Song Sung Blue

After reading my last post I've realised I may have grown up.

I can remember a time when I thought Madonna was deep. She's got the look was poetry, True Blue moved me to tears, and anyone crooning I Love You in any musical note was heart-searing. I suppose I was deranged.


Yet, as I read my last post, I realise I may still be a sucker.

The lines that move me most in the Windmills of your Mind are

When you knew that it was over
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the colour of hair?

And my latest musical is obsession Johnny Cash singing One, where amongst other things, he wonders

Did I ask too much
More than a lot
You gave me nothing
Now it's all I got

Looks like all I have achieved is graduating from passion of love to love gone sour. I suppose I have a long way to grow up.

I have managed to acquire a writer's block without being a writer in the first place!

So instead of writing nonsense, let me just post one of favourite song lyrics: Windmills of your mind, penned byAlan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman for the original The Thomas Crown Affair. It's one of those numbers that leaves haunting images in my head.

If you are somehow not impressed (impossible!) by what you read ahead, be sure to listen to the song, and I'm sure you'll change your mind! With music by Michel Legrand, it has even won an Oscar. (Personally I prefer the original by Noel Harrison to Sting's version)

Round,
Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel,
Never ending on beginning,
On an ever-spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain,
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning
Running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on its face
And the world is like an apple
Spinning silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half-forgotten dream
Like the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream.
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on its face
And the world is like an apple
Spinning silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Keys that jingle in your pocket
Words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly?
Was it something that I said?
Lovers walk along a shore
And leave their footprints in the sand
Was the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of your hand?

Pictures hanging in a hallway
or the fragment of a song,
half-remembered names and faces
but to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair?

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever-spinning reel
As the images unwind
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Horn OK Please

There are times when I believe that you've to be born in a place to truly understand its spirit and become an integral part, a notion that is strengthened by movies that showcase Indians not quite fitting abroad, phrases such as ABCD, and of course, idiots such as Bush who spew nonsense about places they've never been to.

And then, every once in a while, I come across portrayals of India by foreigners who've researched the subject for barely a few months and yet hit the nail right on the head.

Check out this short movie 'Horn OK Please'. Directed by Joel Simon, a Belgian, it is inspired by his journey in Mumbai.

Njoy!

HORN OK PLEASE

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My husband hasn't spoken in the last three days. Initially, for a hopeful fleeting moment, I thought that I and and my brand new red hair and a kaaya facial must have left him speechless with delight. But no. Viruses apparently have greater influence on him than my face ever did.

Anyhow, since his throat is too congested for conversation, I have finally run out of distractions and reasons that have kept me away from my blog these past few weeks. I'm back, and ready to reopen the space with my tag commitment to The One, even though I really don't like the task he's dumped me with. "8 things about me" takes me straight back to the MBA/job interview preparation days, to one of the most irritating answers I had to mug up and vomit.

Nevertheless, here's a more honest version of those pretentious speeches:

Ek
I am not aggressive. My teachers may have lamented so, my friends may have hinted so, my colleagues may have commented so, and perhaps at some point in time I will have to start acceding that a 100-to-1 majority has the ring of something like truth to it. But as of now, I must say that I am not aggressive.

Do
I get along with kittens better than with children. It's not that I have anything against kids, but just that I've never figured out their wavelength nor how to converse with them. Mostly I just give them an uncertain smile and that pretty much brings an end to their interest in me.

Teen
Aishwarya Rai's pseudo-smile nauseates me and I am delighted that Umraao Jaan has all the promise of a flop. The only other woman who nauseates me even more is Ekta 'Balaji' Kapoor.

Char
I love speaking in a punju accent. I used to find it frightful, but ever since I moved out of India I find that way of talking too tantalising to resist. I still don't use it on the roads however, and talk like a true dehati only to the telly.

Paanch
I love make-up, and I love dressing up. So even if you think I've put nothing on my face and am under-dressed for an occassion when you meet me, chances are I've spent at least an hour in front of the mirror.

Chhey
I hate exercising. Luckily, I also hate most sweets.

