The bill stipulates that one-third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies be reserved for women.

What that means is that once every three elections, ONLY women would run for elections from your city.

The bill is the government’s way of empowering women. While women form 50% of the population, they form just 10.8% of the Lok Sabha. The proponents of the bill, hypnotized by insanity, believe:

• Women in power will make more women friendly decisions
• Democracy runs better when the composition of the parliament mirrors that of the society
• Without this intervention, women will never come to power
• The same system has worked in the village panchayats and so there is a precedent of its efficacy

Even if I pooped constantly for the next 20 years, I doubt I’ll produce more shit than the arguments above.

Busting the Myths

First, it is untrue that only members of one group can help other members of the group. In the case of women, there are enough examples to prove this. United States, a country where women have made huge strides in the society, has only slightly better women participation in the parliament, at 16.8%, and has never had a women President since Independence.

On the flip side, the leadership of Indira Gandhi, Mayawati, Jayalalitha, and Vasundhara Raje did not benefit women more than the leadership of their male predecessors or successors did. Name one historic reform these ladies introduced for improving the condition of women in India and I’ll show you a pig that can fly.

In fact, it’s worse if this were true. A successful democracy demands that the elected representatives serve all people the same. Not only does this bill not discourage it, it formalizes it with this assumption.

Second, it is actually the death of democracy if the parliament mirrors the society. The composition of the parliament is not a function of the composition of the political parties, but a function of the mandate of the people. The success of democracy lies in people choosing the best candidate without considerations of gender, cast, or religion. If the parliament mirrors the society, it indicates that people are voting only for the members of their group. The democracy runs best as a meritocracy where are candidates are judged by their qualification and their performance.

Third, women are not a small dispersed group that cannot come together to have any real effect on an election. They form 50% of the voting population and can actually decide the winner by their own votes. So why the reservation again? If women really want more women in power, the democratic system allows them to do so organically. The obvious comment there is – “But there aren’t enough women candidates.” Yes, that is something we need to solve and reservation is not the solution for reasons mentioned later. But to say that women are not potent enough by themselves to bring other women to power is, to iterate, a bunch of crap.

Fourth, it is questionable how effective the system has been in the Panchayats. While women who have held positions of power in the Panchayats claim to have better self esteem, there is little proof that the women under their administration benefited more than they otherwise would have. Also, most of the elected women come from the upper economic strata of the rural society, and it is questionable at best if they needed the reservation for climbing the self esteem ladder.

And, of course, running a village of 100 people and running a country of a billion people is the same thing, right?

The Reality of the Bill

This bill is nothing more than a political statement – “Hey, we care for women.” (I know for a fact that ND Tiwari certainly does). But you know what’s funny? If you really do care, why have you not given election tickets to more women over the last few elections? Why do you need a law? Just put more women out there and we’ll all know that you care! Why would you want a law to formalize what you want to do (apparently) anyway?

Well the reason is – the parties don’t want to do it alone. It’s too much of a risk. Power for party comes first; power for women comes second. If it’s a law, everyone will have to take this risk.

Think of this in terms of a cricket team saying – “We really like to promote new talent, so we want the ICC to make a law that 4 players in any team be under 21.” What is stopping the team from playing 4 young players in every game without the law? Not much! Just the fear that the new players will be no match for the experienced players in the other team. If there is a law, the other team will have to play 4 new players too.

So the government can now make a seemingly bold statement, when, in fact, it has covered all the potential risks.

The bill is also the idea of LAZY women activists, who, instead of working hard with political parties and educating women about the importance of joining politics and the power of their ballot, would rather sit back and wait for laws to do it for them.

Why this bill sucks

Reservation does not empower; it demeans, it segregates.

Would the women elected through this process earn the respect of the citizens?  Would this empower women, or cause resentment against them, much like the resentment against the scheduled dalits? (If you think there is none, get out of that rock you are living under.)

It is unhealthy to kill meritocracy.

One way democracy, at least theoretically, ensures good governance is the incentive for re-election. This bill bulldozes that incentive. A male MP whose constituency is going to be reserved in the next election would not have this incentive. Neither would the woman MP who knows that her constituency will not be reserved in the next election.

What makes me feel that the same woman would not stand for elections when the constituency is open to all? Because that’s what happens in the Panchayats.  The re-election percentages of women chiefs is just 15%. Most political parties are short on women candidates and so cannot afford to field them in open constituencies.

