The Young King and the Selfish Giant

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

As he waved to the cheering hoards after his victory speech, Obama looked like a vanquishing hero from a big-budget Hollywood movie. This would be the perfect place for the credits to roll in the inevitable Obama biopic that will be made starring Will Smith as Barack, Halle Berry as Michelle - in an Oscar-winning portrayal that will finally revive her career – and the armour suit from the original Robocop movie as his Republican opponent, Mitch(?) Romney. It is a great story! The opposition threw everything they had at Obama. Continuous denial of his legitimacy, allegations of voter fraud, blocking legislation that would help the economy recover, blaming him for things that Bush was responsible for and using dog-whistle rhetoric to keep reminding their base that he’s black. Yet he still came out ahead, winning a decisive victory by pulverizing Romney in the Electoral College. And the non-crazy half of America and the rest of the world heaved a sigh of relief when they found out that the next commander-in-chief of the largest military in the world wasn’t going to be a cartoonish Bond villain slash Business Consultant. The End.

Hopefully, the movie version would be better than election day coverage we saw on teevee. It was a prime example of why news viewership is at its lowest ebb.  Al-Jazeera was continuously wondering how a country could change its President without first having a huge number of people gather and protest in a large, historic park. What do you mean the President leaves office after losing an election? And the military has no say on choosing the winner? You must have a really kind emir! The BBC World Service was bemused that anyone would want regular, timely updates about an event that could potentially have an impact on their lives. Oh sure, you can have election coverage. But, first, here’s a six hour documentary on making biscuits. Meanwhile, CNN seemed to have been broadcasting from a dystopian future in which humans only exist as holograms and the dominant species on earth is made up of large screens which constantly need to be swiped. As the night progressed and Obama’s path to victory began to look apparent and it became clear that at least for the next four years a majority of Americans had vetoed the Republican party’s plan to install a President named after a glove,  Fox News – America’s election HQ for racists, bigots and wearers of adult diapers –  was self-destructing on live teevee. One of their analysts, Karl Rove, even called the swing-state of denial for Romney. That was because he had been given millions of dollars by anonymous billionaires to spend on defeating Obama and he had nothing to show for it. Karl Rove was last spotted outside a bus station, offering to give a hand-job in exchange for a ticket to Mexico.

Watching Indian news channels was a real learning experience. Apparently, Obama battled ‘anti-incumbency’ to keep his ‘vote-bank’ together and was at an advantage because of still being able to maintain his image as a ‘youth-icon.’ The most important issue in the election was ‘friendly relations with India.’  And no matter who won, they would cancel all outsourcing to India, forever.

Our journalists seemed confused by the events of the day. Not that I blame them! America has such a strange way of selecting their President. The political parties in America choose their leader a long time before election day so that the voters can at least get to superficially know who they are voting for. The large number of people present for Obama’s speech had gathered there voluntarily without being provided with any alcohol or poultry related incentive. And they were cheering not out of subservient formality, but out of actual love & respect for their political leader. Americans don’t realize that choosing your leader can be hard work. This is why real democracies just let the party high-command pick them.

Now, here’s what we won’t see in the movie: collateral damage from drone strikes, secret kill lists, the war on whistleblowers and the continued dominance of the military-industrial complex.

But, hey, that’s what crappy sequels are for!

Barack the Vote, America

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

In a couple of days, when a majority of Americans get in line to vote for the next President, it would behove them well to remember 15 September, 2008, the day when Lehman brothers filed for bankruptcy and bought the global financial system to the brink of collapse, while the Bush Administration did nothing; or maybe 29 August, 2005 when Hurricane Katrina flooded the town of New Orleans causing extraordinary damage to both life and property while the Bush Administration did nothing; or maybe 1 May 2003, when President Bush gave a staged speech on a navy vessel declaring the end of the Iraq war with a ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner in the background; or maybe even back to 6 August, 2001 when during his daily ‘presidential brief’, Bush was presented with a classified document titled ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.’, a warning that subsequent events revealed wasn’t heeded. 

Earlier this year, during the Republican National Convention, as Mitt Romney accepted the nomination for President, the crowd applauded tepidly. The convention didn’t look like a meeting of happy party members enthusiastically nominating a Presidential candidate. It appeared to be more like a Klan meeting. An auditorium filled with resentful people who were angry at the world for moving on and leaving them behind. A whole swathe of people with low I.Q’s yearning for a past which only exists in their head. A political party whose members had resigned from reality and were more than happy to live in the bubble where they felt safe and happy. Just like their guns, you’d have to take their bigotry, ignorance and fear from their cold, dead hands.

In the movie Game Change, Ed Harris’s John McCain warns Julian Moore’s Sarah Palin of letting the extreme wing of the Republican party co-opt her. Holy Foreshadowing, Batman! Because that’s exactly what happened. Not only did she become the uncrowned leader of the extreme wing of her party, she became its mascot. Yes, the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower is now the party of a reality teevee star who denies climate change, hates gay people, has nothing but contempt for anyone who has read any other book besides the bible and thinks Barack Obama is an Islamist Atheist Communist Terrorist-hugger. (They can’t even reconcile to the fact that a single person cannot be all these things at the same time.)