Saat
I hate getting old so much that I am not above pretending about it. On my latest birthday last month (when I turned 28 :() I bought myself a cake that announced 'Sweet 16'. Of course, I may not look 16, but then, Aamir doesn't look like a college kid either and if Rang de Basanti can carry it off, then, ahem, then so can I.

Aath
I day-dream non-stop. My brain doesn't know what it is to be blank, so if I'm not working or problem-solving, then I'm definitely cooking up a movie starring myself in my head. Apparently, (I read somewhere) enacting stuff in your head can spur that stuff to happen in real life. So if I become a singer-actor-writer-diva, you know the secret behind it.

That's all.

I guess, after all, that I am not that artistic.

Last few movies that I've seen - all of them being the award-winning, criticially acclaimed variety - have left me quite untouched. Sure I sat through all of them, not entirely bored, and even admiring as the occassion demanded: the composition of frames here, the placement of a certain prop there, the depth of acting, the grace of certain dialogues - but that only goes on to show I was simply not engrossed enough to get lost in the movie and was instead analysing the technicalities in a detached fashion.

Of course, I defended them robustly to my lesser-pretentious half, who had declined to see some of these movies at all and gave up some more half-way. Unlike him, I persevered, intent on broadening my mind with these works of art, and impressing upon my husband and my myself just how discerning I was. So cool and oh! so refined.

But I guess it is time to give up.

Flattering though it is to have the DVD shop assistant handing me what I want with aplomb, diving right into his collection where he knows exactly where the coveted item is and handing it to me with a smile that only two people who care about the same thing can share - it is time to move on to other things less worthy.

It's not as if I love slapstick, but a doubt that I will ever understand just why The Dreamers is about innocence and not incestuous porn. And that can only mean one thing: I'm no high-brow.

Insomnia

Vipul and I recently completed seven years together, so I guess it was time I started getting the itch. Still, had not expected things to turn out so literally disconfitting! Past couple of weeks, have been feeling surprisngly like the princess in the fairytale that also stars the pea.

(For the forgetful, the story revolves around the real princess, proven to be real by the fact that she feels back-wrecking discomfiture from a single pea that rests below her bedding, a bedding that consists of 20 fat mattresses.)

Unfortunately, I can't even find that pea. Every few days or so, bouts of restlessness assail me in the morn and the weight of insomnia plagues me at night. As if something incomprehensible is nudging me to distraction. Nothing feels comfortable: the sofa's are too light, the floor too hard, the chairs unsufferably constricting, the matterss a big bore.... I feel like shedding my skin like a snake and slipping into something more comfortable and new. My body right now feels like an outfit two sizes too small, and as if I was doing yoga in it.

Fellow insomniacs may know what I mean. It's so frustrating!

The cuplprit is probably too match caffiene, or too little exercise. Anyhow, won't be surprised if I jump into meditation next for a cure. Pity, that unlike the parable, I have no royal blood nor riches to make up for the problem.

Munnabhai's mindblowing

I went to the hall last night praying for Arshad Warsi to get a lot of screen time. Hoping for a tight script without loose ends. Imagining the possibilities of jokes that weren't reruns. And surprise, surprise, I got it all!

Lage Raho Munnabhai is a superb potboiler that made me laugh non-stop, and I cannot remember the last time this happened to me in a Hindi movie in my adult life. Indeed, apart from Vidya Balan's ultra-long, reshammiya-voiced "Good Morniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing" the movie is simply perfect.

The story, smartly avoiding a pure duplication of Munnabhai MBBS, is the journey of Munna bhai (Sanjay Dutt) wooing his lady love Jahanvi (Vidya Balan). Helping him achieve his goal are mainly two men: one who inspires my heart :D - Circuit (Arshad Warsi), and another who inspires mine and thousands others' souls - Mahatma Gandhi. Full credit goes to the screenplay and dialogues of Rajkumar Hirani and Abhijat Joshi for marrying Gandhism flawlessly into the script; I love the way they use the serious theme without compromising on the humour, and ultimately manage to create an original, pacy script. Very impressive, especially against the backdrop of copycats that we have been getting lately.