When success is not attached to performance, the performance dwindles. Remember the last time you went to a public bank and the officer at counter 6 asked you to go to counter 9 from where you were sent to counter 7 only to find that the person manning it has not been back from lunch a good 30 minutes after lunch hour? That is because none of these men/women are paid according to how they treat you.

There is no end to this reservation.

When will the reservation end? Which government will have the guts to discontinue the reservation? It will never discontinue and we have a precedent. Reservation of dalits has not reduced in 60 years. If anything, it has increased.

It opens a Pandora’s Box.

Brace yourself for demands of parliamentary reservation by other segments of the society whose members constitute the parliament disproportionately. And what’s next? Reservation in the cricket team? Christians are inadequately represented in the team. Let’s reserve a place for them. No women Indian Idol (in spite of the fact that 50% of the contestants are female). Every three years, Indian Idol should have women candidates only. Thank God movie awards distinguish between male and female actors, or else once every three years, the best actor award would have to have female nominees only.

It encourages dynasty politics

India is no stranger to dynasty politics. The Nehru-Gandhi empire has ‘ruled’ this country for 43 out of the 63 years of independence, and looks set to rule for another decade. If you are a politician’s son, you get a straight ticket. But now, not only the sons, but the wives, daughters, sisters, maids – all will have a chance. Once the bill is passed, there’ll be a mad rush to recruit women politicians, almost overnight. Where are these politicians going to come from? A nationwide talent hunt show? Nope, from the houses of other politicians.

It lowers candidate quality

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure this one out. A boy with a rank of 10,000 gets into a top engineering college but not the guy with the rank 6000 because the first boy can play the namesake in the movie “My Name is Yadav.” Who would you want to make your bridge? (I’m not saying ranks reflect intellect accurately, but that’s not the point here.)

It is simply undemocratic

The country cannot be forced to choose 1/3rd women candidates. People have the right to vote for whoever they want. Even if I were a male chauvinist (pig, happy?), I have the right to vote. If I have a phobia of women, I have the right to vote. If I am a Hindu/Muslim extremist, I have the right to vote. While I do not approve of any of the above behaviors, I have the right to vote for the type of candidate I want to. The government cannot tell me – “Hey you are not voting properly. You should really be voting for more women. So let’s force you to do that every few years.”

I do not deny that it will be good for the country to have more diverse candidates, but the system cannot pull strings to ENSURE that a certain percentage of them will always win. The final say rests with the people. What the system can do is to educate me about what it thinks is right. Not shove it down my throat.

In Conclusion

I am not against women empowerment. I love women more than any feminist in this country does (even more than ND Tiwari does, for that matter, but not the way he does it). But this bill is not the way to do it.

I agree that our democracy does not work perfectly. Democracy is only as perfect as the people that make it. Our laws should try to fix the fallacies of our democracy, rather than addressing them as inevitabilities, and even worse, institutionalizing them.

It is not like the roughly 22% MPs these women will be replacing are qualified to run this country. In fact, I bet they are not. But that doesn’t mean it is OK that they are replaced by this reservation.

Also, most people in India vote for a party more than they do for a candidate and so MPs would still have incentive to do well for their party, unlike my claim above which is based on very theoretical study of human behavior. While this allegiance to party is true, it is not good for democracy. These candidates are going to vote on key issues in the parliament and it is important that they stand up as individuals (wake up, Nitesh).

I’d like to quote Vir Sanghvi, who summed up the Women’s Quota issue very well 12 years ago

But because some articulate activists want to take the easy way out, that is no reason for us to tear up the principles on which electoral democracy is based.

Let us save our country from this virus.

Hello People

Today, Mayawati, the Chief Minister of UP, celebrates her birthday.

Last year, Mayawati’s men murdered an engineer, Manoj Gupta, because Manoj did not want to contribute 500,000 rupees for Maya’s birthday celebration fund. Before he was killed, Maya’s henchmen pulled his hair out, gave him electric shocks, broke his bones, and burnt him with cigarettes (link to news story). I wonder if it was his money or his blood that they needed for the birthday bash.

The news stayed in the media for a little bit but eventually no one was convicted for this savagery. Shekhar Tiwari, the chief perpetrator of the crime, is in custody but is yet to be convicted. Last thing I know about him is that he was requesting a bail in October. CBI wanted to probe this issue further, but Maya did not let the CBI in, probably fearing the opening of a bigger can of worms.

