Cupid stupid !

By Manish Anand

The world dreams of love, as it’s scarce. The government can not ration it, as its beyond rules.

Few days ago one of my friends called me, as he wanted to come to my place. He was at my place before I reached, and was struck to see him.

The face was dull as if being soaked in too much of tears, the eyes swollen as if he had not slept even the bare minimum, and the beard sprouting in wild ways. He presented himself a broke. I did not lose much time to know his trouble. Let’s give him a fictitious name -- Sameer.

After settling down, I asked what the matter is. “Boss, she is not picking up my call. I have not slept for two days, and had been calling her for hours.”

Sameer had always been shy with me. So, it was unexpected that he opened his heart. I was not able to concentrate, as my thoughts were too preoccupied with the losses suffered in the stock market in the day.

“It was she who was desperate to have a relation with me. I did not take initiative. Now, after I spent two years with her she says that she is no more interested in me.”

“She was in Class XI when she started calling me. I always told her that she was 10 years younger, so the relation could not be feasible. Despite that she kept calling me always and at last I said yes.” Sameer taught in a coaching institute, where this girl had studied.

So what went wrong, I ask. “Now, she is in an engineering college, where she is having crushes on a couple of guys. She says she wants to be free from me.”

“Then leave her, as I don’t think you force someone in love,” I gave my wise advice.

“How can I leave her, I have spent two years with her. I fulfilled all her needs. Whenever she asked me to recharge her mobile pre-paid card, I did. I dropped her home, whenever she asked for. She used to call me all evening and I talked to her all night despite having classes in the morning.”

He had lost his father last year, and I had not seen so much of pain in him even at that time. My monosyllabic advices had no takers. Meanwhile, another friend dropped in. Let’s call him Vijay.
Vijay has always been short in having free time, as his girl friend has no other work in the world than to call him. He sensed the matter without wasting much time, and told him that he better get off from all such affairs!

To add strength to his sermons, Vijay told him that he wished his girlfriend left him so that he could be free. “But she says she would commit suicide, if I left her,” Vijay said with his chest curling in an awkward manner.

“I would not leave her,” Sameer repeated.

The dinner in the meantime was ready and after eating my heart out I signed off from the love-gone-haywire story.

The next day was my weekly off from my job. But I was not blessed with my best vocation in the world – sleeping. Sameer had come again. He was fresh and looked energetic. He had a story to tell. Journalists are always interested in a new story, not the old and stale ones.

“I taught her a lesson,” he chukled in with the smoke coming quite forcefully from his rather twisted mouth.

What did you do? I was little concerned. “I went to her college. I asked her to come out, after which she came out with friends.” He was taking too long time to tell the story. “When she came to me I caught hold of her. I started kissing her, while her friends looked on.” Sameer is 32-year-old, and his acts looked too daring for his age.

“She ran away to her friends, protesting my getting close to her. So, I drove near her friends, and again caught hold of her.”

He was breathing too deeply, giving a sense that he had pride in what he did. “She asked me to sit in the car, feeling embarrassed for my acts, promising that she would join me in the car. I obeyed, and she sat in the car, after which I kept roaming on Delhi’s roads.”

Sameer wanted to live his moments and relished his exploits with much heavier puffs.

“I kicked her out of the car right in the middle of the road after an hour of driving here and there, saying the she was free from me now. She started crying how she would go home, after which I threw four five-hundred notes at her. She did not pick the notes, but I kicked her out and sped away.” Baap re, what happened to the man’s chivalry?, I chuckled.

“She had been calling me since then, and now I refuse to pick her calls.”

Why did you throw her out? “She said that she was getting crushes on few guys, and I was too old for her now.” These were the words after which Sameer stopped his car near a flyover.

“Now, I am relived. I have taken my revenge. It was I who said no to her after she said that she could revive the relationship if I granted her the freedom to talk to the college boys and have an affair with one of them.”

Blasts, encounters, arrests and questions...

By Manish Anand

Like a jigsaw puzzle, the questions related to Delhi serial blasts and its consequences seem to have been cracked. An encounter followed by arrests of so many suspects one by one must add to the sheen of the cops, and most importantly to the much battered home minister Shivraj Patil.

If the claim of the police is true of having cracked the case of the Delhi serial blasts and other similar blasts in other cities, the heartiest congratulation goes to the cops. But in a free and democratic society, people have all the right to raise questions, which should not be brushed aside by authorities.

The police must have been forthcoming with the postmortem reports of its officer M C Sharma along with the slain accused of the terror blasts. The ballistic report along with the postmortem reports of all the dead in the Friday encounter at Batla House can put to rest all speculative stories doing rounds in the capital about the way the shoot-out happened.

Why one of the slain accused had more than five bullet marks on skull and top of the shoulder along with how Sharma got the fatal hits are the questions that must be credibly answered to put to rest doubts doing rounds in the narrow lanes of Jamia Nagar. Also, why Sharma had to be helped to walk after being hit, with no back-up force available to reach him to the nearest hospital which is within the radius of one kilometer of the spot of the deadly encounter.

Unauthentic stories will only harm the interests of security agencies, and care must be taken to ensure that non-suspects are not detained as a fallout of collateral damage. The arrests in Mumbai along with raids in Azamgarh, which if the reports are to be believed is turning out to be breeding ground of home-grown terror, have taken place quite fast. The police could be having a water-tight case against the accused, and if it's so all the states should act at the same speed to smash the remaining terror modules in the country.

But if the claims of the cops come untrue at any point of time, the Delhi encounter will become too big a blot to erase.

