ of violence I recall are: Pratap Singh Kairon, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, MG Ramachandran, Devyani Chaubal, Jai Prakash Narayan, Lala Jagat Narayan,JS Bhindranwale, HS Longowal, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Safdar Hashmi, General AS Vaidya,Asghar Ali Engineer, Phoolan Devi,Syed Modi, Santhakumaran Sreesanth… now Prashanth Bhushan.

From the list, one can see clearly that the Degree and Kind of violence is immaterial ... Wife-beating husbands, pupil-caning teachers, gun-toting gangsters,political and ideological opponents, and indisciplined actors and sports-persons, child-beating parents, AND the victims (we play both roles, I hasten to add) all generate violence. The sum of which is so high that trying to theorize and categorize violence is a futile academic exercise. This all pervasive violence is appalling, especially in India which prides itself as the karma-bhoomi of Gandhi. Every wakeful minute of our lives is spent negotiating this monster called violence. The reasons for such violence lie within ourselves. The red-chip that Danny Denzongpa inserts in Rajnikant’s Robot is already present in us and can remain within us for all we care.

In which case, what is this great civilization, this principle of non-violence? A big ruse and a big failure. We are great at pretending to be what we are not; we are hypocrites,; we are incapable of tolerance; and before that, we are incapable of understanding. So we roll up our sleeves at the slightest opportunity.How else can we explain the Prashant Bhushan incident except as illogical, irrational, impulsive behavior? He said something which we do not like… so bunch the fists, gentlemen and sock into him… so simple you see! This whole business of police, police-stations, lawyers, courts, round-table meetings is unnecessary, as indeed useless, witness Kasab and Kalmadi. You only need to bunch your fist, look menacing, and have a god-father in the right places.It is a perfectly acceptable technique of dispute-settlement. It is a time-honoured method, you see… Pummel Prashant into submission. Others will fall in line. Flex your muscles, gentlemen while you can. In India law will take its own course and time.

Jagjit tera jawaab nahiin

Jagjit Singh was praised by the irrepressible Khushwant Singh as better looking than Dilip Kumar and better singer than Mehdi Hasan. This was in early 1970s. The comment courted controversy, like all of Khushwant’s comments were wont to.It is not possible to judge whether Khushwant was on the mark;but it is possible to say:

Jagjit, tera jawaab nahii.

A whole generation of music-lovers were brought-up on Jagjit’s Ghazals. The’d heard of Talat Mehmood; they had heard Begum Akhtar. They grew up humming Jagjit’s soulful and simple tunes and lyrics which rarely got complex. Aam aadmi’s ghazal, without any compromise on standard of music, words which fell soothingly on souls, notes and little taans which kept the musically initiated waiting for more, Chitra’s voice among other accompaniments of the excellent orchestra … this was Jagjit’s forte.

Many , many were the days when five or six of us would assemble at Nuzhath’s home, for ‘combined studies’. No one knows what happened to the studies. But we combined Jagjit’s tapes with the afternoons’ siesta ,following the lunches full of delicacies the Senior Hussains always conjured for us. Nuzhath would ask, ‘yeh sunaa, Subbu?’ and play Koyii yaad aaya, saveraey, saveraey/ Mujhhe aazmaaya, saveraey, saveraey in raaga Lalit. The guitar notes went “ ni re … ga ga ga/ / ni re … sa sa sa” in the Mandra saptak, using the delicate flexibility of komal dha drawing on a ‘pa’ which hovered somewhere in the background. Then came the taan in the Madhya saptak skimming the depth of a Mandrama ” ga ma dha ni sa re sa/ni dha re sa / ni dha re sa / ni dha re sa/ ni re ga/ ni re … ga / ni re … ga ga ga/ / ni re … sa sa sa ”. Between the tivra madhyama and the komal gaandhaara the so called stable panchama played hide-and-seek. I’d be lost. Then came the verse kati raat saari, terii maikadey mein/ Khuda yaad aaya, saveraey, saveraey. I was even more lost. What could one do except go down on ones knees and pray?!

Jagjit was not rigid about the raga. He’d experiment and touch unexpected notes, but get back to the matrix soon enough. Alongwith this ghazal, my mind recalled the Manna Dey-Rafi classic “Man ki pyaas bujhaaney aayii/ antarghaT tak pyaasii huun mai/ Tu hii Merii Prem Devataa”, and Rafi’s “Ek shahenshah ne banwaake hasiin TajMahal/Saari duniya ko mohabbat ki nishaanii dii hai”…., and for hours afterwards I’d keep humming silently in my mind, these songs and the raga Lalit.

That was also the time of ‘love and loss’. Jagjit gave me “Duniya jise kehtey hain, jaduu ka khilona hai/mil jaaye tau mittii hai, kho jaaye to Sona hai” to sing alongside Mukesh’s “Saarangaa teri yaad mein…”. In Duniya jise kehtey hai there is a particularly memorable verse: “Barsaat ka baadal tau / Diiwana hai kya jaaney/ kis raah se bachnaa hai,kis chath ko bhigona hai”. How should love know what is appropriate? Oh! God! He and Chitra squeezed out our hearts for us.

Many of us think Jagjit burst in on the scene at his best. Except for “Yeh daulat bhi ley lo… woh kaagaz ki kashti, woh barish ka paani” Jagjit never sang like he did in late 70s and early 80s. There was an occasional film song (“ Honthon se chuukar tum, mera geet amar kar doo” and “Tum itna kyuun muskuraa rahey ho”). India also got hooked on to Ghulam Ali and to a much lesser extent, Talat Aziz (“Kya milaega kisii ko kisi sey…). Pankaj Udhas and Anoop Jalota did the rounds as well.

But, Jagjit? Oh well there is much to recall. The accidents in his life made him a little melancholy as a singer, but what is music without that ‘still, sad, humanity”? The sadness of his voice, his choice of verse brought for us a karuna and laalitya like the pleasing , soft hues of a secondary rainbow.

Thank you, Nuzhath, for providing the space in which I could discover Jagjit for myself. And your parents, for the open-house, and our M.A. which provided the ‘bahaana’ of combined studies!

And Thank You Jagjit Saahib, for the gift of music you gave with passionate generosity.

Aapki aawaaz ke sahaarey hum jii laengey.

Hyderabad Halt

Hyderabad ,the sticken capital city of a critically paralyzed State, is waiting for the Delhi Durbar to infuse some life into it. The Peoples Strike has brought it to a virtual halt. It can no longer be called Andhra Pradesh without inviting the wrath of Telangana, Rayala Seema and what may be left of ‘Andhra’ Pradesh.

The locale of political activity shifts between Hyderabad and Delhi; but the heart of the State and hearts of the people are sticken and the head is contused. The witch-doctors are still watching and trying to ‘anlyze and understand’ the problem as though they are super-speciality doctors who’ll need more diagnostic inputs before taking a suitable and ‘final’ decision. By now any kind of a doctor ,with minimal knowledge of first aid should have rushed with his little bag of pills,potions, herbs and balms, for the care and the cure are necessary NOW, and are quite within the scope of abilities of anyones quackery. The paralysis is reversible as in cinema (notably Rang De Basanti in which Waheeda Rehman’s fingers twitch symbolically at the end of the movie). All that is needed is one simple mantra of understanding and solution which the Delhi apothecaries are unwilling to utter under the breath while tying the knot of a talisman.

The well-known author of some recent, significant Telugu works such as The Last Brahmin, Purana Vedam etc. was in Hyderabad for 3 days. Today when I had to help him buy a ticket back to his hometown, I tried Private bus operators, Railway Reservation Counters and finally bought a General Ticket and pushed him into a crowded bogie. The strike and the festival combined to conjure a World War II rickety bogey choked with contorted passengers hoping somehow to keep breathing till the destination came.

The pleasure of the three days of company and animated conversations and the disarming candour of the writer gove way to a sense of guilt that he was being put to so much trouble. What is the plight of the Singareni worker, the RTC driver, the MCH worker, the government clerk, the common patient at a government hospital, and the thousands of students who are hoping that the schools WILL reopen on the 10^th of October ? What about small-traders, street-vendors, daily labour? Does Delhi want to wait till a gas cylinder is sold for Rs. 2000/- and a litre of petrol for Rs. 150/-? Onoions at Rs. 60/- etc.?

The AP CM, Mr. Kiran Kumar Reddy promised Rice at Re.1/-Kg through the PDS for certain categories of Ration Card –holders. Is he joking? If the strike continues and goods transport is hit, will a rupee buy a few grains of rice?

Wake up Delhi, before everything spirals out of control. Act now.Manmohan ji, your composure is actually obscene now.