South Asia Daily

Saif Ali Khan, the Nawab of Pataudi

Actor Saif Ali Khan being ceremoniously, albeit symbolically, being made the Nawab of Pataudi after his father’s Mansur Ali Khan’s demise (Screen grab from ndtv.com)

I was mildly amused to watch a video clip of the “pagdi rasam’ (literally the turban ritual) that symbolically made actor Saif Ali Khan the 10th Nawab of Pataudi. It was an odd perpetuation of a royal feudal order being ironically observed by “commoners” themselves.

The heads of some 52 villages were at hand to bless Saif’s succession to the title of Nawab, which before India abolished princely states in 1971, carried a great deal of formal power, pomp and wealth in many of the varied sized kingdoms that controlled territories and people’s destinies. The ceremony was necessitated by the demise of the flamboyant cricketer and Saif’s father, Mansur Ali Khan, who carried the title throughout his adult life.

What I found even more ironic was that the ritual ceremony was taking place on the 136th anniversary today of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who often single-handedly persuaded and/or coerced more than 600 princely states to join the new Indian union in the aftermath of independence in 1947. The state of Pataudi, which on a scale of royalty was a relatively minor princely state, was one of them.

Of course, the turban ceremony was a largely symbolic and harmless vestige of a bygone era but it did underscore the fact that given half a chance many ordinary Indians’ would like a royal benefactor in their midst.

In the NDTV video clip that I saw, I could hear the master of ceremonies saying this in a delightful fusion of Hindi and English.

“Aur ab pagadi rasam shuru karengey. Aap yehan ke local log jante hein shayad jo metrpolitis ke hon who na jante ho ke pagadi rasam… Pagadi rasam hoti hai legacy being passed on to the next generation. So yeh legacy ja rahi hai, yeh virasat ja rahi hai, yeh convention, yeh mulya, yeh sari paramparayen, yeh zimmewari, yeh samman…” (And now we begin the turban ritual. Those local people might know (about the ritual) but those from metropolitis (sic. meaning metropolises) may not know that the turban ritual…The turban ritual is legacy being passed on to the next generation. So this legacy is now going, this heritage is now passing, this convention, this value, all these traditions, this responsibility, this honor…)

The MC made sure that those present knew that it was not merely an act of a turban being tied on the head of the popular actor but it represented a combination of legacy, heritage, responsibility and honor. The turban having been tied, the heads of the villages, which once formed the princely state of Pataudi, filed past Saif Ali Khan paying their respects.

Saif Ali Khan himself has been sensible enough to say this in an interview with The Times of India, “Royal titles ceased to be recognised by the Indian government in 1971. The title of Nawab and Maharaja are not recognised by the Indian government anymore. And rightfully so. We are a democracy and I am not under any misconception about me ruling any state or body of people. It's just a sense of tradition. As far as receiving the title and the ceremony from the villagers go, they are sentimental about tying the pagdi. Perhaps it is is something symbolic. And yes, I will be there for that.”

F1uck you

Not actual F1 photo but a generic shot from ClipArt. F1 does not allow reproduction without permission

With India making its Formula One or F1 debut, the country’s superrich have found a whole new way of telling the rest “Fuck you.” It is “F1uck you.”

All sports are distractions but few as uselessly profligate as racing in general and the Formula 1 in particular. It is such an assertively worthless sport because drivers get into their cars and drive around at maniacal speeds until either someone crashes and burns or hits the finish line. The argument that being a Formula 1 driver requires great skills is neither here nor there because everything in life requires great skills.

One does not object to people extracting tremendous joy and thrill out of racing as long as they do not spin it as anything other than what it really is—gratuitous burning of fossil fuels for the entertainment of those who do not need any. It would be so much more refreshing if one of the F1 acolytes stood up and said, “We burn it because we can. So f1uck you.” I would have no problem with that.

Like every endeavor in India, the F1 racetrack too has been mired in controversy over how the land was acquired to construct the $400 million circuit on the fringes of the national capital. The farmers of Greater NOIDA whose land was acquired by Jaypee Sports International have complained that they were shortchanged, while the company has dismissed it saying their claim is baseless.  The land, it seems, was acquired from the government which had acquired it from the farmers. So we do not quite know who is telling the truth and how much. Truths, half-truths and lies get indistinguishably fused in India when it comes to land acquisition.

One can go all bleeding heart on the issue and say, as I have already said here, how unnecessary F1 racing is for a country where there are so many variations of poverty and none necessarily less debasing and dehumanizing than the other. When well-meaning people say that while millions of children die of chronic hunger and easily preventable diseases India should not spend on sports such as F1, they forget that corporations would go where the money is. There is no money in poverty or hunger. It is not like if Jaypee Sports did not spend $400 million on the racetrack, it would have spent it on building nationwide food banks for the hungry. It is a false argument because it tries to assert a correlation where none exists.

After the Indian Premier League (IPL), the pimped-out F1 is the new playground of the Indian superrich who seem to have an insatiable need for thrill and excitement. Can they be stopped? Of course not. Should they be stopped? I am not sure. Can they be sent on a guilt trip for not feeling guilty enough? Probably not. So what are we left with really? Perhaps express self-righteous anger and move on.

On a side note, Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel of Germany won the 2011 Formula 1 Airtel Grand Prix of India. In this sentence there are two corporations, one actual human and one country. Red Bull is an energy drink and Airtel is India’s leading mobile phone carrier. Grand Prix is grand prix. What this means is that when you are not racing to nowhere, you open a Red Bull can and chat on your Airtel mobile phone.

P.S.: India’s much heralded racecar driver Narain Karthikeyan is the Sania Mirza of F1. He finished 16.

Commonwealth rescues monarchy from medieval warp

Any global grouping which has to concern itself with amending a 17th century piece of legislation about royal succession should ask itself the question “Do I have any business existing?”

I refer to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM-pronounced chowgum) currently in session in Perth, Australia. The CHOGM comprises 54 countries, all former British colonies, and takes place every two years, primarily to reconfirm that they are no longer British colonies. As always, I am being flippant but that is my private perception of the CHOGM.

Commonwealth leaders are pledging to amend the legislation to allow daughters in the line of succession over younger royal sons. Currently one of the rules says, “An elder daughter should be placed behind a younger son in the line of succession.” To put in a language the average reader might understand you could be a 30-year-old royal daughter who would be cast aside to make way for your five-year-old royal brother simply because he has protruding genitalia.

The same legislation also says that anyone who marries a Roman Catholic is barred from succeeding to the crown.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said at the CHOGM that "These rules are outdated and need to change." It is not just these rules Mr. Cameron, but the whole monarchy is outdated by a 100 years.

Cameron’s deputy Nick Clegg had said earlier, "If Prince William and Catherine Middleton were to have a baby daughter as their first child, I think most people would think it fair and normal that she would eventually become queen of our country."

The Guardian’s Nicholas Watt reports, “Buckingham Palace is understood to be supportive. One No 10 source said: "Downing Street has been working on this for five years. Buckingham Palace will not have been taken by surprise. This will welcome the crown into the modern age."

There are so many things wrong with all this but let me mention just one. Why does the CHOGM exist at all? Quite apart from the fact the heads of Commonwealth governments barely fit the frame in a ceremonial group picture, what is the purpose of the grouping? However, even if you accept that the CHOGM does indeed exist, the rest of the medieval vestiges  do not make sense.

Here is the number two leader of Britain talking about a possible female offspring from a not yet pregnant Catherine even as her grandmother-in-law, Elizabeth II, is still very much a regnant queen.

Clegg is worried about William and Catherine’s future daughter while Charles, the Prince of Wales, is still waiting at 63 to become king with his mother 85-year-old mother in control. 2012 will mark the queen’s 60th year.

We are also told that Buckingham Palace will not have been taken by surprise by the amending in 2011 of the Bill of Rights 1688, the Act of Settlement 1700, the Act of Union with Scotland 1706 and the Coronation Oaths Act 1688. I suppose 323 years are long enough for the monarchy not to have been taken by surprise.

For those of you who may not know the queen of England is still the monarch of 16 Commonwealth countries known as the Queen’s realms, which include Canada and Australia. India, the most populous member of the Commonwealth, decided to be a republic when the British colonial rulers left in 1947 and hence does not have the queen as its monarch.

Anna Hazare and limits of rectitude

My approximation of Anna Hazare

India’s much heralded anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare, who is in the midst of a particularly long and baffling vow of silence, is discovering the limits of rectitude. As recriminations, politicking and charges of wrongdoing by some of his core team members fly around, he is probably stunned into silence.

I suspect he saw the very prospects of his movement, once compared to the Arab Spring by the pathetically hyperbolic Indian broadcast media, unraveling and decided that he is better off extending his “Maun Vrat” or vow of silence. What can he possibly say anyway as the master strategist of the movement, Arvind Kejrival, has been asked by the country’s Income Tax Department to pay nearly a million rupees right away, and its leading light Kiran Bedi, is forced to explain everyday why she charged her various hosts business class fares but actually traveled economy? (Long question but couldn’t help it).

The other members of the core team, retired judge Santosh Hegde and environmental rights activist Medha Patkar cannot run away fast enough from the movement they once espoused with gusto. They have decided not to attend a crucial meeting of the core committee in Ghaziabad new Delhi tomorrow. Earlier, two other members, Magsaysay Award winning water activist and Gandhian leader P V Rajagopal left the movement because they disapproved of Kejriwal’s political campaigning in a parliamentary by-election.

Members of the main ruling Congress Party are trying hard not to go high-fiving with schadenfreude because their nemesis is finding out what it takes to keep a disparate group of highly ambitious and high-strung individuals together. One obvious lesson from the rifts in the movement is that all movements in the end are subservient to individual ambitions and flaws. Movements, which do not have the cohesion and overall single-mindedness of a political party, also face the danger of being torn apart by conflicting agendas of its members. Perhaps in his private moments Anna Hazare is telling himself, "Oh, I was better off flogging village drunkards."

***

In other news, a 120-year-old man in Assam, India, has just married a 60-year-old woman. The first thought that came to my mind was that she was not even born when he turned 60. The second thought that followed was more a question: Did he see her as one-year-old infant and say ‘She is the one I will marry’?

IANS’s Sujit Chakraborty  reports from Silchar that some 500 guests attended the wedding of Hazi Abdul Noor and Samoi Bibi. The ceremony took place in Satghori village in Karimganj district. To put the marriage in perspective, Noor’s eldest daughter is 79.

All men and women who commit to marry at any age deserve applause. The one who does so at 120 deserves some sort of a global recognition.

Suicide on my mind

Suicide has been on my mind for some time—not committing it but wondering about those who are unsuccessful at it.

It ought to be embarrassing to fail at suicide since many of those who try it do so because they believe they have failed at life or life has failed them. They must think, “I can’t even commit suicide successfully. How pathetic is that?”

The immediate hook for today’s post is the revelation by  Ruth Madoff, the wife of the Ponzi scheme pasha Bernard “Bernie” Madoff, that they tried to end their lives on Christmas Eve, 2008, soon after he confessed to his crimes. That they did not succeed is self-evident.

They both swallowed handfuls of what they thought was Ambien in order to overdose their way to death but merely ended up what The New York Times calls “a long drug-induced slumber.” I checked about the side effects of  Zolpidem, the primary ingredient  of Ambien, and was struck by how many it has. Drowsiness is listed as one of the side effects, which is ironic because I would think that drowsiness would be the main purpose of this drug for insomnia. Another side effect is diarrhea. So you would be sleepy and diarrheal at the same time. That is terrifying.

I am no advocate of suicide as a means to an end but it may seem like a reasonable option to consider in the face of a relentlessly cruel or unmanageable life. It is not particularly unsettling that people want to take their own lives because they are convinced that it is their only way out of whatever it is that they are getting out of. It is a bit self-serving, I would think, but ultimately effective if carried out successfully. I am not sure if it is cowardly as many people think of it as because for most people it does require a great deal of resolve and even courage to end their own lives.

Those who survive their own suicide must be feeling fundamentally altered because whatever device they employed to achieve that goal they would have done so thinking it would work. I am thinking that surviving it would not be part of their contingency. In fact, why would they have contingency at all if they were determined to end it all? The contingency, if any, would be for their immediate family. In the case of the Madoffs, for instance, they mailed jewelry and other gifts to those they cared about before they took what they thought was their last step. As it turned out they survived and Bernie Madoff ended up in prison on a 150-year sentence.

In my much younger days I thought I had the gift to make frighteningly accurate predictions about random people. I would say my success rate was eight out of ten at the peak of what now increasingly seem like bogus powers. I remember having asked a fellow student in college out of the blue why she had tried to commit suicide recently. She was stunned by my question, but as the directness of that intrusion wore off she admitted that she had indeed tried to do so because she thought she was ugly (“Kadrupi” was the Gujarati word she had used). I asked her what she thought of herself post-unsuccessful suicide attempt. She said she no longer cared about such things. In a sense she discovered a new life after failing to end the old one.

P.S.: I apologize if all this is morbid for some of you. I look at it in a detached manner.

Eggs and potato curry and a whole lot of shame

 

 

Ghairat is one of the most frequently used words in Pakistan. It broadly means honor and is arguably the fulcrum about which the country’s cultural and political discourse turns.

Ironically, it is a word that needs its nemesis beyghairat, which is the exact opposite meaning shameless or sans honor, for its own survival. There is no ghairat if it cannot contrast itself against beyghairat.

I give this short primer to take note of the raging popularity of a protest song called “Aalu Anday” (Eggs and potato curry) by a Pakistani boy band that aptly calls itself “Beyghairat Brigade”. And as the name suggests it is a band that is assertively shameless in that it scorns, scalds, scratches and satirizes all of Pakistan’s holy cows.