Sanjay Dutt may look a tad old in the movie posters, nevertheless both he and his govinda-coloured-shirts shine through. He has certainly improved his performance in this sequel. Arshad Warsi and his gold chains too are better than ever. In fact, their team performance has convinced me to next have a peek at Anthony Kaun Hai so as to enjoy their chemistry yet again.

Also excellently matched are Boman Irani and his Punju accent. All in all, these three carry the movie on their shoulders to create a hilarious, vivacious, adorable, enthralling experience.

Clap Clap Clap

The inevitable has happened. I miss Minoo, the cat more than I miss Vipul, the husband.

Maybe it's simply because Vipul is home and therefore difficult to miss. Or maybe it is a sort of forbidden fruit syndrome: Vipul is ghar ki Murgi, living with me while Minoo belongs to someone else. Either way, the point is that my cat-sitting is over, she has been reclaimed and taken to her original home, and I'm musing over her idiosyncracies in my head.

It is strange to no longer be woken up by her vociferous mewing in the morning. Once Vipul's alarm had broken her sleep, Minoo ensured the we got up as well. Mostly she accomplished this by short bark-like meows, and sometimes through cajoling licks of her sandpapery tongue over my face. Either way, she started the day with the misconception that she was a dog and made my day start like a Nescafe coffee ad.

Of course, the rest of the day was as unlike a coffee ad as can be, coz it was as full of sleeping and lazing as can be. I have never done as much of nothing as I did in the past six weeks. Initially I'd thought that having a cat might inspire me to write out more stuff, but as is now clear, her yawns were far too influential to get anything at all done.

Still, I did get one thing accomplished, and that's a good load of snaps. I've pasted some on my blog before, and here's the final tranche:

Tagging along

Quicksilver has tagged me into a confessionary, so here goes:

I am thinking about...
... loopholes in my sugar-free diet. So far, it is clear that strawberry ice-cream counts as a serving of fruit

I said...
... "coochie poochie", "shweetie paee" and other nonsensical gibberish for the first time in my life last month. After years of holding baby-talk in contempt, I somehow succumbed during one-on-one quality time with my new cat.

I want to...
... stop this baby-talk before I let it slip in public and embarrass myself

I wish...
... humans had never evolved beyond apes

I hear...
... all sorts of gossip while pretending not to listen

I wonder...
... if people know I'm listening coz I've never caught anyone bitching about me red-handed

I regret...
... being a super-mean ice-queen to the first guy I had a crush on

I am...
... a wannabe atheist. What keeps me from becoming a full-fledged atheist is that I'm so angry with God, which by implication means I think he is there somewhere for me to be angry at.

I dance...
... sexily with women only

I sing...
... better after a few drinks

I cry...
... at the darndest moments. I bawled throughout My Fair Lady when I saw it the first time because I felt fo sorry for Audrey Hepburn, the flower-girl!

I am not always...
... the dictator my friends make me out to be

I make with my hand...
... really awful Sangria

I write...
... very corny poems on an anonymous blog

I confuse...
... directions like a prototype for stereotypical man-woman books

I need...
... more optimism, more creativity, more frequent partying, more toned-up abs, more happeninng life,... In short, I need to be 20 years old again :)

I tag...
... Amy, J, and N. Let's hear you spill some secrets!

I knew Indian organisations were thinking global like never before. But I guess I hadn't really reckoned just how much till I saw this in my newspaper today:
a medical college in Bijapur (???who's ever heard of such a place outside of a Bollywood movie!!) advertising to potential students in Hong Kong!




Nope, I wasn't reading some small-time paper targeted at the Indian minority abroad, but HK/China's mainstream english newspaper, South China Morning Post. Of course, knowing what pre-coffee mornings can be, for a few seconds after I saw the ad even I did wonder whether I'd lost my bearings and was actually sitting over damn old TOI.

