Requiem for a Republic

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

One of our favourite national pastimes is to invite people into our home and put all of our best wares on display. Whether they’re material or human, doesn’t matter. We’ll brag about whatever makes us feel superior to our guests. Oh, the chair you’re sitting on smells of cheese and body odour because it’s an original Louis XV. No off-the-rack mass market furniture for us, please! Yes, that chunk of drywall proudly residing on the mantelpiece used to be a part of the Berlin Wall. I’m so embarrassed you saw that picture of me with the Dalai Lama. No, I don’t like to talk about our ‘close friendship’ that is why I put the picture on display where everyone can see it. And now, for dessert, I’m going to spend the next half hour trying to coax my four year old child to recite all the passages from Shakespeare I made him learn while your shitty child just sits there playing with his own spit.

We do that collectively as a country when we invite a leader from a foreign country as the ‘chief guest’ to witness our Republic Day parade. Oh that little thing? We picked it up while on a shopping excursion in Russia. Yeah, you see, we like our fighter planes like we like our politicians: old, decrypt and of no use to anyone. Those pencil-shaped missiles - pointed towards you for some reason - are from last quarter's Sears Ballistic Missiles Catalogue. Those large guns you saw at the entrance were an impulse purchase. We bought them after the Swiss offered us a ten percent ‘cash back offer.’ No you’re not crazy! That smell of glue is coming from those tanks passing by right now. We made them ourselves, using nothing else besides hard work, ingenuity and lots of papier-mâché.

At least all the cultural floats participating in the parade are a truthful representation of the country. Did you see them yesterday? They were awesome! The parade began with the float from Chandigarh, which consisted of college students shouting the f-word at each other, representing that city’s contribution to our reality show heritage. The float from Rajasthan had a beautiful replica of an ancient fort under whose shade two children who hadn’t even achieved puberty yet were getting married. The Travel Ministry float showcased its dedication to tourism by letting a few unsuspecting members of the chief guest’s delegation fleeced by touts. The north-east was well represented by the float from Mizoram which had six hundred men with goatees playing the guitar. The float from Chhattisgarh was simply an appeal from its government asking you to hire its citizens to paint your house. The actors in the float from Delhi had no idea what they were supposed to represent because all of them had bribed their way onto the float. This wasn’t a problem for the political party activists in the float from Maharashtra because all they had to do was pelt stones at the float from Bihar. Everyone appreciated the edgy float from Goa which depicted a couple of mobsters’ wives snorting cocaine. There was just one awkward moment in the whole parade when everyone realised that in lieu of sending an actual float, West Bengal had sent their chief minister to shout at all the dignitaries.

Unfortunately, some floats were conspicuous by their absence. There was no float from Haryana because the idea for the float was killed as soon as it was conceptualized. The UP float was kidnapped by ‘dacoits close to the administration’ and is now the feature performer in a seedy bar in Kanpur. The float from Assam was erroneously deported to China. The Andhra Pradesh float went nowhere because both its drivers couldn’t decide on a common route. The float from Kerala was the first to arrive at India Gate but was still not able to participate in the parade because it stopped at the entrance and was handing out tea and ‘light snacks’ to the spectators throughout the festivities.

On Republic Day, we celebrate the official adoption of our constitution. A constitution is perhaps the most important document in the life of a Republic. Being part of a Republic is like being part of an arranged marriage. You get grandfathered into making this huge commitment with someone you don’t know anything about and you spend the rest of your life being passive aggressive towards them. And even though the sex is sad, awkward and unenjoyable, you still stay together, not because you want to but because all the better options are already taken and you’re too old to find someone new anyway.

A republic’s strength does not lie in its symbols. Nor does it lie in the number of weapons it has. It lies in the ability of that republic to tolerate dissent, to have arguments without resorting to violence and to creating a safe environment for all of its citizens. A strong republic doesn’t need constant validation from its peers. A strong republic strives to create equal opportunities for all its citizens. A strong republic realizes that denying even a single person their freedom enslaves the whole country.

Most importantly, a strong republic doesn’t celebrate the anniversary of its foundation with a dry day.

Hey, if you don’t believe me, ask the constitution.