So, repeat after me as I make this plea to Maya on her birthday this year:

Maya, last year you spent 20 billion rupees on your statues when half the state was languishing in droughts. In one case, you got a 70 million rupee statue redone because you did not like its face (can’t really blame the sculptor, can we?) and because you suddenly decided that the statue needed to hold a handbag. A few hundred thousands should be like pocket change for you!

I sincerely hope that the money ‘pocketed’ by you and your men from this project will obviate the need to torture innocent citizens for this pocket change. And if my suspicion is right and it is actually the blood of these people that you desire, then just look carefully at your statues. You’ll see that they are smeared in blood of the people who could have been saved by the monies allocated to your insatiable vanity.

So slay no more, please?

Welcome to the second edition of DFL Indian Premier League. We are here in South Africa for the opening day of the DFL IPL and this year promises to be even better than the last.

The atmosphere today was electrifying, the crowds, great. In the words of my fellow commentary team, this IPL has been a roaring success even though only 2% of it is actually over.

Time now to thank our sponsors – DLF, Citibank, Vodafone, Hero Honda, Kingfisher.

It was a day of the underdog. Mumbai Indians beat favorites Chennai Super Kings and Bangalore Royal Challengers beat the current Champions Rajasthan Royals.

Unlike the run blitz in the opening games of the IPL last year, this year saw relatively low scoring games. There were far fewer DLF Maximums this year than last year. I think this year is gonna be like that as the pitches in South Africa are not as flat as their Indian cousins. My advice to teams is to not strive for DLF Maximums all the time. Instead, try for Citi Moments of Success.  It’s a much better strategy this year.

Time now to thank our sponsors – DLF, Citibank, Vodafone, Hero Honda, Kingfisher.

Even the television broadcast of the IPL is gonna be different this year. Last year, people complained about lack of TV time prioritization with the cricket match often eating into their commercials. So this year the team has clearly allocated times for each segment of the broadcast. This allocation is illustrated below.

Hopefully this will put the complaints to rest.

Time now to thank our sponsors – DLF, Citibank, Vodafone, Hero Honda, Kingfisher.

Another addition to IPL this year is the 7.5 minute mandatory ’strategy’ break after 10 overs every innings. Teams are supposed to get together and strategize the next 45 minutes of play. Now this is important, especially if you have patients of short term memory loss in your team who need to be reminded every 45 minutes what needs to be done.

Let me assure you that the purpose of this break is not to put more ad slots in the game. BCCI would never jeopardize the fun of the game for commercial gains.

On that note, time now to thank our sponsors – DLF, Citibank, Vodafone, Hero Honda, Kingfisher.

Another interesting addition to the DLF IPL is the ‘Bollywood Star’ contest. In every game, a committee would choose a girl from the crowd as a potential bollywood star and after sleeping with each one of them after some competition, declare a winner who would get to star in a film with SRK i think. Now this is an excellent idea. Not only would it ensure that every woman in the crowd would give a smile as fake pretty as Shilpa Shetty’s, it would also add meaning to something cricket cameramen always did anyway – focus on a pretty girl in the crowd. Win win!

So yes, the DLF IPL promises to be wonderful for the 3 Bs – BCCI, Bollywood, and Businesses .. and yeah, of course, cricket

To conclude, time now to thank our sponsors – DLF, Citibank, Vodafone, Hero Honda, Kingfisher.

But, what happens is that the neighbourhood watch committee joins hands with the local goons. The goons break into your house at night, break your legs, rape your wife, and abduct your kids, probably to sell them off to the guys who run begging rackets.

How would you feel? Betrayed? The very people you trusted to protect you from evil actually joined hands with the devil to make your life hell!

As sad as that may be, every 4 years some of us are betrayed the same way by our political parties.

Take for example, in 1997 Uttar Pradesh state elections,  some of us voted for the Bhartiya Janta Party not because we thought they were any good (In fact they had as many jokers as any other party), but to ward off the evil called Mayawati. But what happened? BJP joined hands with Mayawati’s BSP and the fat bitch became the Chief Minister of the state.

So my question is, is it fair to allow these parties to join hands with whoever they want? Is it fair for, let’s say, Samajwadi Party, to criticise the Congress party throughout their election campaign and then join hands with them just because Congress is the only party that has a real chance at forming the government?

Is it fair for the Right Wing Congress to join hands with the Left Parties and subjecting the country to a tug of war of policies at the top?

It defeats the very purpose of democracy when the political parties are not forced to obey their ‘pre-election’ stand after the elections.

Mulayam Singh Yadav, when questioned by CNN IBN recently on whether he’ll support Congress or not said that “I’ll decide after polls”. Why…. Why? Why? Why? How would the Congress party be any different after polls? So let me rephrase Mr Yadav’s words a little to reflect their right meaning

“Well, I would like to be the Prime Minister. But if my party and my allies are not able to get enough seats to have a real chance at the government, I’ll support whoever has the chance because power is all I care about”

So to follow up with the Right to Reject that I proposed in my previous post, I suggest that to make the democratic process more fair all coalitions be announced before the elections.

Thanks to the Congress-BJP rivalry, the country has pretty much 2 power blocks – the UPA (Congress + allies) and the NDA (BJP + allies). All political parties must decide to join one of the two blocks before the elections. If they choose to stay independent, they can, but then they would not have the choice to join the UPA or NDA after the elections. They have the choice, however, to make whatever slime cocktail they want to make among themselves.

To those who feel it makes no sense, I’ll be happy to hear why! Note that I’m not proposing a bi-party system. It’s just not possible to have that in India. If you look at it, it is more of a tri-coalition system. The system allows every vote to have the impact that the voter intended to have.

Yes, I agree this is still not foolproof. If SP and BSP do not decide to join any of the major two coalitions, then they can still form a coalition and the voter who voted for SP to keep BSP out is betrayed. To that, all I have to say is vote for a UPA or NDA affiliated party if all you want to do is to keep BSP out [better still, hope that the right to reject becomes a reality]. The important thing, however, is that there IS a way. In our existing system there isn’t.

But let’s not forget that such a system would let fewer and fewer parties to sit on the fence like they are happily doing now! They’ll have to take a stand, and stand by it throughout the course of the election and more importantly, AFTER it! So the next time I tie a lemon and chillies on my doorstep to ward off evil, at least I can be assured that they won’t end up in the devil’s lemonade!

Let’s say no to these humpty dumpties. Unlike the story, they don’t fall! The nation does!

But of course, by not voting, we are in a way helping the most evil of the evils. Because any vote FOR a competing candidate is a vote against the most evil one. That’s how the math works.

But sometimes, I don’t blame these people; thinking about the upcoming elections, I often ask myself who among the bunch of jokers we have as candidates do I want to vote for. Well, I’m always without an answer. One thing I know for certain, however, is who I do not want to lead this country – The blob of shit called Mayawati … a woman who’s convoy contains 36 cars, who spends millions on her statues around the capital, and has a Nazi salute for a greeting. More on the bitch in another post maybe..

So the only thing that motivates me to go to vote is to prevent her (that’s mighty polite of me to use ‘her’ to refer to Mayawati, ‘it’ is a better article) from winning.

But then, who among the competing candidates do I vote for? Logic says her toughest competitor. But that may not be easy for the common man to determine. If let’s say 100,000 of us vote for, say Congress, with the sole purpose of defeating Mayafatty, and eventually fatty wins by 90,000 votes with Samajwadi Party at #2, the 100,000 votes of ours have been wasted.

It is therefore, I suggest that the right to elect must be complimented by the right to reject. As a voter, I should be allowed to vote FOR a candidate, or vote AGAINST one. Voting against a candidate would mean – “I don’t care who wins as long as it’s not him/her.”

So how do we decide the winner in such an election? Simple.

Case 1: If there is at least one candidate that has a net positive number of votes (i.e. FOR Votes – AGAINST votes) – The winner is the candidate with the highest net number of votes.

Case 2: If no candidate has a net positive number of votes – There is no winner. The seat is considered void and not included in the final counting of the seats. This is because we can’t let a net negative candidate represent us. It is better to be not represeneted than to be represented by a pig in whites whose participation in the house will bring more harm than good. 

Of course, what if there are too many of such void constituencies? Of course, there should be a tolerance level set. So if, say more than 1/3rds of our 500 odd seats are void, then elections would have to be reheld countrywide (you cannot have re-elections in just these void constituencies as voters are likely to be influenced by the results of the other constituencies). Furthermore, the rejected candidates in the void constituencies must not be allowed to stand for elections from the same constituency for the re-election to give the voters new choices.

Why I think the right to reject is better for democracy?

• People who abstained from voting for the lack of a deserving candidate can now participate in the democratic process.
• Void seats will keep away more evil people from the parliament than the current system does. Agreed it would raise the chances of a hung election which is a costly prospect, but the cost of a bad government is a lot higher.
• It would not require of the minorities to unite and decide on a common candidate to defeat an opressive incumbent. The minority groups can, independently, fight the incumbent by rejection.
• Questionable practices like bribing the voters, or inflammatory statements against a particular group would get their due in the voting process.

Obviously, cynics are quick to argue that our democratic process does people to choose to go to the voting venue and not vote for anyone. True, but it’s not enough because our electorate system does not consider the % of people who voted. In fact, this ‘going to the voting booth but not voting’ compliments the right to reject very well. If the net number of people who do not vote for anyone is higher than the highest net positive candidate, the seat should be void.

–

So what do you think? I know the right to reject will not fix everything, but it does fix a lot. Keeping the bad guys out is as important as letting the good ones in ..! So until that happens, I hope that some political party puts up a plant for elections. At least, when I vote for it, I know it’ll do no harm ..

There is a scene in Delhi-6 where an actor playing Lord Shiva on stage is dancing to entertain the chief guest of the act, the local MLA. Watching this, Abhishek Bachchan comments that ‘Even the Gods know the power of the seat’. My reaction was – I wish!

The reality, I feel, is the exact opposite. In India, religion is always above law. Here anything goes in the name of religion. Religion is the opposite of HIV. It gives you immunity against anything and everything. You can go out and rape nuns, just because they participated in the conversion of a few Hindus into Christians. You can demolish a place of worship (also a national monument) just because some dickhead said that there used to be a temple there. You can set people on fire because some members of their community tore down your place of worship a decade ago. You can block railway tracks for hours because someone allegedly said something against your Guru.

Has there been one person put behind bars for these heinous crimes? Ermm.. NO!

Let’s bring it down a notch lower – things that happen in our daily lives. How many times have you had to wait for an hour in the traffic just because some sonovabitch thinks that it is his right to go to his wedding location riding a horse with a battalion of guests high on marijuana, dancing in the middle of the road. The government imposes a fine if I don’t wear seat belts. But what about these people? Why don’t they get a fine? A fine for blocking the streets? A fine for carrying a naked electrical generator to power the atrocious lighting? A fine for dancing in the middle of a crowded road? A fine for noise pollution, thanks to the inevitably horrible singer who sounds like he’s singing from his anus. Why so? Why no fine? Just because their religion says this is how the wedding should be held? Bullshit, right?

And what about the jagrans in the middle of the road? Why the f*** are these douche-bags allowed to encroach upon the whole road just to conduct an all night prayer? What happens if there is a fire somewhere? How would the fire-engine and the ambulance pass? What about the residents of the area who DO NOT WANT to F***ING PRAY ALL NIGHT and just want to sleep?

Why are helmets not compulsory for the Sikhs? The turban is their problem – they need to figure out how to accommodate the two. It’s not the government’s job to relax rules to accommodate religion.

The season of Ramadan is one another frustrating time, especially if you are out in the evening. Why are these people praying on the road? If the mosque is packed, go home and pray you freak. Again, what if an ambulance needs to pass?

Why do we still have the Islamic law? Why should a religion specific law be allowed to exist in this country? Why can a Muslim man marry 4 times when our constitution forbids polygamy?

Why do we allow places of worship that say “Hindus only” or “Muslims only”? Why do we allow religion specific quotas in certain universities?

Ironically, our symbol of Law is Themis - the ancient Greek Goddess of Justice

In the court of law, why am I asked to swear against the Bible, the Quran, the Gita, or the Guru Granth Sahib at the witness box? What does religion have to do with the judicial system, or even truth? Is lying in court only a crime if the oath of was made against a religious text?

Guys and gals, I’m not an iconoclast. I do dislike organized religions, but I have no problem with the people following them as long as they stay in the limits of common sense. E.g, I have no problems with people praying all night in a stadium. That doesn’t harm anyone. But I have a problem with people praying in the middle of the road. It is a safety hazard. If people do that, they should be jailed/fined.

The foundation of a modern democratic society is an insurmountable rule of law that is common and equal for everyone. Unfortunately, our country has not been able to get that right. Religion is still paramount here. Nobody questions, and nobody complains. Why? Why don’t we question this?  Maybe we like it this this way – following religion over following the law. And why shouldn’t we? The consequences of erring are insignificant, it gives us a false sense of righteousness, and gives us a metric to prove that we are better than others – all of which an equal society with a common rule of law does not allow.

