South Asia Daily

It is time to banish “There is no magic wand”

This does not exist

Here is an expression that ought to be banished from public use: “There is no magic wand.” The latest politician (which makes him Number 205 billionth) to use it is India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He has said there is no magic wand to eliminate corruption.

Politicians say “there is no magic wand” as if they have tried their hardest to look for one but couldn’t find it. Their tone would suggest barely hidden anguish that there is actually no magic wand and they have the onerous duty to report the tragic finding of their quest to the suckers at large like us. Why do people talk about a magic wand as if it can actually exist? At this point, on a Sunday morning at 5.55 a.m. CST, I cannot think of a more pointless pronouncement in public discourse.

You can blame that bile on the deliciously odd ice cream flavor of lemon and ginger cookies that I had last night. I suspect only someone with a magic wand could have confected that. Speaking of confectionaries, I am thinking of Rahul Gandhi, the man currently in charge of the befuddled Congress Party. If there ever was a perfect opportunity to display one’s political skills, it is now. A cause that ought to have been championed by the 41-year-old Gandhi has instead been grabbed by someone 33 years his senior. Let’s just hope that there is some profoundly smart strategy behind Gandhi’s copyrighted reticence.

If I were Gandhi, here is what I would say publicly: “We consider Anna Hazare and his supporters not to be our adversaries but as fellow Indians who have nothing but the country’s larger good at heart. Contrary to popular perceptions, we have reached out and seriously engaged them in our endeavor to craft a powerful and sensible Lokpal Bill. However, as a constitutional democracy, which has stood us in good stead for the past six and half decades, it behooves us to let that very constitutional democracy come up with a bill we can all agree on. We ought to be mindful that in our zeal to create an institution like a Lokpal because certain quarters of society believe that to be the ultimate antidote to corruption, we do not upend our robust constitutional democracy. As a young man who has as much stake in ending corruption as the movement led by Hazare, I want to assure you that I am equally committed to creating a Lokpal.”

The ruling Congress Party has failed to offer a credible counterweight to Hazare in order to underscore its own commitment to ending corruption. It is true that when it comes to corruption in all its ugliness the urban middle class, a section of which has rallied behind Hazare, sees the party as its fountainhead. So there may be a problem in not just the messaging but even the messenger.

Notwithstanding that the party has to find ways to showcase something that proves to the contrary. Here Sonia and Rahul Gandhi have displayed colossal failure in not highlighting two important pieces that illustrate institutional seriousness to address the problem of corruption that the Singh government can legitimately claim to have successfully espoused.

The Right to Information (RTI) Act and the Universal Identity (UID) project will not in and of themselves end corruption but are solid examples of seriousness of purpose. In a constitutional democracy all instruments of state have to act in tandem to make a positive difference. Granted that it is often a painfully slow process but the way to redress it is not creating a Lokpal with the authority to override all the other legitimate instruments of democracy.

There are serious philosophical disagreements in the way Hazare and his supporters want to deal with it and the way the government wants to deal with it. Neither side need feel upset and sulk because they have philosophical disagreements. There is some merit to the popular argument that creating a Lokpal cannot be an open-ended parliamentary debate for decades. Equally, it is unrealistic to draw a line in the sand and say thus far and no further. It is not all that shocking that Members of Parliament (MPs) feel a sense of ownership when it comes to legislating. But it would be foolish to reduce this to a turf war where MPs say no one else can enter their territory and the so-called civil society threatens to tear the gates down.

There is no option but a negotiated Lokpal Bill within a reasonable timeframe, which may not mean at 2.22 p.m. on August 22 but it must also not mean 2012. Let’s get this done before the year runs out. Since Rajiv Gandhi means so much to the Congress Party, it could have done the unabashedly political thing of having his son announce on his 67th birth anniversary yesterday a specific timeline to conclude the Lokpal Bill debate.

On a separate note, the Hazare-led movement reminds me somewhat of the intransigent impatience of the Tea Party movement in America. Of course, what informs the Tea Party here is not comparable at all to what is going on in India but in so much as it means a section of the fiercely voluble middle class is successfully setting the larger political agenda, there are certain similarities. More on that some other day.

For a Sunday morning this is far too earnest.

Air punch and Meena Kumari

Profound existential questions often take a lot of my thinking time. Profound existential questions such as who invented the air punch. You know the way athletes triumphantly punch air after scoring a particularly difficult point.

