Iran Goes For The Jugular

The messages emanating from Iran is ominous.

In a strategic manoeuvre Iran has started to get its hold on the Strait of Hormuz. This has send alarm bells in the Western world and the Gulf region.

During its current naval exercise in the strait Iran has has fired Qader, a surface-to-air missile designed to avoid radars. This is clearly cocking a snook at the United States which has warned it against blocking the waterway.

The strait is a narrow strip of waterway from which 80% of Gulf region's oil transported to the outside world. The strait is the life-line of Iran's economy as much of its oil exports pass through it. Also other OPEC nations seabound oil traffic depends on it.

Already Iran is under sanctions from the US. By choking the strait it will invite sanctions from the European Union as well.

However, ambitions of Iran is on boil. And muscle-flexing is part of its gambit to mark its presence as a dominant regional power. The Saudi Arabia-Iran conflict for the crown of middle east Muslim leadership is a long-simmering broil. The latest addition to this mish mash is the Iranian testing of domestically made nuclear fuel rod.

This nuclear rite-de-passage of Iran has made the United States sit up and spit-and-polish its warwares.

The undercurrent of all this bluff and buster by both the parties is that the oil trading is under jeopardy and any war, embargo or tightening of the strait sluice can play havoc with the fragile economy of the West and that of Iran.

Iran knows this well, and is using this threat of bullet to the economic underbelly of the West, as an ace-up-its sleeve to further its regional interests.

Mahabharat on Bhagwat Gita

The Gita has been recently the very centre of a new-age Mahabharat, fought in the distant land of Russia. An appeal had sought to ban the holy text on the premise that it enshrines a militant ideology. Though the appeal has been set aside by the Russian court, the issue has highlighted the enigma that is Gita.

Like all other religious texts, the Bhagwat Gita is allegorical and lends itself to dual interpretation.

On one level it is a very mundane historical drama which graphs the interplay of the righteous Pandavas and the devious Kauravas. Read from this reference point the exhortation of Lord Krishna to Arjun to take up arms against his very own kinsmen to gain back lost land and prestige is seen as realpolitik at its very worst. Or sheer wordly-wisdom of life's battlefield.

Dharma or duty inherent in life-circumstance of a person is what Krishna holds as the supreme arbiter of morality. Hence a soldier has to fight and kill if enemy attacks his motherland. Right has to be acquired with might, if need be.

It is such a world-view which leaves Gita open to charges of extremism. A world-view which justifies violence as a means to fulfill one's dharma.

But Gita is an esoteric text. It is esstentially a handbook of self-realization. The characters of Mahabharat are both at once, historical and allegorical.

Sudied from this point of view, Gita depicts the eternal battle between the good and the evil tendencies which goes on within each one of us.

If Kauravas symbolically represent our innumerable evil habits and tendencies then Pandavs are symbols of our few good and strong 'samsakaras.'

When Krishna tells Arjun to take up arms against the enemy and kill it, it refers to the 'fight-to-finish' battle which each person must undertake in his journey to self-realization, or mere better life.

This dual philosophy is what makes Bhagwat Gita an enigma. A text which is open to multifarious interpretation. The Gita has been variously positioned as a religious ritual text, as a handbook of vedantic philosophy, as a textbook of devotion, as a manual of yoga, as a book of modern management, among other things.

Now it has been anointed as a textbook of extremist philosophy. Not bad for a 5000 year old manuscript.

Pakistani Subcontinental Broadway Show

Pakistan Premier Gilani has gone where no Pakistani prime minister has gone before. He has vocalized his concern about the belligerence of the Army and the ISI. Few days earlier Gilani has voiced his concern about the insubordination of these two Domestic Mavericks; their lack
of accountability to the Pakistani Parliament. He was concerened about a coup by the Army.

This is not something new. The specter of a military coup has haunted the subconscious
of successive elected Pakistani premier. Even President Asif Ali Zardari was allegedly haunted by the banshee of an imminent coup. Hence an impassioned plea to the US for intervention in the
post-Laden domestic scenario.
Or that’s what the Memogate purportedly brings to the fore.

The octopus-like grip which the Army has on the state of the nation is a reality
which every government in Pakistan has to live with. It has existed prior to
Gilani. It will exist well after him. So why the hue and cry now??