Now I can well imagine what inspired this secluded place in Karnataka to want NRIs on its rolls, but what on earth makes them expect a response? Having never heard their name till date, I doubt their NRI hostel on Sholapur Road is filled chockablock. But hell, no business house affiliation (which a good number of small little medical schools across the counrty are) would waste money like this without reason. Any ideas?

The good thing about having women guests at home is that I get good excuses and great company to dress up with.

The bad part is that when we ask around how we look, we get standard replies. And I'm not talking about the universal "nice" and "no you don't look fat, you're just fine" statements.

"That bag is too Shabby" says my husband of almost every bag I pick up. Everything's either too shabby, or too frayed, or too old, or too used, or some such thing.

Is this, I imagine out loud, what he's going to tell me when I develop crow's feet, and laugh lines, and frown burrows, and patchy baldness after using my body another twenty years?

To which I'm told: Of course not! Those stand for character. They represent the life you've lived, the sorrows you've been through, the moments you've grown from... they're going to be souveniers that we'll treasure. (Ok so my husband didn't exactly say that, but Oprah probably did)

To which my point is that: if a shabby face is beautiful because of the life that lies behind it, then why not a frayed bag or a braised car or holed shoes? Why can't my man look beyond my Shabby Bag, and discover its amazing elegance and worldly-wisdom? And why can't he appreciate my dad's car's unrepaired dents and be impressed by its Houdini-like escapes? Why doesn't he go gaga over the WWF-ness of our chipped glass decoration pieces, and laugh at my clumsiness that they represent?

And while he's at it, any chance that he also expand his vocab beyond "nice" and "fine"???

update....

Last couple of weeks I was absent from the blogosphere for a very noble cause. I was busy helping the Hong Kong retail sector improve its performance. My sister, here on a visit from India, and I, did all we could to ensure that the shopping festival was a success. Visiting malls, eating out, buying stuff that looks good on mannequins today and will hopefully fit us by next summer, etc etc. It has been hectic, but now she's gone, and I'm back, and we're both broke.

Meanwhile, Minoo instead is alive and kicking, even if a tad forgetful. She talks via barks, and licks our feet, and sleeps on her back at times, and thus has clearly lost her identity along with the owner. But luckily she hasn't forgotten how to use the litter box, so I cannot complain!

She's five years old. And she's been sulking since morning, right from the time she entered my home. Not quite what I'd expected foster parenting to be - I mean, sure, I had excpected tantrums, and sobbing, and a distant stranger. But Minoo has come with a different set of stress symptoms atogether.

She's sneaked under the bed, and lodged herself between a high suitcase and the low bed panelling, and refuses to come out. She also refuses to eat or drink. It would have been a total crisis situation except for the fact that she does at least meow in conversation once in a while. And she lets herself be scratched with my outstretched hand after I slither my (nearly) three decades old body at ground level. Then she suddenly comes alive and maneouvres her head and neck so that I get the spots right. But that's about it.

I wonder how many more hours to go before she'll fell confident enough to venture out, and whether it will be possible to vaccum out her hair from our black bag when she does. I hope it happens before her five weeks at my place are up. For one thing, if she doesn't get back her spirit and enslave my husband soon, he may veto all my plans of adopting a cat by end of this year!

The Bill in me

Today I had excellent jam from breakfast, with compliments from Shangri La. They'd actually given their compliments a month ago, to my friend who was staying at their fancy hotel. But the freecycler in me couldn't let the cute little bottles of marmalade and honey get cleared away with the room breakfast when I visited her.

My friend encouraged me to pick the goodies and was glad to see her money recovered. (She would have picked them herself had they been sugar-free)
I don't think Shangri La cared.
But my husband, as usual, is the problem. He thinks this amounts to stealing. In fact, he thinks this everytime we are out on vacation when the magpie in me collects matchboxes and stationery with glee, therefore at those points of time he frowns as menacingly as he can, which given his lineless forehead, isn't half as scary as he imagines it to be. So I continue.

Besides, his opinion on morals doesn't carry water given that he's a banker. And not just any banker - but a banker working in credit derivatives. For the uninformed, let me just say that Warren Buffet considers what he sells "time bomb"s. Me thinks his snooty highness finds two-dollar robberies beneath contemplation and would be quite delighted if I stole the whole Shangri La itself.