After intensive research I think I have cracked this one. The air punch was pioneered by the choreographer of the 1960 movie ‘Dil Apna Aur Preet Parai’. Unfortunately, I have not been able to track down the choreographer’s name. So let us, for the sake of convenience, attribute it to Meena Kumari.

Since I never make claims of such far reaching academic consequences without irrefutable documentary evidence I have furnished the short clip above. Excuse the quality of the video because I shot it using my webcam from YouTube in order to get just the relevant bit and then reload it on YouTube.

‘Mera dil ab tera’, the terrific song in which the air punch occurred was composed by the ever melodious Shankar Jaikishan. As you can see Meena Kumari punches air and then spins around. So sure am I of my work that I am thinking of doing my doctoral thesis on this.

If you think coming up with such breakthroughs is easy, give it a shot. It takes decades of observing utterly useless things (which pretty much means everything in life) and connecting them into a cohesive pattern. Even if I say so myself, this is a job well done.

A season of hyperbole

Even during normal times hyperbole is in excess in India. These days, when a section of the country has convinced itself that a moral revolution is underway,  it has breached the floodgates.

The urbane dramatis personae of this moral revolution tell us how we must feel as the rural man who is leading it, Anna Hazare, struggles with his fractured eloquence and groping articulation.

“It is for the first time that the people of this country are feeling empowered,” Shanti Bhushan, a former law minister who is a key member of the core team, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

“They are feeling that we are no longer slaves. We are citizens of a free country. Our voice carries importance.”

Really, Mr. Bhushan? Slaves?  People are feeling that they are “no longer slaves”? Also, are they feeling empowered for the first time? I know that you are caught in a moment these days but for the sake of objectivity, we surely lived in a reasonably well defined nation-state before the moral revolution began. If hyperbole stood naked and jerked off  many of them wouldn't know.

The basic theme of removing corruption from public life that is fueling the Hazare-led movement is uncontestable and unexceptionable. India is by any measure a profoundly corrupt country which directly affects ordinary people every day. It is as rampant as it is entrenched. What is deeply disturbing is that for long there has been cultural tolerance/acceptance of corruption as a way of life. 

Somehow the Hazare-led protest has successfully cast this debate as a corrupt political class versus civil society issue when, in fact, such a distinction is artificial. The political class, after all, has emerged from the same civil society and is aware of how much it would tolerate in terms of egregious conduct.  That said, we do run the risk of creating a false equivalency between those in power who resort to corruption because they can and those who have to enable or acquiesce to it because very often they have no other choice or, if they do have other choices, they are so prohibitively expensive in terms of time and money that they make no practical sense.

Unless the anti-corruption movement becomes as much about the so-called civil society cleansing the political class of corruption as it is about ridding itself of corruption as well, this would be nothing more than theatrics. Until then Messers Anupam Kher and Chetan Bhagat would continue to dazzle us with their junior high school level erudition and formulations.

The plausible trumps the credible in politics

I suspect that when someone in India’s ruling Congress Party invokes the much dreaded “foreign hand” to be behind the current middleclass ferment against corruption they are doing it not because it is credible but because it is plausible. In politics the plausible always trumps the credible.

Innuendos work because someone, somewhere believes in them. And that is what politicians want, someone, somewhere to believe in them.

Congress party spokesperson Rashid Alvi has been quoted as saying, "(The) US never supported any movement in India since its independence. For the first time, the US said that Anna Hazare's movement should be allowed and there should be no obstruction to it. What was the need for the US to give this statement?”

"It needs to be considered whether there is any power which is supporting this movement which wants to destabilize not only the government but the country. We need to take the statement of the US seriously."

As a party which has been in existence for 126 years the Congress understands the value of occasionally circulating conspiracy theories. They know that in a country as big and as diverse as India there is bound to be some receptivity to conspiracy theories. The benchmark for believability is kept deliberately low in such matters. They just want to put it out in case a need arose. The purpose is not to say something that will be pass the muster of strong, rational scrutiny but float a bit of a teaser.

While in the 1970s and 1980s, during the rule of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, “foreign hand” was used preemptively to counter any political challenge, these days they have to wait for some major Western country or China to say something approaching a provocation and then jump all over it. This time it was comments attributed to but denied by US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland to the effect that India should allow Hazare’s peaceful protest.

Clarifying that yesterday Nuland said, “I think this goes to inaccurate reporting in India that we had issued some sort of statement, one with regard to this case, that we did not issue. With regard to the case (Hazare protest), however, you know where we are. We support freedom of expression and assembly, and we encourage all countries and all parties to do the same. All democratic governments have a responsibility to allow peaceful protest and freedom of dissent, even as they work to maintain public safety. India is a country that has a strong and long-established democratic tradition. It’s a country that people look to for these issues, and it has a long tradition of nonviolent protest. And it’s widely admired for these things and open debate, and that’s the standard that we all have come to expect from India.”

That said, it is not unusual for any intelligence agency of any major power to monitor larger than usual civil unrest in other major countries where they have direct economic and political interests. So it is possible that someone in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is keeping an eye on what is unfolding in India, quite like India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) would keep abreast of what is going on in Pakistan.

From Alvi’s and Congress Party’s standpoint the purpose of seeding some suspicion and doubt about Hazare and his movement has been accomplished. It does not even have to lead to something bigger as long as that doubt has been planted. That’s the logic of political parties, especially one that has ruled India for most of its independent life since 1947 as well as dominated the public discourse for some six decades prior to that.

When the doorbell rings..

When my doorbell rings I can generally tell whether it is a friend or a foe or a missionary or a girl scout or a dingdong ditch.

Under most circumstances a foe would kick the door down rather than ring the bell on it because my foes these days are mostly creditors who can no longer wait for me to become a New York Times bestselling author. A dingdong ditch is a uniquely American tradition where naughty teenagers ring your doorbell and vamoose even before you have taken your first step towards the door. So it is either a friend dropping by for a chat or a girl scout selling some cookies or a missionary trying to convert me who have the decency to wait.

The other day it was two missionary women representing the Jesus Christ Church of the Latter Day-saints, aka the Mormon Church, at the door. They were cheerful but circumspect, polite but persistent as they began talking to me. To illustrate that I was well-versed with the goings-on I made some small talk about Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and John Huntsman, both Mormons. I am not sure if that registered.

They asked me which faith I belonged to. I told them I was spared the faith gene.  (My exact words). That seemed to confuse, intrigue and amuse them. It was a good sign for the missionaries that I was not in a committed relationship with a religion. Perhaps there was potential to convert me right in my doorway.

They then asked me what my family believed in. I told them my mother believed in anything that can be believed in or, in other words, she is a Hindu. I told them my wife is a liberal Muslim and our children have not been given any religion at all and it is up to them whether they want to be religious or not. I could tell that by now all this was getting too much for the ladies to process. To compound things I said it may not be too much to call me a faithless heathen. That’s when one of the two women reflexively swatted a mosquito. There were many that evening. So I invited them to come inside and continue their endeavor.

They asked me if there were any women in the house. I told them about my mother and daughter being home. The rest of the family was out. They said their tradition did not allow them to come inside a home where there were no women. I suppose my mother and daughter did not meet their exacting standards of womanhood. So we decided to stand in the verandah and complete a survey they were conducting. In between I told them that I was a journalist and I was indulging them purely out of a) Respect towards any visitor and b) Out of professional curiosity.

They discussed a bit about family values and whether I respected them. I said I did as far as they went (My favorite meaningless phrase).

One of the two women asked me if I believed in “eternal families” and whether I would like to be a part of it. “I do not believe. Period. And I do not believe in eternal anything. We live in a universe which is in a constant state of flux,” is what I said. That answer should have preempted everything else that was to follow. But they were not missionaries for nothing. They do not give up that easily. Then they asked me if I would like to have the same family after my death. “Once I am dead I suppose I am dead. I would have been cremated and turned into a small pile of ash,” I said.

They could see that this was not going well. Trust me, I was not trying to upend their beliefs or sense of religious commitment. I was merely being honest about who I was. I also mentioned that I come from a deeply pluralistic country where people believe in all sorts of things as well as nothing. They seemed fascinated by that idea. After about 20 minutes or so, the ladies shook hands with me and left. I offered them my best for the homes ahead. “Would you mind if I leave this card with you?” one of them asked and added that may be I could attend one of their eternal life meetings over the weekend.

I will skip the meeting in the odd but daunting chance that my life may be eternal. Who wants to write this blog forever?

Lighting a fuse under one’s own ass

In detaining Anna Hazare, the leader of a curiously assertive, peculiarly  intransigent and media driven anti-corruption movement in India, the government has lit a fuse under its own ass. It has also lent Hazare an aura of sacrifice far in excess of his actual impact.

It says something when a 74-year-old man, with a mixed record of engendering minor social change in a small village in Maharashtra, captures some measure of urban middle class imagination nationwide. And all because the way the Indian government has handled Hazare-led nebulous movement so far.

Shorn of all posturing and rhetoric the stand-off between the government and Hazare is over the kind of Lokpal Bill or Ombudsman Bill that Indian parliament should enact. Hazare and his supporters have given the impression that they would not accept anything other than their version of the Lokpal Bill, which they call the Jan Lokpal Bill or People’s Ombudsman Bill. Some of them think of the government version as, and quite tritely so, a Jokepal Bill. At the heart of the fight is whether and to what extent the office of the country’s prime minister should be brought under the purview of the ombudsman.

Those who are able to look beyond the noise and theater of this rather voluble protest point out that either by design or default Hazare and his supporters are undermining the institution of parliament whose job it is to create, debate and eventually enact such laws. They argue that Hazare and his supporters conveniently disregard the fact that India has a fairly robust parliamentary democracy which has a strong legislative record, notwithstanding its frequent degeneration into a fractious and dysfunctional conduct.

There is a considerable constituency of Indians which believes that what is needed is not Hazare’s my way or highway approach but a deliberative parliamentary process because that is what the country opts for every five years. Of course, not too many people buy into the claim that the creation of an independent ombudsman will end the huge problem of in-your-face corruption that has eaten away the very vitals of India’s democracy for decades now.

Hazare himself says that his bill would solve 65 percent of the problem and throws a rather ridiculous gauntlet that always tickles the urban middle class’s sense of humor. He says if his claim turns out to be false, he would be happy to work as a servant (“fetch water” are his words) at the house of the country’s Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, who has emerged as the Hazare’s most public government counterweight.

What Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, buffeted by massive corruption scandals involving some of his former cabinet colleagues,fears is that since Hazare and his supporters are focusing on something that instigates national revulsion they could potentially dislodge his coalition government. The government also suspects that Hazare is being propped up by Singh’s political opponents. There are those, who in a show of a lack of imagination, liken the anti-corruption movement to the Tehrir Square uprising which is a manifestly silly comparison. Flawed or not, unlike many Arab countries India has managed to create a strong parliamentary democracy. There is no greater example of that than the kind of rabble that often gets elected to it.

Coming back to Hazare’s seven-day detention, the government seems to be driven by the calculation that removing him from the public for a short while might deflate the bandwagon. I personally doubt if that strategy would work because Hazare and supporters do seem to have traction among a section of civil society whose voice the political class is always averse to ignoring for too long. 

The easiest thing for Prime Minister Singh would be to say that both the versions of the bill would be fused to the extent that they can be done realistically and put before parliament. It would then be a matter of how various political parties manage to argue for and against it before agreeing on broadly accepted version. Common sense says that there is already a very stringent anti-corruption regime in place within the Indian system which, if implemented the way it was envisaged, would achieve results close to Hazare’s own benchmark of 65 percent.

People forget that beyond a point individual integrity cannot be legislated or overseen by an ombudsman. Pretty much like everything else in life, honesty too begins with oneself. So next time one of Hazare’s supporters is pulled over by the police for running the red light, let him or her not reach for the nearest 100 rupee note to settle the violation through bribe. It might seem trivial but that’s where it starts.

Here is an idea for India at 65

The Red Fort, Delhi, Built in 1638-1648 (Pic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Redfort.JPG)

As India enters the 65th year of its independence today, here is an idea for the country’s prime minister. Stop using the Red Fort to make the traditional annual address loaded with empty platitudes. It is time to upgrade the symbology of national pride from a 363-year-old imperial residence of a Mughal king to a place more current and much more in need of India’s collective attention.

I am not sure whether it is a good idea to talk down to a nation of 1.2 billion inattentive people from the fortification that is perhaps a couple of hundred feet high. It was fitting for the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru to have used the grandeur of the fort to make a historic announcement. The prop for the annual enactment has since lost its appeal for this specific purpose.

If I were the prime minister (which is not as unlikely as it might sound), I would identify five most backward villages in India to address the nation from for the five-year term in office. Every year my government would commit that 100,000 villages would be thoroughly transformed in that period (one year). At the end of the five-year term 500,000 villages would have been transformed. What this specific and visible nation-building program would do is give the people of the country something to identify with and see for themselves beyond lofty but eventually ineffectual words tumbling down from the Red Fort on August 15.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has addressed the nation from the Red Fort for the past seven years and I can almost guarantee that he has sounded practically the same every one of those years. It is not mandatory for the prime minister to be the one addressing that nation on August 15. May be we can even mix up the people who address the nation. How about ordinary citizens speaking their mind out in the setting of a village with prime minister listening in the audience? The point is it is time to fundamentally change the way we acknowledge and celebrate the country’s independence.

The Red Fort is a great monument of tremendous architectural beauty and appeal. But it has run its course as the monument of choice by all prime ministers for August 15.

Shamsher Raj Kapoor, 1931-2011

Shammi Kapoor in the 1969 movie ‘Prince’

In his extraordinarily captivating movie career Shammi Kapoor did not notice that there was ever a camera present. “The camera was the real star on the set. The more you chased it, the less it liked you. So I chose to ignore it altogether,” he told me in my only interview with him in 1987.

That approach defined Kapoor’s magnificent career as the quintessential Hindi movie star who dominated the second half of the 1950s and much of the 1960s. It was as if life gave him but one choice—be an exuberant movie star. He took up life on it with an unrestrained gusto.

As millions reflect on the 79-year-old star’s death on Sunday what endures is his sense of unbounded cheeriness. Even in the morose moments of his many roles Kapoor gave you the impression that he wanted to get those over with quickly so that he could move on to a much more joyous groove.

One could not be blamed for thinking that Kapoor’s career was inordinately dominated by themes of picnics and vacations in the salubrious climes of Kashmir where coy and curvaceous beauties, hid behind the Deodar trees and played hard to get before his charms inevitably triumphed because he did indeed do many such films.

“Kashmir was like a second home for me in those days since we shot there so extensively,” he reminisced then. There was an element of charming goofiness to the roles that Kapoor played. When I reminded him of that he smiled and said, “It was the 60s. Fun was all that was on people’s minds.”

Social historians and pop psychologists who concern themselves with such matters would tell you that Kapoor’s rise coincided with India’s quest to put its bloody and fractious past behind and look for some guilt-free fun and frolic. If the 1950s were the time to brood a bit and heal a whole lot more in the aftermath of the bloodletting of the late 1940s, the 1960s were the era of optimism and to look ahead. Kapoor with his well-fed looks, somewhat pinkish skin tone and quirky dance movements was the perfect mascot of the times.

His 1966 thriller classic ‘Teesri Manzil’, directed with trademark polish and finesse by Vijay Anand, is a compelling example that illustrates the mood of the period. The coming together of Shammi Kapoor as the protagonist, Vijay Anand as the director and Rahul Dev Burman as the music composer is regarded as the perfect fusion of great talents.

It is tempting for people consigned to anonymity like most of us are to steal some of the reflected glory in the aftermath of a passing like Kapoor’s and feel relevant in the pop culture. I have tried to avoid it by keeping this tribute short and, hopefully, sharp.

"I became dirty and dark, like a Tamilian.””

Racism, like bigotry, is radioactive and has a very long half-life. They decay over a very long period of time to become half as radioactive. If you are a racist or a bigot, the best you could do (if you want to do anything about it at all) is to keep your thoughts in a hermetically sealed corner of your brain. But there is no guarantee that some toxic radiation may still escape.

Now I am not saying that Maureen Chao, a vice consul at the US consulate in Chennai, India, is a racist or a bigot any more than what a lot of us are at some point or another in our lives. She probably does not intentionally say things which are manifestly offensive to a group of people of certain skin color or ethnic background. But she did say it and now deeply regrets it.

Chao, a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration, was invited by the Chennai-based SRM University to address its students in connection with a Study Abroad Orientation Program.

According to the wire service IANS, while recounting her experiences as a young student visiting India in 1989, she spoke about her 72-hour journey from Delhi to Orissa.

“She had the audience in splits while recalling her experience in exchanging her lower berth in the train compartment for an upper berth with a fellow passenger.

Chao said when she came out of the train after the journey, her skin got dusty and dirty and, after a pause, added that "I became dirty and dark, like a Tamilian.””

It was bad enough that she said that. What was worse was that a section of the audience comprising non-Tamil students, actually applauded when she did so. She has company in India when it comes to reflexive racism.

To say that one “became dirty and dark like a Tamilian” would have been racist anywhere but to say it in the heart of Tamil Nadu gives it that extra radioactivity.

In a statement today the US consulate said this:

“Yesterday at a Study Abroad Orientation Program at SRM University, Vice Consul Maureen Chao gave a speech describing positive memories from her own study abroad experiences in India 23 years ago. During the speech Ms. Chao made an inappropriate comment. Ms. Chao deeply regrets if her unfortunate remarks offended anyone, as that was certainly not her intent.

As Secretary Clinton recently noted, the U.S.-India partnership is based on our shared values of democracy, liberty, and respect for religious and cultural diversity. The U.S. Consulate in Chennai and the U.S. Mission in India are committed to upholding these shared values.”

There are a couple of things wrong with this statement. It is not just an “inappropriate comment”; it is way more gratuitous than that. Not only did she say “dark like a Tamilian”, which some people may even rationalize as an objective fact devoid of a value judgment, but she prefixed that with “dirty” in case it was lost on anyone what she meant.

Also, I have never understood apologies that add the qualifier “if it offended anyone.” What does that mean? Would Chao’s comment have been acceptable had it not offended anyone. There are some things which are wrong in and of themselves whether or not they offend anyone.

Chao has a solid resume with a Bachelor degree in International Studies, a Master degree in Education, and a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration. She was a Fulbright Fellow in Vietnam, conducting research in education. Prior to joining the State Department she worked with international education programs for fifteen years, as well as in the social services field with foster children, refugees and immigrants and low-income/homeless populations. So it is not as if she is a semi-literate peasant. (In using “a semi-literate peasant” I am just being ironic in case you did not get it.)

The non-Tamil students who found her remark applause-worthy are certainly not a tiny minority in India. There is a vast constituency across India, particularly in the northern states, that buys into this toxic non-sense which thrives in the country’s conducive ecology. Chao is stationed in a country where major movie stars cheerfully extol the virtues of a brand of skin fairness cream purely because it makes you a shade or two lighter. So it is not that difficult to be a soft racist in India.

If the US has its N word, India has had its M word. Of course, while Madrasi has been used to describe some truly vile attributes, it has not been accompanied with the kind of sustained raw violence and systematic oppression that the N word has been historically surrounded with.

The simple truth is that Chao fucked up not merely because she said something “inappropriate” but because she seemed to subconsciously believe that it was okay to say so. And in that she was at least partially right as the obliging non-Tamil students proved by clapping.

Of bananas, as in pants and in republic

A banana as in fruit and not in a republic or in pants

Indulge me as I labor to establish some parallels between the size of American actor Kelsey Grammer’s banana and the decline in the editorial standards of The Hindu, one of India’s best known newspapers, into a “banana republic.” Where else but here?

Grammer is a successful television and movie actor who has recently had a very public divorce with Camille, his wife of 13 years. Naturally, both sides feel deeply wounded and aggrieved and both believe the other was the cause of the problem.

The 133-year-old The Hindu newspaper has been caught in a very public feud among the extended Kasturi Ranga Iyengar family that owns and runs it. One of them is N. Murali, who retired from the newspaper as its managing director amid acrimony after working there for 40 years. His main problem had been with N. Ram, his brother and the newspaper’s editor-in-chief.Naturally, both sides feel deeply wounded and aggrieved and both believe the other was the cause of the problem.

Camille Grammer was recently caught on camera suggesting that her former husband Kelsey’s banana is a “big disappointment.” “Big hands, big feet, big disappointment,” is how Camille described it. Later she told TMZ, that extraordinary achievement in pointless celebrity television, “I had that for 13 years, unfortunately.” “That” in question is indeed that, Kelsey’s member.

N. Murali’s long farewell letter to The Hindu’s employees talks about a lot of things but what has appealed most to my flippant mind is this reference: “The Editorial side is run like a ‘banana republic’ with cronyism and vested interests ruling the roost and finding space in the editorial columns.” Murali also questions the personal integrity of  Ram whose writ has prevailed over the newspaper for now.

So those are the facts. Here is my Friday take on them. If you have chosen to live with a small banana (as in the case of Camille the former wife) for 13 years or have been the top management of a ‘banana republic’ (as in the case of Murali the managing director) you do not get to complain when you are left holding the withering peels. I suppose 13 years and 40 years are respectively long enough durations for Camille and Murali to resolve their banana situation one way or the other. If not, one is forced to conclude that for whatever compulsions they both tolerated their banana republic for as long as they did.

I am sure Camille did not think that Kelsey’s “big disappointment” might evolve into something more impressive if she waited long enough. And in Murali’s case, he could not possibly have thought that if he, as the managing director could not manage to arrest The Hindu’s slide into a banana republic anyone else could have. At the heart of Camille’s and Murali’s heartburns lies the common human failing to grin and bear one’s own plight. However, there must be some rule that says that after a certain period one can no longer blame the situation one is in but oneself.

So there, that’s my churlish perspective on two totally unrelated developments.