The reason may well lie with realpolitik pressures from the United States and the world at large. Post-Laden pressure has been building on Pakistan to prove its ‘honest credentials’ vis-à-vis state sponsored terrorism.

The Pakistani ruling elite has been ill-placed between an increasingly aggressive US and a very defensive and sentimental domestic populace. Situation is such that there is almost a cold-war between the two countries and diplomacy is operating inconclusively from such sub-zero milieu.

Before the two nations ‘came to blows,’ so to speak, or attracted punitive sanctions and put into utterly defensive and submissive postion, it was imperative that Pakistan acted.

Hence the masterstroke by Premier Gilani. By condemning the belligerence and insubordination of the Army and the ISI it has washed its hand off any and all misdeeds of the army.

So sanctuary to Laden, sanctuary to Al Qaida and other terror misdeeds springing from a deviant army/ISI has been shrugged off by the Prime Minister as nefarious activities of the Dread Duo… which is not reporting to the elected power elite anyway.

It now remains to be seen how United States takes up this gambit to normalize relationship with one of its most important ally in the region. Pakistan has done its part to give the dialogue cue to
America to act its next scene in the ensuing subcontinental Broadway show.

Reality Shows on Indian Television.

Hoopla of Formula One

Formula One has taken the country by storm. No one wants to remain untouched by the glitz and glamour of the game. In India, a large chunk of sports following is by the glamour quotient of the game. Cricket and Tennis has made totally ignorant people ardent devotees and and sports gurus.

The `me too' factor seems to be working for Formula One too. The organizers know this well.
Thus Lady Gaga and Heavy Metal Bands are thrown in good measure to give hype to hysteria.
The venue of the sport is Greater Noida. The target audience is the yuppie. And the aim is to sell high-priced tickets by the hundreds to swell the racing coffer.

Business stories are tagged almost congentially to the racing sport India entry. Projections of earnings of Rs. 10, 000 crore per year to Rs. 90,000 crore in the coming years are getting spalshed in the media. No stone is left unturned to make the sport a mass hysteria. Buntings, hoardings, events, press conferences, celebrities.....In the coming time India is all set to get brain-washed into sports car racing mania.

Slumland-scams In Mumbai

There is no denying the fact that the slums of Mumbai are a goldmine in itself. Builders, politicians and the residents are always quick to realize this. Large-scale fraudery to gobble up slums to mint money by redevolopment is quite rampant. Builder-politician-underworld nexus profits hugely through such corrupt practices.


The recent issue of The Week (August 28, 2011 ) has its cover story on one such land scam. The Golibar Slum Redevelopment (Santacruz, Mumbai). It has uncovered how Shivalik Builders has appropriated huge amount of land by using fraudulent means, and how the then Maharshtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh was allegedly hand- in -glove in the whole deal.


The story is not new. What is new is the ` difficulty’ with which this story gets to see the light of the day in media.

This puts a question mark on the integrity of media barons and editors.

I speak this from personal experience. During one of my television reporting spells when I `happened’ to stumble across this story, I thought I had a scoop in my hand. My source was Simpreet Singh, a colleague and RTI activist , of Medha Patkar.

When I landed on the site the utter chaos was a sickening revelation.


There were people who had given up there chawl to the builders but had not been assigned a transit camp shelter.
There were people who were hounded by henchmen of builders for the papers/rights of their chawls for petty sums.
Residents were living in utter squalor.
There were multiple small groups of resident socities who viewed builders and journalists with equal distaste.Both were seen as partners in crime in suppressing facts from going public.


I had found out that their fear and grouse were not unfounded. Prior to me other TV reporters had come and shot/interviewed the residents extensively. But very strangely their encounters with builders had a dampening effect on their journalistic zeal. The reports never did saw the light of the day.


So they viewed me too with unconcealed suspicion. There was an undercurrent of seething fury which was cleary felt. My sources in the area were aware of the animosity and steered my team clear of such elements.

This was one of my last reports I filed for the channel before I left.


My last report for the channel was, however, for yet another slumland scam. It was for a slumland in the the Gilbert Hill area ( Andheri west).