Baby, it’s Cold Outside

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

The saviour of people caught in awkward situations who have nothing else to talk about, the weather, has been a ‘hot’ topic of conversation lately. Unless you’re a hibernating bear languishing in a remote cave, you’d notice that the weather seems to have gotten a tad bit cooler. In fact, it was so cold, Shashi Tharoor said something controversial just to be in hot water again. However, nothing really says winter is here than when people start questioning whether global warming is real. Apparently, some folks like to keep warm by shrouding themselves in ignorance.

The fact that we’re still debating the reality of global warming does not bode well for our future. In simple terms, this is what happens: Human activity causes a large amount of gases to be released into the atmosphere. The earth’s atmosphere traps these gases as well as the heat generated by them. This causes our glaciers to melt at a faster rate than the natural process can replenish them. Glaciers deflect about eighty percent of the heat from the sun. So when the glaciers start disappearing, this heat is instead absorbed by the earth. This increases the temperature of the planet, thus leading to ‘global warming.’  The expected outcome of global warming is an increase in extreme weather conditions. So the cold weather will get colder, the rains will get more torrential, hurricanes will get more powerful and volcanoes will erupt more frequently. Basically, the weather will be more chaotic than closing hour at the stock market.

Denying climate change is like denying gravity. If you don’t want to believe the scientists (because why would you want to believe thousands of smart people who have conducted comprehensive research and have released study after study presenting overwhelming evidence to support their claim?), the erratic nature of the weather is visible to everyone. There is nothing “natural” or “cyclical” about having a cold wave and a heat wave in the same year. The past decade has been the hottest decade since when we started recording temperatures. Each natural catastrophe seems to be the ‘worst ever’ in a long time. Earlier this month, Jerusalem was hit with the worst storm in twenty years. The storm was so bad that Jesus turned to God and said “Hey Dad, next time drop me off somewhere warmer. Like Siberia.” Luckily, the city and its surrounding area is full of mature adults known for their tolerance, patience and their apathy to overreaction so they handled the situation quite well.

Australia – which exists in a hipster hemisphere and usually spends its time relaxing on a beach in summer while the countries in the northern hemisphere are freezing in winter – is witnessing such unprecedented high temperatures this season that they had to add new colour codes to the weather map. This has finally woken up their government which is now urging greater global action to combat climate change.

Climate change is exactly the sort of area that needs governments to step up. Not only do we need governments to pass laws to decrease the amount of harmful gases and radiation we release into the atmosphere, we also need them to actually enforce those laws stringently. We need governments to invest in renewable energy. We also need them to use the tools available at their disposal to subsidise the adaptation of technology which uses renewable resources as an energy source. We also need the government to protect whatever remains of our ecology and not cede them to corporate interests’ intent on mining every inch of the planet. But that doesn’t seem on the cards. Developing countries like India and China don’t want to take any major steps to combat climate change because they feel that they just started to pollute the environment and it’s their turn to ruin the planet. Hey, I just got the party, at least let me snort a couple of lines of coke before you call the cops. Most of Europe is busy trying to stay afloat in a large pool of debt using German life-jackets so they don’t even want to think about anything else right now. And half of America thinks that the earth is getting warmer because god is giving us a hug.

One of the reasons of global warming that we seldom talk about is our increasing population. I don’t get people who still insist of procreating. The earth is crumbling, habitable land is decreasing, the climate is getting harsher and living conditions are getting slowly becoming unbearable. Yet, we insist on introducing another life onto this earth, even though there are millions of children without anybody to care for them suffering in orphanages or out on the streets, A very common excuse people give for bringing new human prisoners for our computer overlords running the matrix (WAKE UP SHEEPLE!), is that they want to create life which is “just like themselves.” Someone who carries on their “family name.” Because we’re still like primitive tribal folk on the inside! I mean, really? Do you think that you’re so special that the world needs more copies of you running around? Holy extreme rise in ego, batman!

In the future, when we’re living in unshapely, sterile soviet-esque ‘barrack-homes’ while roaming around in space suits attached with personal air-conditioner units - because the heat outside would make even Mars seem bearable - we’re really going to regret our inaction.

Hopefully, I’ll be dead by then.