The three young men of “Beyghairat Brigade” led by the vocalist Ali Aftaab Saeed focus on the topsy-turvy  state of affairs in Pakistan where killers such as Ajmal Qasab, the lone surviving terrorist of the November, 2008, Mumbai attacks, and Mumtaz Qadri, who killed liberal politician Salman Taseer, are heroes and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Abdus Salam is cast aside because he belongs to a much excoriated minority Ahmadi community. The song also takes in its sweep the army, political parties and mullahs, all of whom are normally not to be trifled with in Pakistan without running into some mortal danger.

The song is about deliberately pushing the envelop. I think the smartest crack in the song is not part of the lyric but a sign that calls cricketer turned politician Imran Khan’s “Tehrik-e-Insaaf’ party “Good looking Jamaat-e-Islami”, which is a fundamentalist party. Another sign, “Mullah + Military = Zia-ul-Yuckee” is a sharp reference to the late military strongman and dictator Zia-ul-Haq under whose malevolent regime Pakistan was radicalized. Then there the more sarcastic one that says “This video is sponsored by Zionists”. It ends with "If you want a bullet through my head: like the video.”

The mood of the song and the video is rebellious in keeping with the exuberant youth of its protagonists Ali, Daniyal Malik and Hamza Malik. In fact, Hamza the guitarist is only 15. I am not sure if “Beyghairat Brigade” represents a large enough constituency in Pakistan that can force the country’s entrenched power elites-- political, military and religious-- to drastically reform. What it does do though is tell them that the youth of Pakistan, like the young everywhere, do not stand for the skullduggeries which have been imposed on the country for decades. For that alone one sincerely wishes that the song shames the feudal lords into submission.

It seems to me that the disenchantment with Aalu Anday or eggs and potato curry is a metaphor for the youthful yearning for change. Incidentally, Aalu Anday are the staple school lunch that middleclass parents in Pakistan often pack for their children much to their disgust. They want chicken and freshly baked rotis as the song says. Not so ambitious, you might think but in Pakistan normal is ambitious.

It is the C word again

As perhaps the world’s leading proponent and promoter of the Indian cuss word chutiya and all its derivatives, it gladdens my heart immensely to know that it enjoys currency among Wall Street types too. It is particularly gratifying that it has made the august pages of Newsweek.

In what reads like an unintended puff piece, Suketu Mehta writes in Newsweek/Daily Beast about the high profile hedge fund investor Raj Rajaratnam, who was recently sentenced to 11 years for insider trading.

While describing the inner dynamics of that world Mehta mentions the equation between between Rajaratnam and Anil Kumar, a senior partner at McKinsey & Company, who pleaded guilty to insider trading as part of the same investigation that got Rajaratnam. The two were friends once but fell out since Kumar turned government witness against Rajaratnam.

Mehta reports: “Rajaratnam does not speak well of Kumar. He calls him a choot—Hindi for “c--t.” “I’m not Indian, but that word fits him,” he says.

That’s the beauty of the word. It fits all men at some point or another in their lives. I have written about the word before in the not so august columns of this blog. In a post about a particularly peppy commercial in April last year I had said this, and I (pompously) quote myself:  

“Chutiya, which began as a street invective in India, is in my book now a profoundly literary expression whose breadth and depth, and indeed effect, is unmatched by any other word. The word is derived from chut meaning cunt. Although the English equivalent is used to describe a contemptible person, in Hindi it can mean any number of things in any number of situations depending on how you intone it.

I have a friend who thinks he can get a PhD in chutiyapa since he has studied the use of the expression in different social situations for decades. That story, some other time. But chutiya broadly means a combination of a dunce, dumbass, contemptible, irritating, ridiculous, jerk, foolish person. I can expand the list much more but you get the drift.”

The word in this particular context effectively captures the intensity of Rajaratnam’s antipathy towards a man whom he once called a friend. This is particularly because Rajaratnam is Sri Lankan and is obviously not accustomed to using the cuss word as a matter of routine, which can only mean that he had to plumb the depths of his contempt for Kumar.

Oh! The joys of overanalyzing.

Wooing wealth in vain

Lakshmi by Raja Ravi Varma

It is just about that time of the year when many Indians engage in a worshipful ritual in honor of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and fortune. Coming from the most business saturated city of the most business saturated state of India (Ahmedabad and Gujarat respectively) I do know a thing or two about this ritual.