Here too, the redevelopment was being done by a concern owned by a builder-politician from Bandra.
Large-scale bungling in slum ownership and land acquisition was quite apparent. In fact toilets were named as chawls in paper and passed off to get clearance.
The builder/residents/middlemen were to be beneficiary of such idiotic but ingenious manipulations.

The environment here was very hostile. The middlemen were snooping dangerously for our TV crew. We shot and left as they arrived as lumpen groups to harrass the poor residents.


The point of the matter is that slumland scams are not a scoop anymore in Mumbai.
Way back in the late 90s The Shivshahi Purnasvasan Prakalp (SSP) was clearly indicted for corrupt practises by the Tinaikar committee report, which came down heavily on the BJP-Shiv Sena government too on the matter.
Shivshahi Purnasvasan Prakalp, was an outfit floated by the BJP-Shiv Sena regime in 1996 to redevelop slums.


The rot has only intensified with time under different Congress-NCP regimes.

A lot many politicians cutting across party lines are builders on the side. We may only see a Manohar Joshi, a Raj Thackeray or a Baba Siddiqie, but politicians have heavy stakes in construction activity on the sly.


As such real estate policy making and implementation are quite often compromised at the ground zero level.


Media is forced to understand this nexus. It is forced to compromise on reporting. The regional press, both press and TV, are under compulsions to toe the line. Pressure from the regional political satraps and lure of the lucre are both used to break the moral spine of the press.

Media, too, uses its blitzekeig against the corrupt builders, gainfully.
A sustained attack against the builder community yields dividends by the way of advertisements. Even The Times of India had tried this trick for its suburban Pune edition.
TV channels have learned the ropes too. The political community too finds itself on the defensive against such onslaughts. And ofcourse the pro-people image the channel gains in the process is the icing on the cake.

Farewell Jagmohan Mundhra

Jagmohan Mundhra . (12 October 1948 – 4 September 2011)

I first met Jagmohan Mundhra in 2000 at his office in Parel. His film Bawander was getting released and he was all charged up.

He was a large man with expressive, intelligent eyes. Looking at him it was difficult to imagine that here was a man who had made his mark in the United States as a maker of erotic and horror thrillers. More still, when Jagmohan spoke his sensitivity and intelligence further destroyed the archetypical image that surrounded him. He spoke from heart and was quite sincere.

Earlier he had made his presence felt in Bollywood by making Kamla (1985). Based on a Vijay Tendulkar play it dealt with exploitation of tribal girls in flesh trade marts of cities. It made Mundhra a much respected cerebral director. A recognition which he had deperately yearned for.

Jagmohan had embraced the erotic/horror genre in a desperate bid to become a filmmaker. An IIT graduate with a doctorate in film marketing he had tried all the tricks of the trade to become a filmmaker. Finally with the onset of home video boom in the US he got his break and made thrillers for the direct to video market. Later he made films for theatrical releases too.

It is quite surprising that for a self-confessed fumbling director which he was during the making of his first Hindi film Suraag, Jagmohan’s later oeuvre was distinctly slick.

When I had asked him about his technical finesse he had replied that his stint in the much maligned B grade American films had taught him the film grammer and discipline of Hollywood.

Thus his filmmaking approach even in the 80s was through a bound script, detailed shot divisions and eloquent camerawork. Even a look at early films like Monsoon which he shot in India exemplies his grip on the craft.

Jagmohan wanted a clean break with the erotic genre. In the US he couldn’t achieve this but Bollywood did exonerate him. With Kamla and Bawander he became a very respected director; someone with whom top heroines of his times wanted to work with.

At the time I met him he was reading a book on Sati which he had plans to make a film on.

After Bawandar Jagmohan went back to the United States but he never really cut his link with Bollywood. He had a equipment rental setup in Mumbai and returned often to pitch scripts and plan productions.

He wanted to make a fictional biopic on Sonia Gandhi. But as luck would have it his last offering to the filmdom happened to be immensely forgetable masala flick, Govinda starrer Naughty@40.

Probably this was his way to pay homage to the industry from which he drew inspiration and sustenance from.

He died with his boot on, so to speak. He was to direct yet another masala movie.

The leit motif of Jagmohan Mundhra’s life was very tragic. America made him a type of filmmaker which he never wanted to become. India gave respect to his profession. But even here he ended up making B grade/masala films.