In the Republican bubble, the guy who ordered the kill on Bin Laden and drops bombs on terrorists using his killer flying robots everyday is soft on terrorism. In the Republican bubble, the guy who saved the American auto-industry from receding into oblivion and saved the global economy from collapse is hurting economic growth. In the Republican bubble, not constantly wanting to bomb every country in the world in alphabetical order is ‘going on an apology tour.’ In the Republican bubble, a person whose life has been investigated, examined and analyzed to such an extent that even his letters to his college girlfriend have been made public still remains ‘unvetted.’  In the Republican bubble, passing a healthcare law that has eluded five previous Presidents and is based on a successful law enacted by a Republican Governor is the sort of tyranny last seen during the Third Reich. (Oh, and by the way, the healthcare law was the only achievement of a one-term Governor known as Mitt Romney. Wonder what happened to that guy!)

When Mitt Romney first started running for office back in 1994, he pretended to be more liberal than his opponent, Edward Kennedy. He pretended to be a pro-choice, gay rights advocating, independent minded, moderate Republican. Even though he lost, he used the same shtick to become Governor in 2002. However, by the time he had started running for President in 2005 moderate Republicans were an endangered species. By 2011, when he announced his second run, moderate Republicans had become an urban myth, like unicorns or a person from Bangalore who doesn’t constantly talk about the weather. So post-2011 Mitt Romney became a ‘severely’ conservative candidate who wants to ban abortion & gay marriage, repeal the healthcare law and cut taxes for the mega-rich. Now he was for deporting undocumented immigrants, building a large fence on the border with Mexico, constantly hugging Israel and denying the existence of global warming. However, since we live in the era of YouTube, for every position taken by conservative Mitt Romney, there is a video of moderate Mitt Romney advocating for the opposing side. Even chameleons escaping a garden full of predators change colour less often.

Romney’s stated foreign policy goals are too unrealistic even for a Tom Clancy novel. He wants to start a trade-war with China and has been constantly talking about bombing Iran to prevent them from making a nuclear weapon. However, during the foreign policy debate with Obama he jettisoned all the previous positions he held and basically took the stance that he’d have the same foreign policy as Obama except he’d be more racist.

Not that Obama is a President who metaphorically walks on water. He’s made more than his share of mistakes and hasn’t been able to deliver on some of his campaign promises. He hasn’t been able to close Guantanamo Bay, his stance on drug use is purely political and he has expanded the Imperial Presidency. Yet, with him you know where he stands on most of the issues. And he doesn’t falter from doing the right thing just because it comes with a political cost. Mitt Romney is a shape-shifter who tries to fit into whatever mould he imagines you want him to.

The world is still recovering from the after-shocks of the last Republican presidency.

Let’s hope America doesn’t saddle us with another.

You’re So Vain, You Probably Think This Article Is About You

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

As he switched off the teevee, he could see the sun rising from his window. However, today this view wouldn’t cheer him up. He had just watched the foreign policy debate between Obama and Romney and he was disappointed that India wasn’t even mentioned once. How many more times will he have to face such humiliation? He feels his country is just a dirty little secret for the President. He took billions of dollars of our hard-earned money and then totally forgot about us. Each time he ignores us, it’s a slap in the face of the awesome future we had planned together. How can you do that to us, Barry? How can you slap?

As a country full of people who need constant validation, it was no surprise that the main point of discussion after the Presidential debate broadcast was that no one mentioned India during the debate. We’re like that character in sitcom who only pays attention to what other people are saying only when they’re talking about him. Even though the debate revolved around which candidate would be more awesome at bombing more brown people, people were upset that no one gave us a shout-out. After all, we invented the zero, bhangra music and Anil Kapoor. Isn’t that reason enough for everyone to keep talking about us, all the time?

Our politicians, diplomats and journalists have a schizophrenic love/hate relationship with America and its President.

Our politicians love to blame the ‘ubiquitous’ foreign hand for everything they are unable to explain. A foreign hand is behind the grassroots protest against nuclear power. The foreign hand teaches people that Internet censorship is bad. The foreign hand is in your telephone, tapping all your calls. And yet, the very same people trample over each other to shake the foreign hand when he comes over for a visit.

Our diplomats carry around a secret boner for the Republicans. Especially for their knight in faux cowboy boots, George W.  Bush. Because he does things they have always wanted to do. He didn't worry about "global warming" or the "Geneva convention" or "International treaties"  and would bomb, whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted. So what if a lot of civilians died as collateral damage? Who has time to find out if they’re bombing the right target or invading the right country when they’re busy choking on a pretzel? Christopher Columbus took a wrong turn - because he was using Apple Maps for navigation - and look how well it turned out for him. Republicans are always good for India! Who even remembers the time a Republican Administration sent a battleship to the Bay of Bengal to try to intimidate India during the ‘71 war or the time when another Republican administration funded the start of Osama Bin Laden and his ‘Jihad Jamboree.’ And don’t forget that while the last Republican administration might have given billions of dollars to the architect of the Kargil invasion to go shopping for weapons, they probably never intended to start another arms-race.  

Our news anchors act like entitled fangirls. They’re quite brave when they’re shouting at the teevee screen but turn to an embarrassing pile of mush once they’re actually faced with a member of the American government. One news anchor even asked Hillary Clinton on her first visit to India as Secretary of State to affirm America’s ‘love’ for India? What are we, a geopolitical entity or a girl in a rom-com who is about to lose her virginity to the wrong guy? Our journalists’ creepy obsession with America isn’t just limited to having a love-hate relationship with their political system. Our domestic news is also framed in American terms. Every terrorist attack in the country is India’s ‘9/11.’ Every government scandal is India’s ‘watergate.’ Every award ceremony in the country is India’s version of the Oscars. Aamir Khan’s teevee show talks about social issues, so naturally, he is India’s Oprah. And India has had more versions of Obama than the population of Kenya.

Our politicians, South Block mandarins and news anchors forget that only British Prime Ministers are constitutionally obligated to have unrequited feelings for the American President.

And that they’re supposed to get over him once he leaves office.

He knows that one day, Barry will be his friend. Until then he will sing Barry Can You Hear Me/Barry Can You See Me to the moon every night. He can take solace in the fact that some time in the near future, we will take our rightful place, right next to America, and both of us together will heal the world and make it a better place for you and for me and the entire human race. One day Barry will come home. Until then he will do what he does best. After all, the nation deserves to know.

Hail to the Chief

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

India’s brother from another mother and the world’s #1 source of porn and engaging television shows, the United States of America, finally began its pivot to the general elections. Unlike in our country, being President in America actually means something. Not only do you get to live in your own palatial house, you can use your own personal plane to go on as many shopping jaunts as you want. Now, America takes its responsibility to elect a President very seriously. That is why elections for the next cycle begin as soon as a President is elected.

On the Republican side we have the guy who used to play Ridge Forester on the Bold and the Beautiful, Mitt Romney; representing the Democrats is the incumbent Fresh Prince of Washington DC, Barack Obama. Mitt Romney has been running for President since 2005. He never stopped running, even when he lost the nomination the last time to the guy who chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. This last year, even though Mittens was the presumed frontrunner, he still almost lost the nomination again, at various points during the primaries. The Republicans are as excited about having Mitt Romney as their candidate as bartenders in Delhi are excited about refusing a drink to Manu Sharma, so they tried all the other options-a crazy homeless lady from Minnesota, a guy who was once CEO of a pizza chain right out of a badly written SNL skit, a time traveller from the 1950s and the human personification of every ugly American stereotype ever-before settling for Mitt. In fact, Mitt Romney’s journey to the Republican nomination was littered with so many setbacks that bullied gay kids in small towns all over America were making ‘It Gets Better’ videos for him.

Mitt Romney is the bizarro Obama of this election cycle. The evangelist Republican base thinks his choice of religion is weird, the pundits who presume to speak for the American people would like to know who the real Mitt Romney is and everyone seems to be asking whether he is human enough.

Of course, our mandarins in South Block and their counterparts in the media will love Mitt Romney. Not only does he share their cold war mindset, he cannot stand up to powerful individuals in his own party because he has no real political base of his own. Romney is a feckless generic individual-with the charisma of a bottle of home-made disinfectant-who will say and do anything just to get elected. Where have I heard that before?

It is conventional wisdom in New Delhi that somehow Republicans are better for India. Which is strange, because as the last guy demonstrated, Republican Presidents usually break the world. An overwhelming majority of our foreign policy ‘experts’ and their ‘anonymous sources’ spent the first two years of the Obama Presidency talking about how the previous Bush administration was such a ‘good friend’ to India. Don't you remember how we could call ol' Dubya anytime of the night, to complain about how after gym class whenever we were in the locker room changing back into our casuals, Pakistan used to pick a fight with us to distract us so that China could sneak behind our back and empty a whole tube of Ben-Gay into our fresh, clean underwear. And Dubya used to huff and puff and threaten to blow someone's house down! Meanwhile, Chocolate Gandhi does not even bother poke us back on facebook.

However, the pundits stopped breathing fire and brimstone once Obama came to visit us to whisper nice romantic things into our ear while we relaxed on the back seat of his plush limo. No one even remembered President Woody the Cowboy anymore. That is because we conduct our foreign policy with the same combination of neediness and brooding that Bella from the Twilight series conducts her love-life. And just like her, our only objective seems to be getting a very old, pale white guy to give us his undivided attention.

The most hilarious part is watching Indian analysts grapple with American elections. Their usual habit is to pay attention to it only when someone says something bad and truthful about Pakistan, which helps our news channels spend a week gloating about how we are not hyphenated with you-know-who anymore or when someone says something racist about outsourcing, which helps our news channels spend a week gloating about how America is now scared of India’s growing economic prowess. Watching Indian analysts interpret American politics is like watching the tele-tubbies interpret complex mathematical equations.

What we need is a reality check from someone who has been there, done that – a commentator who really knows how American elections work.

I hear that a handsome soap opera protagonist might be free after November.