Anyhow, his opinion is quite dwarfed by a celebrity endorsesment I have just uncovered. The marvellously funny Bill Bryson, whose 'Notes from a small island' I am currently reading, candidly reveals his pocketing at an expensive hotel. I am a bit dubious about his being as Scroogy as he sets himself to be in the rest of the pages, [given how rich fans such as me must have made him], but in any case, it is nice to knaow that I and Bill have at least one thing in common. And I intend to keep it that way.

I've always hated weddings. Even back in school I can recall trying to wriggle out of attending ceremonies that my parents were invited to. Partly of course coz teenagers are embarrassed to be anywere in the visible radius of thir folks. But largely because I found them depressing - always ended up feeling sorry for the brides in question. How could I not feel pity for someone whose face was doused in Red lipstick, Red bindi, Red eye-shadow, Red cheek blush, and Red in every other remaining nook and corner as well. And just in case the beautician had missed a spot on the visage, her embarassment and glaring stage lights were enough to cover the remains, also in Red. What a way to begin a new life, I would think, and almost weep.

Thankfully I was young, and could easily avoid most occassions by pretending to be in the thick of studies and narrowly avoiding failure in the next exam. It worked like a charm right through school and college, and even university. But it hardly sufficed against the big daddy of them all - my own matrimonial marathon.

As expected, I look as Red as Christmas. Resembled a witch straight out of a bloodbath. [Somehow, my husband thinks I look cute as a doll, but then he has strange tastes, Or he's a liar, Or deeply blinded by love. whatever]

I would show you the snaps, but I don't enjoy writing lengthy disclaimers for heart patients. Plus I don't have the pics with me any longer. They're housed in my parents' place, where I intend to keep them despite their protests. They wanted the wedding. They can keep the snaps. I wanted the marriage. I'll keep the husband.

Ghosts

Today is dedicated to the reading my old diaries. To the hundreds of good looking guys that littered Delhi's streets when I was young and hormoneful. To the thousands of times I fell in love with at first glance, and out of love two weeks later. To the mllions of times I felt that it was the best day of my life.

It's just that I am unpacking my bags for my new house. And in the middle of the mess is my box of memories - useless stuff such as old movie tickets, college rock show entrance cards, school uniform remains, pages from diaries - useless stuff, yet priceless... all souveniers of a time when I was really alive. When everything, just everything, mattered. When every smile could be dissected into a thousand meanings ('He likes Me!', 'How dare he sneer!'. 'I am super duper funny!', or as was most often, 'He is so Sweeeeeet!') Yes, every feeling had an exclamation mark, every mood was heady, and there was nothing that inspired nothing. Life was a Bollywood movie. An inconsequential Helen-Sridevi-Jeetendra movie maybe, but a movie nevertheless.

Here's a scrap of something I then wrote:

Speak those words
that your eyes say
everytime you look at me
After all,
it is just a metter a time
before you cease to look at me
and I cease to understand your silence

Coz that's what always happens -
Things end.

So say something,
coz words I can remember
and words can soothe,
but memories blur and fade away,
and tomorrow I will not believe
in what I think I saw today


Interesting in hindsight, (and enchanting when you are living them), how chemicals irridescently colour our world. And funny even how "adolescence is the most difficult period of your life" according to my mom, but it is the most beautiful. So wonderfully exaggerated, so brimming with emotion.

I would gladly live that madness again.

movie: Fanaa

In keeping with the promise held out by its promos, Fanaa is pathetic. And for bonus, it is corny too.

Sure, you would think that an Aamir 'Choosy' Khan movie must have something to redeem itself. And a Kajol comeback has got to count for something. But no.

The movie, for all creative purposes, was probably made ten years ago. It has every obsolete formula of that era: from silly dialogues that no one ever mouths in real life, to love at first sight for no reason whatsoever with a roadside Romeo who aims vulgar pick-up lines, to dream sequqnces that include dancing in sleeveless dresses on snow.