The Gods Must be Crazy

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

One of the major myths of society that percolates into our subconscious from the time we are children is that growing old is a bad thing. It’s there in our conversations and in our popular culture. There is a whole industry built around making old people feel younger. You can fight ageing – an inevitable process that has been taking place for millions of years – by applying some chemical cocktail on your face. Why age gracefully when you can make your face look like Hiroshima after the nuclear bomb? We are constantly told that growing old is a horrid event that we must endure until we are able to escape it through the sweet release of death. Being young is where it’s at! Yeah, because who wants financial independence and emotional maturity? Who needs to deal with small problems that can be easily overcome when you can just close the door of your room and blast a song full of profanity to show everyone how angry you are? I, for one, don’t subscribe to this fallacy and can’t wait to grow old. You get to say stupid things and treat people badly without any repercussions. You can make people squirm in their seats and puncture any serious conversation by releasing a loud fart. In fact, my spirit animal is AK Hangal. However, not everybody on twitter shares my enthusiasm about the ageing process. This is most apparent when something happens to someone people used to revere when they were children. People become more aware of their decreasing mortality whenever a childhood icon dies/retires/says something racist. Wait, celebrity x died of a heart attack? WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAPPEN TO ME???!

This was the case last month when Sachin Tendulkar announced his retirement from one-day cricket. Nothing makes you feel your age than when the guy you watched grow from an awkward child prodigy into an awkward adult genius decides to hang up his ill-fitting jockstrap for good. We could handle the exit of eternal bridesmaid Rahul Dravid or ungraceful retirement expert Saurav Ganguly because we still had Sachin. But now even he’s gone to spend more time not spending any of his money on his family.

If you weren’t born in the 80’s you can’t fathom how important Sachin was to his countrymen. Sachin Tendulkar was a hero to a nation in dire need of one. Who can forget his memorable innings as the brand ambassador of a popular soft drink brand! Or when he launched a thousand bankruptcies by appearing in a credit card advertisement and asking people to go get it! Who even knows how many kids’ lives he saved when he revealed the secret of his energy!

Sachin was the perfect poster-child for the post-liberalisation era. A great icon! He was proof that if you had luck, talent, humility and enough gumption to hire a ruthless businessman to manage your affairs, you too could become so successful that Parliament would pass a special act to prevent you from being exorbitantly taxed on a business transaction. That is also why he doesn’t have to spend his post-retirement years scrounging for money, unlike his predecessors. There are no low budget advertisements promoting ‘English speaking courses’ in his future. No humiliating interviews with Karan Thapar. He doesn’t need to participate in a reality show where he gets paid to be the butt of everyone’s jokes. The BCCI will not dare to even try to rein him in if he does something they don’t approve of. Even troll king and the talking tiger from ‘Life of Pi,’ Bal Thackeray, was more than respectful when criticizing his fellow exhibitor of Marathi machismo.

Living in India and not having had a conversation about cricket is like being a white person in a Karan Johar movie and not being racist. It’s easier to go along than spend the next few hours explaining to people that you don’t think that spending five days glued to a teevee screen watching 22 guys play a sport invented by bored royals so that they could pretend to be athletic might not be the optimum utilization of your time. Being able to fake a conversation about cricket also prevents you from being lynched because in this country, there is no other topic of discussion more important than cricket. We pretend that there is nothing wrong when the whole country stops any productive activity because some people are playing a match, somewhere. We are constantly fed bullshit narratives about how cricket “unites” the country and for a few hours, people take a break from making life miserable for each other in exchange for shouting cricketing advice at the teevee/radio/website hoping that the professionals playing on the field are able to hear them. We have to revere everything that happens on the field and worship those who play on it. Whether it’s movies, politics or sports, India doesn’t accept mere humans. We only have time for Gods.

Now please excuse me while I download a Nintendo emulator on my computer so that I can play all my favourite childhood games and try to recapture my youth.

Hell is Other People

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Whenever a horrific incident imbibes itself in the consciousness of the people of our country, there are various stages of grief we go through together. Now, these are not based on any trenchant analysis by renowned mental health professionals. Instead, these are based on our values, our ancient culture, and the wisdom that has been passed on from generation to generation since the Indus civilization.

First comes shock. We feel this when we first hear of the incident. We wonder what kind of animals would do such a thing. We are taken aback by the fact that such people live and breathe among us. We can’t really believe that this happened! Despite there being plenty of proof and a large number of incidents documented in the past. Yet we imagine that this is the first time a deer distracted by the headlights got run over by a car. Wait, the snowball turned into an avalanche? Did not see that coming!

We feel guilty that we didn’t do anything to make sure such incidents didn’t happen. We kick ourselves for suffering injustice silently; for being those monkeys made out of stone and not hearing, seeing or saying anything. But the thing that we find most scary is the thought that this could happen to us too. That makes us angry. We get angry at everything and everybody. And we want revenge! We want heads to roll and bodies to pile up. No time to stop and consider how we contribute to an environment which leads to such an event. We want scapegoats and we want them now!

While the people are angry, the government is in denial. They did nothing wrong. They were all doing their job. In fact, according to them, they did an excellent job. And no, they’re not showing any cowardice by getting the police to suppress dissent using British Raj era tactics. They just retreated into their guarded palaces because they wanted to give the people some space. They aren’t holding onto to power within an inch of their life or anything. And refusing to meet people because of the misbelief that they aren’t going to vote for you anyway is not hubris. Neither is comparing people asking for justice for a fellow citizen with terrorists wanting to overthrow the state. And the advisory issued to news channels covering the protest, was as harmless as advice from a friend. No one was threatening anyone with dire consequences. Whatever gave you the idea!

Of course, it doesn’t take long for any discussion to devolve into a partisan food fight. Everyone stews in their righteousness, because they sincerely believe that this is just another event which happened because people don’t listen to them. Just another example of why the world is screwed up because of the other guy. If only more people would listen to us! You also can’t just be sad and upset about something by itself. You have to retroactively be upset about all the events that took place in the past. And simultaneously be upset about whatever is going to happen in the future.

Then we become mired in farce. Politicians want to make symbolic gestures towards the dearly departed. News channels want you to never forget until the next big story comes along.  And the rest of us just want to go back to our busy lives after someone assures us that we will be able to meander through the rest of our days in peace. Why don’t you just leave us alone, troubles of the world?

* * *

Life in India can make you quite cynical. When you see democracy being sold in packages of various sizes everyday, it’s quite hard to believe that words like “freedom,” “rule of law,” or “justice” mean anything.  Yet, there seemed something different about the current protests. When it started, it was a spontaneous expression of anger. It didn’t have the cold, calculative machiavellian organization of pasts protest. Nor were the protestors made up of the rent-a-mobs used by most political parties. They were outraged citizens who weren’t dead inside like the rest of us and still thought that they could change the world. They were also naive and so blinded by anger that they were not even sure of what they were protesting. They were in dire need of a civics lesson and those among them wanting to do unspeakable things to the accused should probably see a shrink.

We were trying to have a national discussion about things we need to do to make the country better for its female populace but we got caught in the same trap we always do. We lost our way somewhere between chemical castrations and mentally dented presidential scions.

Let’s hope it’s not too late to find our way back.

Down and Out on Hope Street

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Human beings love new beginnings. It makes for a great personal narrative! We want to leave our past behind and not be bogged down by it. We want to be a better person than we currently are. We want to have the perfect reply when confronted with a taunt -embedded with the truth - masquerading as joke. But we couldn’t think of anything at that time and now it’s too late. We can’t really change the past but we can always imagine living an inspirational life in a distant future. And there is nothing more inspiring than ‘a fresh start.’ And there is no better time than December to take stock of your life and convince yourself to begin anew. We seem to think that the year has only eleven months and December is the waiting period between the current year and the next. A whole month of being in limbo. December is like the child nobody cares about because he neither gets good marks nor can he play any sports.

There is something about December that turns everybody contemplative. We like to imagine that we spent the year actually doing something other than meandering through our life wondering where it all went wrong. So we try to quantify our whole year. We start making lists of everything that we’ve done. And coincidently, whatever we liked turns out to be the best the year had to offer. Top 10 things I could have done to improve my life instead of watching everything put out by HBO. Five things my grandmother said that were racist but I pretended were adorable. Thirty Thousand things I wanted to tell my boss but couldn’t because he’s a raving asshole and is the reason I die a little, everyday.

There is something about December which makes people overestimate their capacity for self-improvement. We make promises to ourselves that we know we won’t be able to follow through. And yet we still make them because hope is a flame which never burns out. Suddenly, we think that we’ll rise above our own mediocrity to start losing weight/quit smoking/stop re-tweeting compliments. We don’t want to begin the new year as ourselves. We want to spray some magic dust and turn into someone better. Even though the odds of that happening are even more remote than Sachin Tendulkar ever playing another one-day international, but hey, stranger things have happened, right?