The most important thing to know is that money does buy happiness, or at any rate a large measure of it. What it cannot buy, does not really matter. Also, that wealth has to be wooed and courted and cajoled and coaxed for it to come your way. There is, of course, no guarantee that after all the wooing, courting, cajoling and coaxing she would come your way. And there is a reason for that.

In the Hindu pantheon, gods have their own specific vehicles or carriers or vahanas of choice. In Lakshmi’s case it is an owl, the bird, which it seems,is known for its random flight and unpredictable resting spots. I know from firsthand experience that myth to be accurate. Lakshmi has pointedly flown past whichever abode I have dwelled in in whichever city, including Ahmedabad, where she appears to have made many successful landings.

Many Indians believe that since Lakshmi travels on an owl, it is impossible to predict where she might go and whom she might bless. Ornithology does not at all support the popular myth that the owl just flies randomly. The myth may have something to do with the fact that it is a largely nocturnal bird. There are owls that prey during twilight hours. But that is science; we are talking mythology here.

It is certainly true that wealth is quirky. It is also very hard to domesticate. It is never fully domesticated as those who have lost wealth would testify. Wealth is like an orgasm--it is great while it lasts. When it leaves, it leaves you profoundly fatigued. My fatigue has nothing to do with either.(This is an example of how unnecessarily I throw in metaphors).

A drizzle of languor and lassitude

I awoke with a cloud of ennui hanging over my head. A drizzle of languor and lassitude has already begun, which is rather strange because it is bright and sunny outside. Flowers are still blooming even though leaves have started dropping from trees in preparation for the winter. They recognize the futility of hanging on to their attachments.

Speaking of the fall that is upon us here in America, it is remarkable how clinical and utilitarian nature is. Trees are shedding their leaves because their utility and lifespan is over. There is no fuss in that process of shedding. They just fall off without making any sound. It they do make any sound it is clearly below the human auditory range. Perhaps there is no gentler way to mark death.

I stepped out this morning to shake off lethargy and saw a couple of leaves in the midst of their fall. They were very distinct during their very short journey downward but as they settled on the ground one could not tell one from the other in a pile of leaves. I was struck by how quickly distinction is erased by nature. We are all on a short leash from nature.

“Two and a Half Men” post-Sheen—sucks so far

Jon Cryer, left, and Ashton Kutcher in ‘Two and a Half Men’ on CBS (Pic: Grab from CBS.com)

 

It is Saturday morning and time to weigh in on some weighty global issues. Such as “Two and a Half Men” post-Charlie Sheen, for instance.

How shall I put this delicately? The show sucks now.

Sheen has not (yet) paid me to say this but in the aftermath of his fiery departure the show has lost its verve. One always knew that the show was overwhelmingly dependent on Sheen’s natural credibility as a caustic womanizer who treats his good fortune as his fourth standby mistress.

The show’s creators Chuck Lorre and Lee Anderson as well as their writers are a group of obviously intelligent and talented people, but so far Ashton Kutcher feels like an awkward interloper. Of course, it is possible that his character of Walden Schmidt, an Internet billionaire nursing a heartbreak, will grow into the show. So far though, in their enthusiasm to tailor the material to suit Kutcher’s personality, the writers are producing mostly puerilely risqué material too focused on gratuitously sexual humor. Sheen’s character Charlie Harper had intrinsic wit that Kutcher’s goofball persona so sorely lacks.

(I had written this post up to here yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to learn this morning that Sheen is slamming the show.)

TMZ, the ultimate arbiter of the celebrity-paparazzi dynamic, reports Sheen as saying about the slide in the show’s ratings, “People aren't stupid, you know? Not all of them.”

On Kutcher, Sheen says, “He's doing the best he can. I don't think the role is cursed, but I'm extremely disappointed with how they're handling what I left behind.”

Notwithstanding its bumper ratings for the season premiere recently, my reaction to the opener as well as the shows which have followed has been, “Really!” I no longer watch the show, which is saying a lot because I am in the Sheen demographic (four years older than him) and once made it a habit of unfailingly watching it.

It is entirely possible that with time I may learn to like it without Sheen but why bother? A part of the problem is that the Walden character seems like he is guesting and may have to leave soon. The casting may have seemed inspired on paper but the welding between the show’s original characters, particularly Jon Cryer as Alan Harper, and Walden feels too lumpy. The show’s producers should have continued the original Charlie Harper character by replacing Sheen with someone like David Spade. I know Spade would not have been available because of his hit series “Rules of Engagement”.

I could be wrong but there is a combination of fatigue and laziness in the show’s material now. It is as if the writers have lost the inspiration with the ugly exit of both Charlie Sheen and Charlie Harper.

P.S.: I do know that this is just a television show but I had to say something, anything to keep the blog going.