Hence, only if you're nostalgic for those days (why??) as well as obsessed with the star couple (in which case you probably left my page after the first line) will you enjoy the movie.

Of course, Aamir and Kajol, as always, act well. But sometimes that is not enough. To start with: Aamir. He has been given many names and a half-baked role where he's half psycho controlled by a grand-dad, and half street-side Romeo. And for a good part of the movie he decides to seduce the audience, against all common sense, with ghastly couplets. Most of these four-liners resemble PJs that we used to laugh at in middle school. Unfortunately, I've graduated since then. What's worse, some of the disasterous cliches are repeated every now and then in the couple's reverie.

And then there's Kajol: who laughs and laughs and struts and smiles at the camera, and then some more. And the director, as if he were still unsure that we hadn't got the point of what a great catch he had made in signing her and how beautiful she still is post-kids, goes on to put "subhan-allah" in the background music.

But let us move on beyond he main characters of the movie. After all, Fanaa, apart from its leads also guest-stars Shiney Ahuja, Lillete Dubey, Kirron Kher, Jaspal Bhatti, and many more - essentially just about anyone that director Kunal Kohli could manage to get on board. Definitely a good strategy for cost cutting, especially if it generates as little revenue as I'm guessing it will.

More importantly, the few laughs that the movie generates - yes it does manage some - are all thanks to the guest appearances and smaller characters. Especially good is a young boy introduced in the movie. Unfortunately, he too is forced by the script writer to repeat the same lines ad nauseum, what a pity.

The last hope one may have had - from songs penned by Prasoon Joshi - are lousy in timing and boring in melody, with one even having ambitions of 'lakdi ki kaathi' (but it fails easily just like its brethren).

Easily one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time, and fanaa-ed by a really really bad script.

Things that make you Grrrrrrrrr

If you want to kick Arjun Singh but don't know how, read this transcript of Karan Thapar interviewing him. You still wouldn't have kicked him, but will at least have the pleasure of smirking at him and his moronic, brainless replies. Moreover, his spinelessness may give you the added ingredient you need to get really enraged and go kick some butt.


Karan Thapar: Most of the people would accept that steps are necessary to help the OBCs gain greater access to higher education. The real question is: Why do you believe that reservations is the best way of doing this?

Arjun Singh: I wouldn't like to say much more on this because these are decisions that are taken not by individuals alone. And in this case, the entire Parliament of this country - almost with rare unanimity - has decided to take this decision.

Karan Thapar: Except that Parliament is not infallible. In the Emergency, when it amended the Constitution, it was clearly wrong, it had to reverse its own amendments. So, the question arises: Why does Parliament believe that the reservation is the right way of helping the OBCs?

Arjun Singh: Nobody is infallible. But Parliament is Supreme and at least I, as a Member of Parliament, cannot but accept the supremacy of Parliament.

Karan Thapar: No doubt Parliament is supreme, but the Constitutional amendment that gives you your authorities actually enabling amendment, it is not a compulsory requirement. Secondly, the language of the amendment does not talk about reservations, the language talks about any provision by law for advancement of socially and educationally backward classes. So, you could have chosen anything other than reservations, why reservations?

Arjun Singh: Because as I said, that was the 'will and desire of the Parliament'.

Karan Thapar: Do you personally also, as Minister of Human Resource Development, believe that reservations is the right and proper way to help the OBCs?

Arjun Singh: Certainly, that is one of the most important ways to do it.

Karan Thapar: The right way?

Arjun Singh: Also the right way.

Karan Thapar: In which case, lets ask a few basic questions. We are talking about the reservations for the OBCs in particular. Do you know what percentage of the Indian population is OBC? Mandal puts it at 52 per cent, the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) at 32 per cent, the National Family and Health Survey at 29.8 per cent, which is the correct figure?

Arjun Singh: I think that should be decided by people who are more knowledgeable. But the point is that the OBCs form a fairly sizeable percentage of our population.

Karan Thapar: No doubt, but the reason why it is important to know 'what percentage' they form is that if you are going to have reservations for them, then you must know what percentage of the population they are, otherwise you don't know whether they are already adequately catered to in higher educational institutions or not.