There is something about December which makes everyone nostalgic. Suddenly, every old memory is drudged out and even people in their early twenties remember their childhood with a loud sigh and a fond head tilt. Did you really have the best time of your life when you were living in a socialist dystopia with one teevee channel, no internet and a twenty year wait for a telephone? Are you really sure that everything tastes better with a dash of poverty and a smidgen of desperation? Let’s face it. Everything seems better in hindsight. In reality, your childhood sucked. What’s so great about being a child anyway? Everyone tells you what to do; you have to pretend to feel guilty while blowing away your parent’s money on useless things like textbooks & tuition and you have to bribe your driver to make sure he doesn’t talk about all your recreational trips to your neighbourhood ‘Wine & Beer’ shop. If I wanted someone else to make rules for my life, I would have joined a religion.

There is something about December that turns everybody sincere. Maybe it’s the realisation that they’re getting closer to death or that they’ve already had a drink or two but even the most cynical people will sit beside you at a party and tell you about their hopes and dreams until you realize you’ve been listening to them drone on for an hour and you fake a phone call to get out of the conversation. It’s like everyone is going through the existential angst that you usually hear about in a Coldplay song.

There is something about December that makes people want to share its end with the whole world. For some reason a large percentage of people prefer to bring in the new year in a room full of strangers, eating cold food and drinking watered down alcohol, while being “entertained” by out of work performers. Sounds as exciting as a hernia operation! So many plans are made to be broken. And most of the time, even if you try to follow through on them, you end up not reaching your destination because of a traffic jam and you begin your fresh start with a road full of hostile, resentful strangers while trying to assure your empty stomach that you will be at your destination shortly as you calmly rue the day you decided to buy the tickets to your local rotary club’s “rocking” new year bash featuring some generic Punjabi pop song yeller. You sit there and contemplate how this came about and where it all went wrong.

Just like Mother Nature intended.

Have a great new year! Probably going to be just like the last one, but, whatever.

Bah! Humbug!

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Santa looked out at the falling snow through his small window. The calm outside was quite in contrast to the turmoil he was going through. He tried to remember the last time he had been happy. He drew a blank. He was unhappy before all the troubles started. He never wanted to go into the family business. He wanted to be an accountant. It wasn’t a glamorous job, he agreed. But he didn’t want glamour. He had seen celebrity up close. Fame had left both his father, the previous St. Nicolas and his Uncle Roger, the Easter bunny, broken and shattered. To be the most important person in the world for one day and then ignored for the rest of the year took a real toll. His father turned to alcoholism and Uncle Roger became reckless and began to break into homes with little children and steal all their eggs. This continued until the High Council of Festival Mascots stripped him of his title and had him committed to a correctional facility in North Korea. Santa was able to save his father by promising to take over the whole enterprise immediately. He forgot about his dreams and saved his family. Then everything went well until he ran into Lindsey Lohan one day. She introduced him to the other white snow and he was lost to its charms. He stopped paying attention and his assistant, Tim Cook, took over the operation. Cook dismantled everything. First he sold all the reindeer to a Russian billionaire. (All of them except Rudolf. Rudolf escaped captivity and fled to America, where he became the most famous reindeer in the world when he gave an emotional interview to Barbra Walters. His memoir about his struggle became a bestseller and even spawned a Lifetime movie starring Susan Sarandon and Rafalca Romney.) Then, he fired all the elves and got them deported to Middle Earth. Finally, he outsourced the workshop to a Chinese Foxconn facility and Bangalore’ed the back office and logistics. Everything was being done at a quarter of the cost that it used to. Santa was rendered jobless. And once the money disappeared, so did all the starlets. He was left alone, to ponder his fate. And to look at the snow.