It is heartening that in his obituary we read him anointed as a maker of acclaimed films like Kamla, Bawandar and Provoked and not of Bollywood Masala or of B grade American erotica.

Wake Up Anna

There is a flip side to the Anna Movement. Something that detracts, something that unsettles, something that is omnious.

The rush of adrenalin generated by mass-hysteria has made people leave their hearth and work to protest at the ground zero level. The following has cut across class barriers. The executive, the NRI, the entrepreneur, the student, the villager and the housewife are rubbing shoulders for the cause. A good thing. But the hysteria has also made people fanatics. Their reason has been blindfolded by the do-or-die spirit. Anyone who is not pro-Anna is an enemy of the people, of Nation. Debate has been subverted by a spirit of dissent that is proving cannibalistic. It is devouring all that is contrary to the cause. It’s a subtle form moral fascism.

Agreed that Anna is not a true-blue Gandhian. Still his undue stress on legislative changes through public pressure without personal commitment to avoid corruption at the individual level can prove the achilles heel of the crusade.
Gandhi knew this well and laid great importance to personal change along with societal changes. Anna has been silent on this.

So it won’t long after the anti-corruption hysteria is worn off that the millions of his votaries will find themselves bending rules by greasing palms to get the work done. Won’t the now-proselytized person spend that extra buck to get his railway tickets in an emergency, or get a school admission for his kid by paying monies to the management.
This is the Janus-faced devil that the movment has unleashed and has to face. Demanding probity from public repsentatives without a corresponding personal commitment is hypocritical.

Anna has a bagful of other demands which he will pursue using similar pressure tactics.
Indo-US Nuclear Deal, Farmers Rights, RTI and so on. Which means law making will increasingly become the agenda of so-called civil society. A society which is adamant about its charter of demands, is dictatorial about the means to achieving them and is seized by its own correctness and high morality. It unleahes hysteria and frenzy amongst people, appropriates national symbols and has portents of transforming democracy into mobocracy.

As the UPA 2 fumbles and bumbles in face of this new `enemy,’ the opposition geares itself to gain every ounce mileage from the faceoff. A bunch of parties have formed a front to fight corruption. Advani has asked for the resignation of the Prime Minister and asked for fresh elections.

Anna’s movement is being used for their narrow ends by the ever- opportunistic opposition. Anna should realize all of it early in the day and make appropriate course corrections before he becomes a hand-maiden of his own noble movement.

Anna Hazare : True Blue Marathi Manoos

Anna is fast building up into a social brand. His slow and steady rise from a humble social activist of Ralegan Siddhi village to a still more humble but infinitely more powerful social activist at the national level has been phenomenal.

In his own way Anna has carried forward the hoary tradition of social reform of Maharashtra.
Right from 18th century onwards Maharashtra had seen saints and reformers fighting against ingrained social and religious inequites.

While the patron-seer of the Bhakti Movement like Sant Eknath, SantTukaram, Sant Dyaneshwar unleashed social reform through their religious activities, reformers like Maharishi Karve, Jyotiba Phula and Dr. Ambedkar carried social reconstruction with an equally strong social missionary zeal. Their social activism merged with the Freedom Movement and made it all the more strong.

The fire of social reform had never really died in the state. There is an inherent quality in Marathi people to resist injustice. Even now social activism is very strong in the grassroot level. NGOs are vibrant. And the average marathi manoos is relatively more vocal about his immediate environment.

Anna, then, is the product of his times. He caught the angst of his village folk and provided leadership to solve their problems. He forced the Maharashtra Government to frame the Right To Information Act which proved to be the base of the National Act. He worked extensively for rural upliftment, untouchability and democratic decentralization at the Gram Sabha level.
It was here that he learned to deal with the shrewd ruling class and have his way. A lesson that is proving useful right now.

Part of Anna’s charisma lies in his rural moorings. A simple dhoti-kurta clad villager, who writes in Marathi, speaks in Hindi and who is totally unpretentious. It is this self abnegation which probably has succeeded in moving the urban youth from their depths. A youth fed up with scheming urban slickers.

The Dhoti, Kurta which probably would have died a natural death gets a new lease of life. The Gandhi cap lives again. And the political class squirms uncomfortably in its seat as this son-of-soil of Maharashtra wakes up a somnolent and lethargic India.