Arjun Singh: That is obvious - they are not.

Karan Thapar: Why is it obvious?

Arjun Singh: Obvious because it is something which we all see.

Karan Thapar: Except for the fact that the NSSO, which is a government appointed body, has actually in its research in 1999 - which is the most latest research shown - that 23.5 per cent of all university seats are already with the OBCs. And that is just 8.5 per cent less than what the NSSO believes is the OBC share of the population. So, for a difference of 8 per cent, would reservations be the right way of making up the difference?

Arjun Singh: I wouldn't like to go behind all this because, as I said, Parliament has taken a view and it has taken a decision, I am a servant of Parliament and I will only implement.

Karan Thapar: Absolutely, Parliament has taken a view, I grant it. But what people question is the simple fact - Is there a need for reservations? If you don't know what percentage of the country is OBC and if, furthermore, the NSSO is correct in pointing out that already 23.5 per cent of the college seats are with the OBC, then you don't have a case in terms of need.

Arjun Singh: College seats, I don't know.

Karan Thapar: According to the NSSO - which is a government appointed body - 23.5 per cent of the college seats are already with the OBCs.

Arjun Singh: What do you mean by college seats?

Karan Thapar: University seats, seats of higher education.

Arjun Singh: Well, I don't know I have not come across that so far.

Karan Thapar: So, when critics say to you that you don't have a case for reservation in terms of need, what do you say to them?

Arjun Singh: I have said what I had to say and the point is that that is not an issue for us to now debate.

Karan Thapar: You mean the chapter is now closed?

Arjun Singh: The decision has been taken.

Karan Thapar: Regardless of whether there is a need or not, the decision is taken and it is a closed chapter.

Arjun Singh: So far as I can see, it is a closed chapter and that is why I have to implement what all Parliament has said.

Karan Thapar: Minister, it is not just in terms of 'need' that your critics question the decision to have reservation for OBCs in higher education. More importantly, they question whether reservations themselves are efficacious and can work.

For example, a study done by the IITs themselves shows that 50 per cent of the IIT seats for the SCs and STs remain vacant, and for the remaining 50 per cent, 25 per cent are the candidates who even after six years fail to get their degrees. So, clearly, in their case, reservations are not working.

Arjun Singh: I would only say that on this issue, it would not be correct to go by all these figures that have been paraded.

Karan Thapar: You mean the IIT figures themselves could be dubious?

Arjun Singh: Not dubious, but I think that is not the last word.

Karan Thapar: All right, maybe the IIT may not be the last word, let me then quote to you the report of the Parliamentary Committee on the welfare for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes - that is a Parliamentary body.

It says, that looking at the Delhi University, between 1995 and 2000, just half the seats for under-graduates at the Scheduled Castes level and just one-third of the seats for under-graduates at the Scheduled Tribes level were filled. All the others went empty, unfilled. So, again, even in Delhi University, reservations are not working.

Arjun Singh: If they are not working, it does not mean that for that reason we don't need them. There must be some other reason why they are not working and that can be certainly probed and examined. But to say that for this reason, 'no reservations need to be done' is not correct.

Karan Thapar: Fifty years after the reservations were made, statistics show, according to The Hindustan Times, that overall in India, only 16 per cent of the places in higher education are occupied by SCs and STs. The quota is 22.5 per cent, which means that only two-thirds of the quota is occupied. One-third is going waste, it is being denied to other people.

Arjun Singh: As I said, the kind of figures that have been brought out, in my perception, do not reflect the realities. Realities are something much more and, of course, there is an element of prejudice also.

Karan Thapar: But these are figures that come from a Parliamentary Committee. It can't be prejudiced; they are your own colleagues.

Arjun Singh: Parliamentary Committee has given the figures, but as to why this has not happened, that is a different matter.

Karan Thapar: I put it to you that you don't have a case for reservations in terms of need, you don't have a case for reservations in terms of their efficacy, why then, are you insisting on extending them to the OBCs?

Arjun Singh: I don't want to use that word, but I think that your argument is basically fallacious.