If the Mayans were right and the world ended two days ago and you’re reading this while scavenging for food in a nuclear wasteland, then think of this as one of the reasons why mother earth hates your guts and tried to drown your whole species. And if nothing happens – which is a remote possibility because how can a bunch of superstitious tribesmen who lived hundreds of years ago and couldn’t even predict the demise of their own empire be wrong about the future – then welcome to yet another week in which we celebrate the triumph of consumerism.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate material things. I love them! If living in India has taught me anything, it’s that there is no problem that can’t be made to go away as long as you’re prepared to throw enough money at it. I’m just tired of celebrating this love every month under the guise of a ‘festival.’ There is always some holiday lurking in the corner, requiring us to buy things for the people around us and forcefully spending time with them. That’s what all the advertisements tell us! There is no amount of heartbreak and pain that cannot be compensated for by a fancy gift. You can be a horrible boss around the year, but if on one day of the year you gift your secretary a box of crappy chocolates and ask her to go home early, you’re a shoo-in for ‘boss of the year.’ Treat your wife like your own personal slave for ten years and then buy her forgiveness by giving her a comically large diamond necklace. To make up for all those times you ignored your grandparents, you can buy them a ring-tone of their favourite classic song for their mobile phone. Most of the time we don’t even realize what we’re celebrating. In one of the biggest festivals in the country, we celebrate a guy who went to war to defend the honour of his wife but then dumped her because his laundry guy said something uncharitable about her while we burn the effigy of a guy who respected women enough to take no for an answer.

Twitter is the last refuge for all those who want the festive masses to get off their lawn. However, this year on twitter there was a backlash against the backlash. Mostly from nostalgic NRIs missing the deafening sound of firecrackers and the breathlessness brought on by the large amounts of smoke. They told us to stop whining and start appreciating our good fortune. This is what India is all about, they fumed. Which was true, because who else would know more about the ‘authentic Indian experience’ than a person who, before visiting, ingests enough pills to immunize an entire African country? Thanks for your advice, captain. I’ll keep it right next to those unopened boxes of Ferrero Rocher you love to bring over.

Even the Mayan apocalypse won’t be able to make me open them.

How the Grinch Stole Your Democracy

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

One of the perks of modern life is the convenience of being able to order things online. For someone who hates shopping and goes to buy things two times a year, it’s a godsend. The best of both worlds! You mean I can get what I want without any human contact and with enough pretence of a bargain to satiate my ancient Indian urge to always seek the best deal? Shut up and take my money! However, this sweet, blissful utopia is interrupted by the constant emails one receives from every online retailer once you make a purchase on their website. Indian or foreign, they go after you with the zeal of a crazy person with whom you once went on a disastrous date and who hasn’t stopped trying to get in touch with you ever since. And yet, you can’t punish them for this. What are you going to do? Go shopping to an actual shopping place (plazas? bazaars? junctions? I don’t even know what people call them anymore!) and be forced to explain to a real person what you want and then pay in cash? Ugh. You will take away my online fix from my cold, bankrupt hands.

And I’m probably not the only one who is addicted to the instant gratification of the purchase button. The UPA seems to be suffering from the same ailment. Seems like everytime they have to win a vote in parliament, they ‘add’ SP and BSP MPs to their ‘shopping cart’ and click ‘purchase.’ I hope they’re at least getting a ‘frequent buyer’ discount.

Like the vote on FDI, which became a farce even before the debate was to begin. The BJP wanted a discussion which would allow both the houses to vote on the policy. The UPA dithered on holding the discussion until it could ‘convince’ enough ‘allies’ to vote in its favour. Or at least walk out before the vote giving it a majority by default. While the BJP disrupted the Lok Sabha session to get it adjourned, the Congress got its fair weather friends to interrupt proceedings in the Rajya Sabha under silly pretences. Synergy! Bipartisanship! Strategery!

The discussion in the Lok Sabha was held under the watchful eyes of the speaker, Meira Kumar, who reflected the calm demeanour of a serial killer. Even a government school substitute teacher monitoring a class in which half the students get serious injuries and the other half jump from a ledge has more control over her class than Ms. Kumar has over her MPs. Once her term as the speaker ends, she will go back to her original job - being the voice of a much maligned cellular network who, for some reason, seems quite delighted to inform you that the number you’re trying to call is not available at the moment. The speeches in the house were filled with so much jargon that our MPs were instantly invited to be the featured speakers at the next TED conference. Our sanctimonious parliamentarians even managed to sully the good reputation of the Indian potato. Allegedly, they make for small fries. The last we heard, the Indian potato was being cheered up by his girlfriend, who told him that it’s not the size that matters, it’s how you eat the fries.