The cost of being Incredibly callous: Blasts after blasts

By Manish Anand

Delhi saw another macabre dance of deaths on Saturday. The politicos again appealed people to be calm and peaceful. The terror mail sent to media again made fun of Indian intelligence agencies. The incredibly incompetent Home Minister Shivraj Patil visited the blast spots and "reassured" his cops that the incompetency in the system flows from the top. The deaths of the innocents are "learning experiences" for this minister and his callous department. But Patil is too old to learn the siege within the nation.

It was only in 2005 that Delhi was ripped apart with the triple Diwali blasts. Three years later Delhi's pain is shared by Bangalore, Jaipur, Ahmedabad...The 2005 blast case is not yet cracked. The 60,000 strong Delhi Police remains clueless on how to protect the capital city of 17 million. They have to thank the rag-pickers', who found three more live bombs in Delhi, for saving people's lives.

"Right to Life" is a fundamental right under the Constitution of India. It's in the holy book only, to put it straight. The onlookers at the blast spot in the GK's M-Block market said people have started avoiding market places on the weekends for the fear of terror blasts. The people now live in fear. The trust in the security agencies has gone. Though we desist from the blamegame, the "why" can not be ignored. And this "why" can not be answered, because Patil can not own his shameful incompetency.

The siege within the nation is getting more palpable. The muslims have not risen to the challenge to crush the seed of the terror within their community. The primary onus lies with the community to co-ordinate with the local police. No explanations will suffice for them being a mute spectator. Already whispers within the software industry is doing the rounds to curb the entry of muslims, after the suspect mastermind of the terror attacks turned out to be a techie. It must be nipped in the bud before the siege within the nation further deepens.

Mr Patil, can you please make ways for any man worth his salt, as your callousness has already taken too many lives. Thanks very much for your services, now please move out for God's sake.

Now, deliver on dreams

By Manish Anand

So, the deal is done. Now, it's time to deliver on the dreams sold (successfully or unsuccessfully)to the people. The NSG waiver for Indo-US nuclear deal, "snatched" with the Big Brother using arm-twisting to the perfection, gives India the opportunities to source critical nuclear technology from all over the world.

In 20 years time, India's dependence on oil should cease. The largest network of the trains in the world must run on nuclear power. India must contribute significantly in the process of reducing carbon emission, notwithstanding the arguments of the developing world. The industry must get round the clock power at affordable rate. The nuclear power should not come at a price that consumers find hard to buy them, as Rs 16 a unit at the current rate and much higher 20 years down the line would break the bone of the consumers. The nuclear energy must be indigenised at the highest possible level.

I had been critical of the Indo-US nuclear deal in my posts. But I do not hold to the views that with this deal India would not be able to protect Iran from US's bullying tactics. For India, India should be important. The romantic world views of the JL Nehru practiced by the successive governments led India nowhere. The country is badly hemmed in with the hostile neighbours China, Pakistan, Bangladesh which will soon get the company of Nepal also. India must assert itself.

The euphoria of the proponents of the deal that India got it without signing the Non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) is all eyewash. The deal along with its auxiliary appendage has got India to accept both NPT and CTBT. Not much harm in that, by the way.But the nuclear commerce and the resultant strategic relations must be multilateral and should not be just US specific. India is irrevocable integrated with the US economically and it is both ways. The business interests of the two countries will ensure the safety of the deal, but it must be matured at the highest political level. This would come only if India becomes economically, politically and militarily strong.

The fear of India becoming a banana countries was too sadistic but the political sovereignty of the country needs to be redressed and the country must state convincingly that it will not provide help to any of the military pursuits of the US anywhere.The next decade looks too exciting with the country showing signs of growing out of the old fatigues.

Discredited polity !

By Manish Anand

Indian polity stands discredited, with the leakage of the letter of the US President George W Bush to the Congress, which is purportedly in variance with what the Indian Parliament has been told by the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on the Indo-US nuclear deal. The Congress led UPA has to face the charge of discrediting the Indian polity. Dr Manmohan Singh had staked his personal prestige to the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Even before the NSG takes a final call in giving the clean waiver to India for nuclear commerce, the Prime Minister faces the threat of misleading tha nation and he must come clean on the damaging reports which have come in the media on the issue.

Is it worth pursuing a multi-billion dollar deal which can be jeopardised at the subjective assessment of the US? Who will take care of the nuclear plants lying idle for want of supply of fuel?

The UPA is falsely boasting the support of the majority of the Indians for the deal by cobbling up more "ayes" than the "nos" during the trust vote on July 22. It "bought" at least a dozen MPs, with its surprising new friend Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh doing the "dirty" job by buying out the opposition MPs. The world saw that the MPs were on sale but the PM was in all hurry to wrap up the deal.

The madness struck Congress is even making this Indo-US nuclear deal a poll issue in the forthcoming general elections with all disregard to the sanity of the popular elections. Did Congress win a single elections on the basis of Rajiv Gandhi heralding the computer revolution? This government had much bigger crisis to handle than to single-mindedly pursuing this Indo-US nuclear deal, which promises Dr Singh and his coterie a place on the "high table", as told by Bush to Singh.

Every Prime Minister must have a legacy to be remembered is the oft repeated rationale given by the political pundits for the passion of Singh for this deal. He could have left much bigger legacy if he had found a permanent solution to the ravages of the river Kosi which has left 2.5 million people in Bihar homeless. This deal must pass through the objective test of the Parliament, which is definitely not through by winning over Amar Singh and getting the saleable MPs on its side.

The Parliament session must be convened at the earliest to seek a fresh mandate or rather let it wait for the next government to make a call.

Indian polity was never so discredited as it's today. Do we feel more pride after the "cash for vote" scandal and brandishing of green notes embossed with Mahatma Gandhi's picture on them in the Parliament. Certainly not!