Mahatma Anna Hazare ?

Will Tihar Jail make Anna the new age Gandhi?
Government’s kneejerk reactions to Anna’s subtle nonviolent manoeuvring has put the UPA II in a tight spot. It has made a bigger hero out of Anna.

As with Baba Ramdev’s satyagraha so with Anna’s movement. That seemed to be the logic of the Government. But Anna proved his mettle as the true wily satyagrahi and used his calm judgement to outmanoeuvre the stupid government’s brute-like moves.

Public pressure made the government to eat humble pie and order the release Anna. But Anna has used the release-order as a bargaining counter to bring the government to its knees.

This move has striking similarity with the 1919 Champaran Satyagraha of Gandhi. Fighting for poor,oppressed peasants he was sentenced to jail by the British. But under intense public pressure the court had to ask Gandhi to deposit a bail amount and leave. Gandhi refused to pay the amount and preferred to be jailed. Finally the court had to release Gandhi unconditionally. The people of Champaran anointed him as Mahatma. And Bapu was born.

Few facts stare at your face as the Anna episode unfolds.
· Government has no clear cut strategy to counter the movement unleashed by Anna.
· Government has a bunch of immature advisers
· It has put democratic and ethical/moral norms on the side by tackling Anna.
· Initiative on corruption and proactive action is increasingly being appropriated by Civil Society and the Judiciary.
· The Anna bandwagon grows day by day, by each misaction of the government. It has portents of becoming a monolithic mass movement, and may cost the UPA 2 its power seat.

Will the Tihar sentence make a new age Gandhi out of Anna? That only time will tell. But one thing is for sure. It is the fumbling UPA 2 government which will make a mahatma out of Anna Hazare.

Close Encounters With Shammi Kapoor

Yahoo Star is no more. Shammi Kapoor, one of the most flamboyant stars of yesteryears breathed his last on Sunday the 14th of August. He was 79.

Shammi Kapoor potrayed romance with a spontaneous gay abandon which none could surpass. He spun, sang and danced his way into his tinsel paramour’s heart and into the very dreams of his ardent fans. Yours truly was one of them.

I had the privilege of crossing his path three or more times in my life. Those memories came back as a flash to haunt me as the news of his death sank in.

The first time I met him was in 1999 when I was had just started my career as a rookie TV journalist in Mumbai.
The then newly elected Chief Minister of Maharashtra Vilasrao Deshmukh had called a meeting of a crosssection of prominent personalities at his residence.Shammi Kapoor was there too.

I met him after the meeting and he talked at length about his passion of life at that time. The Internet. He was the founder-member of Internet Users Community of India and was also very much involved in the setting up of Ethical Hackers Association. His passion for the Net made him start and maintain a website for the 'Kapoor family’. http://junglee.org.in/.

My first personal interaction with him was unsettling. His rockstar persona had given way to an altogther ascetic figure. Long flowing robes, strings and strings of heavily- beaded malas, a prominent tilak and a pair of heavy-duty glasses had changed him, at least physically. But he talked with the same glint in his eyes, unleashed the same unexpected tilts of his neck as you saw in his movies and exuded a strong charisma. He still is a rockstar, I thought.

Years later I met him again at the Gold’s Gym, off Kemp’s Corner. He had a heart problem I guess and used to come at the gym to do the treadmill and some exercises. He had grown weak and lean since I last saw him. But his trademark energy and verve was very much there. We talked a bit about his golden years in moviedom and his nostaglic memories. He relished those years.

Few years later again I happened to cross his path, although in a different way. My Dubai-based friend Barkha Mulani happens to be quite close to Shammi Kapoor’s son Aditya Raj Kapoor. Barkha shared a daughter-like relationship with Shammi Kapoor. So when Kapoor senior fell seriously ill and was recuperating Barkha asked me to send a get-well-soon bouquet to the thespian at his South Mumbai residence. Shammi Kapoor greatly appreciated the gesture.

In fact whenever I happened to call him up for an telephonic or TV interview he was more than eager to talk. We last spoke on the death of actor Feroze Khan.

Today as the iconic star passes away into Infinity he leaves behind him not only his magnificent screen persona but short and sweet memories in the heart of many like me who lucikly happened to know him for that just little while.