Karan Thapar: But it is based on all the facts available in the public domain.

Arjun Singh: Those are facts that need to be gone into with more care. What lies behind those facts, why this has not happened, that is also a fact.

Karan Thapar: Let’s approach the issue of reservations differently in that case. Reservations mean that a lesser-qualified candidate gets preference over a more qualified candidate, solely because in this case, he or she happens to be an OBC. In other words, the upper castes are being penalised for being upper caste.

Arjun Singh: Nobody is being penalised and that is a factor that we are trying to address. I think that the Prime Minister will be talking to all the political parties and will be putting forward a formula, which will see that nobody is being penalised.

Karan Thapar: I want very much to talk about that formula, but before we come to talk about how you are going to address concerns, let me point one other corollary: Reservations also gives preference and favour to caste over merit. Is that acceptable in a modern society?

Arjun Singh: I don't think the perceptions of modern society fit India entirely.

Karan Thapar: You mean India is not a modern society and therefore can't claim to be treated as one?

Arjun Singh: It is emerging as a modern society, but the parameters of a modern society do not apply to large sections of the people in this country.

Karan Thapar: Let me quote to you Jawaharlal Nehru, a man whom you personally admire enormously. On the 27th of June 1961 wrote to the Chief Ministers of the day as follows: I dislike any kind of reservations. If we go in for any kind of reservations on communal and caste basis, we will swamp the bright and able people and remain second-rate or third-rate. The moment we encourage the second-rate, we are lost. And then he adds pointedly: This way lies not only folly, but also disaster. What do you say to Jawaharlal Nehru today?

Arjun Singh: Jawaharlal Nehru was a great man in his own right and not only me, but everyone in India accept his view.

Karan Thapar: But you are just about to ignore his advice.

Arjun Singh: No. Are you aware that it was Jawaharlal Nehru who introduced the first amendment regarding OBCs?

Karan Thapar: Yes, and I am talking about Jawaharlal Nehru in 1961, when clearly he had changed his position, he said, “I dislike any kind of reservations”.

Arjun Singh: I don't think one could take Panditji's position at any point of time and then overlook what he had himself initiated.

Karan Thapar: Am I then to understand that regardless of the case that is made against reservations in terms of need, regardless of the case that has been made against reservations in terms of efficacy, regardless of the case that has been made against reservations in terms of Jawaharlal Nehru, you remain committed to extending reservations to the OBCs.

Arjun Singh: I said because that is the will of Parliament. And I think that common decisions that are taken by Parliament have to be honoured.


[taken from IBN Live. You can catch both the transcript and the video on this page]

Let's weep

Yesterday was two years since the UPA government came to power
It also marks two years of me making excuses for Manmohan Singh

When he took the oath, under the order/benevolence of Sonia Gandhi, I and a good part of India developed expectations. Sure, we didn't think he could perform miracles with a fractured government, but we did think he would stand his ground on what he thought right, and while we didn't think he would race in the right directions, we did look forward to baby-steps.

What a disappointment. The budgets have been useless. The fringe benefit tax, a trivial and idiotic nuisance, remains stubbornly enacted. The communist parties throws a tantrum over EVERYTHING - and usually gets its way. Ordinary people can scream and rant all they want on the streets - be it the Narmada Bachao Aandolan activists, or the striking doctors - but our man doesn't listen or respond.

I, for one, am sick of saying "Oh but he doesn't have the decision making power really", "He'll fix it later, for sure", "What can he do? The Left is arm-twisting him", etc etc etc

It is time for me to take the blinkers off and put the blame where the responsibility lies - at the shoulders of our Prime Minister. Which is just so sad - because now there is not a single person in the political community I can think of who can offer even a sliver of hope as an able anchor.

Just another rainy Sunday

Hong Kong skies have a horrid habit of weeping at weekends. If you stay here long enough, it can be quite depressing. All dark, dingy and sloppy. But I haven't entered that phase, not yet. Plus, I am too lazy to have ventured out today anyway, and instead had a good time pretending to be a photographer. Here goes: