Remembering 26/11

A top cop accuses 3 other top cops of not being on the scene of action on 26/11/08

He then retracts his statements. In the meantime media has gone to town, and 3 cops come under a public shadow. Net result, we waste the time of 3 critical cops, the time of an under-staffed and poorly budgeted department...and distract them from their duty; keeping us safe.

We are busy arguing about faulty bullet proof vests. Isn't the best test to make politicians wear them and start firing at them? :)

A strange photograph in the newspaper showed us a diagram revealing that all terrorist bullets magically missed the vest and entered Karkare's body through the unprotected areas, thus saving the guys who bought the vests. I remembered the magic bullet from JFK...the one that traveled all over kennedy:)

Two 'Force One' commandos....trained to combat terrorism, and engage in urban warfare against them, FAINT during a demonstration to our politicians. I guess they can shock the enemy by fainting on them or in curious formations.

Our S.R.P.F. lie for days on the road. The State Reserve Police Force, the guys who are supposed to protect our STATE, the commercial capital of India, has no place to sleep. Why would these guys give their lives for us? But, they still do.

RR Patil is back, the very minister who was asked to resign after 26/11. His resignation was meaningless, and his coming back is meaningless. He could not have been blamed for the attacks because a state home minister in India is in really no position to fight terrorism. He is just ill-informed and mostly impotent against urban terrorism.

In a hugely expensive trial, we are still entertaining Kasab, the one live terrorist. His trial is now a comic book story in India...kids talk about his theatrics and the drama that surrounds him. We spend millions on keeping the trial going, because we have to SHOW the world we are civilized. Can we wrap this trial up sooner please, it costs us tax money???

Pakistan has disintegrated into chaos, China has started pissing on our feet and the USA plays volley ball with our foreign policy. The only real geo-political consensus is on the arms race and how everyone can make money by creating more and more chaos. India Inc has jumped into the defense business and this will be the next sunrise industry of the region.

Is India safer? Has the underworld been even dented? Has ONE terrorist group been shut down? Is the Indo-Pak issue anywhere closer to being resolved? Somehow the smartest politicians in India can't fix the Kashmir issue for over 60 years. Somebody must be making shit loads of money? Who?

At the central level we are forming ONE MORE intelligence agency...what about strengthening the IB and RAW forces....either you build a homeland security model or you don't...no half-ways work. Can we learn from the USA?

Rahul Gandhi, in a moment of rare moral courage, raised the issue of wastage of police forces/security forces. In India, each politician and his relatives are apparently threatened all the time and need Z level security, if not less. This means that security forces waste precious man-power protecting our rich and fat politicians while they should be protecting us! Needless to say, he was shouted down in parliament, even from within his party:)

In the midst of a farcical year, two brave police wives have been showing us the light....Mrs. karkare and Mrs. Kamte...both have been asking tricky questions regarding the circumstances surrounding the death of their husbands, both of them straight cops with great reputations. Kamte had to get the post-mortem report of her husband through the RTI. Isn't that a shame?

In the last year, we have learnt NOTHING. Our politicians have made merry, making strange sounds with no sense, our media has screamed and whimpered its way through every issue...migrated from activism to passive resignation to empty theatrics. There is no real security anywhere. No public security. The only thing that binds us Indians together is our own local bonds, in families, housing societies, small towns and mohallas. The real Indian lives at a local, small level, untouched by the sound and fury, waiting for the next disaster, scurrying around making money and trying to keep his/her family afloat.

If there is any fight-back, it is at this local level, the only real level....where we fight for our humanity, security and keep hoping for a better tomorrow. True secularism, democracy, local governance and accountability are our tools. The state has failed, the fourth estate has lost its way. Every citizen needs to stand up, right now.

India...The next Asian Power?

Power and influence are not given. They are taken. China knows how to take it, India does not:

A few observations on the eve of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh visit to the United States from November 23 to 26.

No thinking has been ever done in India as to what it expects out of a long-term strategic relationship with the US. It is always the US which decides what it will give to India and it is New Delhi which accepts.

It was so with the nuclear deal which was offered by then US President George W Bush in July 2005. Manmohan Singh was pleasantly surprised when Bush offered it and then we followed it up. India's expectations from the US in the past were limited to US pressure on Pakistan to stop using terrorism against India, removal of restrictions on the supply of modern dual-use technology to India and US support for India's permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council.

They remain the same. Any strategic relationship has to be a quid pro quo relationship. Since the US has hardly any dependence on India in any matter, there is no scope for any quid pro quo.

India visualises itself as an Asian power on par with China. Beijing does not see it this way. China views India as a sub-regional Asian power and wants to keep its influence restricted to its immediate neighbourhood. US president Barack Obama's visit to China has uncomfortably brought out to India that there is a convergence of perceptions between China and the Obama Administration on the limited regional role of India.

China's pre-eminence has been recognised by Obama. Obama has re-hyphenated India-Pakistan relations and quietly relegated India to the role of a sub-regional power whose aspirations of having a status on par with China are unrealistic.

In geopolitical matters, there is no futuristic thinking in India. The quality of Indian thinking and analysis -- strategic and tactical -- is poor. What passes for analysis in India is just wishful-thinking.

Nobody in India has realised and brought out that for the first time the US, Japan and Australia have a leadership which does not rate highly India's potential as an emerging power. There is less and less talk of Chindia. Even today, many in India are not aware that the new Japanese government is not as enthusiastic about India as the previous government was. There has been no exercise in India to analyse future scenarios in US-Japan relationship.

Someone once said that power and influence are not given. They are taken. China has shown how to take it. India does not have the political will and courage to fight for it and take it. It is hoping that the US will give it. Bush and Condoleezza Rice seemed inclined to bestow on India the status of an Asian power on par with China. The Obama Administration does not seem to be so inclined.

True but shocking...where the world is going?

It was a cold evening in Delhi. Very very cold. So cold that I was trembling in my short dress. I was with my friends in an open coffee shop of a five star hotel.

It was refreshing especially after having spent four weeks in the house of Bigg Boss. Did I just say four weeks??? Damn! I must visit a psychiatrist to check if there’s any sanity left in me. The evening was perfect except for the freezing whether.

I placed an order for some Italian wine to keep myself warm.

A tall white hunk dressed in a black suit walked up to me. For a moment, I thought he was going to buy me a drink. While I was still imagining, the cool dude, who was now right across the table introduced himself as the General Manager of the hotel, and asked me if all was well.

Before I could respond, he leaned forward and whispered, ‘Shawl’? I nodded with a mischievous smile. With two shawls wrapped up around me and a glass of vintage Italian wine,I was beginning to experience perfect bliss.

The handsome manager excused himself to attend to some regular patrons. My friends, who were non existent to me for a brief while, suddenly seemed lively and amusing entities.

The table looked beautiful with Italian wine, a cheese platter, some stir fried prawns, baby corn and mushrooms. I was giggling, laughing, drinking, eating – all at the same time. Amidst all this, there was something buzzing that caught my attention.

It was my cellphone! The number flashing on the screen of my phone was not known to me. And so, I did the usual, which is to ignore. The caller kept calling. I assumed it would stop sooner or later. But it did not. At this point in time, I was irritated and curious.

I decided to speak to the stranger who was desperately seeking my attention.

The desperate caller said, ‘Hello’.

I was patiently waiting for the caller to go on. She said, she was a journalist and, requested that I speak to her for a few minutes. I did not interrupt her.

She asked me how the experience of being a house inmate of Big Boss was.

I said, ‘Quite painful’.

She asked me to elaborate. I refused to do so as I did not want to revisit memories filled with hurt, pain, remorse and resentment.

I then took a piece of jumbo prawn from the platter which was staring at me for quite sometime. It felt as though it was saying to me, ‘Don’t just stare at me, try me. I’m worth it’. So, I put the jumbo prawn gently into my mouth.

While the prawn was still in my mouth,the journalist popped her next question, ‘Do you apply the human sperm on your face’?

I did not react. I thought I misunderstood her. I said with my mouth wide open, struggling to chew the prawn, ‘Whaaaaaat’?

She repeated her question. It was the same! How could it be the same!! Maybe, I was hearing strange things. Maybe this is what happens when one lives caged in a house away from civilization.

Just then, the prawn in my mouth slipped into my food pipe. I guess I must have swallowed it. My reaction was involuntary. It was truly beyond my control. Seeing me choke, my friends offered me water, wine, any liquid on the table that they could lay their hands on. I gulped my glass of wine, which was half full. I was feeling better now and was getting ready to continue my conversation with the journalist.

I said to her, ‘Ahhh….what do you mean exactly’?

She said that a new research analysis described the human sperm as the new age cure for acne, wrinkle and ageing problems. I was speechless.

I said, ‘Really’?

She said, ‘That’s right’.

I was clueless. Since when did human sperms become the new age cosmetic cream? Aren’t sperms meant for procreation? And, if the girl doesn’t wish to get pregnant and is not on birth control pills, the guy disposes the sperms in a condom, a trash bin, a toilet or any place else. At least, that's what I thought.

The journalist reminded me of the question again, as though, asking it once was not good enough. I panicked. I didn’t know what to say.

The only two options that were clearly visible to me were – ‘Yes, the research analysis is absolutely right. I have known this for quite sometime. I had severe acne during my teenage years. And I used my ex-boyfriend’s sperms. It worked! Trust me on that’ or, ‘ARE YOU CRAZY?????????’.

I could feel my heart beat faster. I was never, in my whole 25 years on Planet Earth ever asked a question as frightening as this. My hands reached into my handbag to look for some anti-anxiety pills which I seldom carry. There were none. I had to overcome this fear. Fear of what people think.

I said to her in a calm tone, ‘Are you kidding dear’?

Her answer was no. She asked me to be honest.

Honest?????? Didn’t she know honesty was not a virtue any more. Definitely not with something concerning human sperms!

I wanted to hang up on her right away. I had not planned on spending my evening thinking about sperms. That was certainly not why I visited my friends in Delhi.

I realized that I had to give an answer. Dumb, stupid, bold, intriguing, idiotic… … any kind that seemed like an answer. I started composing my thoughts to give an articulate response.

Behold, the words came out, ‘If human sperms are indeed better than any anti-wrinkle and anti-ageing creams or even better than botox, I shall use them; maybe not now, but surely after I cross 40. I hope I have a man in my life then with a healthy sperm count. It’s a great money saving scheme. Thank you’.

The journalist seemed quite pleased with the quote. She wished me good night without bothering me anymore. I was relieved.

I felt like a soldier returning victorious from the battle field. What a victory!! My friends waved at me from the buffet counter not knowing what the human sperms did to me during those fifteen minutes.

-Sherlyn Chopra