The discussion in the Rajya Sabha was even worse. Which is expected because most of these ‘elders’ are rejects from the Lok Sabha. They are so unelectable, even their families voted for the other candidate. But since both sides needed all the votes they could gather, it was all hands on deck. Everyone, except Sachin Tendulkar showed up. He wasn’t able to because he was busy protecting India from another foreign entity. And unlike his large fleet of planes, Vijay Mallya decided to make himself useful and was also present to cast his vote. I think he’s not yet familiar with how Parliament works because he was overheard ordering a drink to whoever looked like a waiter to him. The proceedings of the Rajya Sabha were being handled by the most nondescript man in India, Vice-President Hamid Ansari. The only reason he shows up for work everyday is because no one has told him yet that he’s in a coma.

In the end, the government’s investment paid off and the opposition’s motion was defeated in both the houses of Parliament, making the CEO of Wal-Mart India’s Governor-General for life. Seems like certain former chief ministers of UP will get a lot of ‘clean chits’ in their Christmas stocking this year. That’s probably what the framers of our constitution intended. Letting the fate of the country’s major policy decisions rest on the whims and fancies of two of the most opportunistic, vile, corrupt and self-serving politicians this country has ever seen.

If only politicians also came with a money-back guarantee.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Free Speech

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Most of the time, whenever someone talks about supporting free speech in this country, they always end up following it with a qualifier. “I’m all for free speech, but we need to have some restrictions!” Even the constitution does the same thing. You can have freedom of speech and expression, but within reasonable restrictions. And that’s where the problem begins, when we leave those ‘reasonable restrictions’ up for interpretation. With each successive generation, the ‘reasonable restrictions’ keep expanding while the space for free speech & expression keeps getting narrower. You can take a walk in this park and get some fresh air, as long as you also breathe in all the toxic smoke coming in from the factory next to it.

This has been a banner year for all the free speech restrictionists. Whether it involves preventing writers from speaking at literary festivals, or stopping artists from displaying their wares. They even managed to turn something as mundane as posting something on the internet into an act of civil disobedience. Free speech is one of those things which are defined by absolutes. Either speech is free or it’s restricted. When you add a qualifier, it’s an invitation for other people to do the same.

The Internet has been one of the biggest battlefields in the war on free speech. Recently, when a couple of young adults were arrested for posting harmless updates on Facebook, the Minister of Communication and ‘India’s nanny,’ Kapil Sibal, said that he was quite saddened by the misuse of the IT act. He was shocked that a law put in specifically to suppress dissent, was being used to suppress dissent. That’s like putting a ‘for rent’ sign outside your house and then wondering where all the prospective tenants came from. He didn’t start the fire, he just wrote a vague piece of legislation which could be widely interpreted and misused even by those who apply the law using the most stringent standards. When you don’t trust another party with the law you’ve made, then there is something wrong with your law. You don’t leave the door to the henhouse wide open and then get to pretend that you could never even imagine that the fox would go inside.

People like Dr. Eyebrows would like you to believe that the internet is one huge quagmire of filth from which they need to protect the innocent and the impressionable. They portray the internet as some huge lawless wasteland where anything goes; a wild, wild west where duels are fought by drowning your opponent in a quick stream of sarcasm and won by the first person to be compared with Hitler. They don’t use the internet themselves so they imagine it to be somewhat of a virtual Bangkok where temptation lurks in each corner.

What they conveniently miss is the Internet’s ability to correct itself. Most of the properties in this so called wasteland are owned by huge corporations whose interest resides in removing malicious content. Even Reddit, the ‘Uttar Pradesh’ of the internet, has removed content deemed inappropriate or malicious.

Of course our elected representatives are not big on discussions. They spend all their life shouting over each other, whether in Parliament or on teevee.

But what about us?

Free speech doesn’t just involve being able to say what you want. It also means being able to say what you want without being intimidated to take it back. It involves being able to write a book without being placed on the wrong side of an angry mob. Free speech means being able to question a national celebration of death without being questioned about your patriotism. It involves being able to have a character in your movie call a city by any name you want. Free speech means not throwing a tantrum on national teevee because someone on the internet was mean to you. It involves being able to hear things you don’t like, no matter how angry it makes you. Free speech means keeping all your ‘hurt sentiments’ to yourself.

I, for one, think that people need to be more tolerant of other’s opinions.

Hey, if you don’t believe me, ask all the people I blocked on twitter.