On behalf of all Indians who are proud of their culture, I hereby offer you my heartfelt thanks for preserving the dignity of our culture that has slowly but surely been erorded by the pollution of western ideas.

Valentine’s day is a poison that mustn’t be allowed to kill the morals of our society. People believe you are being an orthodox extremist pig by opposing the day. I am a youth of the contemporary Indian society and I tell you sir that you’re not an orthodox extremist. I myself find Valentine’s day highly vulgar – roses, teddies, and heart shaped balloons are the epitome of sleaze. God save our souls from such bad influence.

I totally agree with your stand that dating is not in our culture. I fully support your move to marry off any couple found cozying up on Valentine’s Day. The youth of today needs to look at the love stories of our culture and mythology and not the west. The greatest love story of our culture is that of Lord Krishna and Radha. They should use that as an example. Lord Krishna and Radhaji never dated, did they? They never held hands in a garden or sang love songs! I’m 100% sure Radhaji and Lord Krishna married the moment they fell in love, which was when they just got out of their strollers. Look at the kids of today – want to date, sing love songs, sigh!

Some people have accused your people of hippocrisy and simple sexual frustration. They say your Ram Sene members care little about the Indian culture and want to disrupt Valentine’s day just because they cannot get a girlfriend themselves. I disagree sir. Your guys may have missed the last stage of human evolution, but I can see the passion for Indian culture in their eyes. So what if they smoke and throw bidi/cigarette butts on the road or destroy the country’s property. They never claimed they loved India, did they? They are simply preserving the culture. Manners and respect for public property is definitely not a part of culture.

I’m going to keep this letter short sir. English is a western language and so I guess you won’t be able to understand a long letter. I’ll end with just a simple request on behalf of all the well wishers of Indian culture.

Valentine’s Day is just one of the many western products that have influenced our culture. Hitting it alone is not enough sir. We need to campaign against other products too. You seem to be my only hope.

I request you to campaign against cricket, cinema, english, computers, phones, electricity, automobiles, non-ayurvedic treatments like smallpox vaccine, and even democracy. All these western influences have totally messed up our people and diluted the Indian culture. 

Sir, we need to take the fight to the next level and remove ALL, I repeat, ALL the western influences from our culture. Then we can live our dream of an ideal India – an India ruled by a king with a well organized caste system; an India where women have to burn themselves alive on the funeral pyre of her husband, her rightful end; an India where there is no electricity; an India where people ride bullocks and horses only; an India where millions of people die of infections, smallpox, and polio.

Together we can make it happen sir. Let me know how I can help.

With love regards

Nitesh

Image source: The Hindu (link)

When I look back at the 20 odd years of my life, The Matrix comes across as the foremost contender for such a phenomenon. Closer to home, it’s definitely DDLJ (before you throw bricks at me for saying this, try to see how DDLJ, more than any other film of our generation, has affected us).

Two days back, I came face to face with another such phenomenon – DESHDROHI. A magnum opus par excellence by Kamaal R Khan (KRK).

The bias media has done it’s best to ensure that the film is ridiculed by our people because the media makes its money from the SRKs  and Aamirs and Kareenas. I’m sure that most of you, influenced by the bias media, decided to give the film a miss and are probably laughing at me for calling this film a phenomenon. But I have my reasons to call it so:

It’s a work of art that breaks all barriers and sets new standards of filmmaking

• Deshdrohi, first of all, is an environment friendly film. It accomplishes its green mission by recycling 30 year old, largely defunct cameras to shoot the film, instead of using new ones. This is a first of its kind initiative and a lesson for all other filmmakers who ignore the environment. Tech garbage is fast becoming an environmental hazard.
• Deshdrohi was made with complete safety of the crew in mind, something that has been often compromised in our industry. If any of you have seen any behind the scenes shoots, you must have seen those tracks and cranes for panning and zooming shots. Now they are extremely dangerous – the camera trolly may derail, or the cameraman may fall off the crane. To ensure the crew’s safety, the Deshdrohi team decided to forgo these risky setups, as evident from a scene where it’s clear from the shaking picture that the cameraman is on foot.
• Deshdrohi cared about grooming our country’s future rather than relying on experts for everything. The random split second shots appearing out of nowhere and broken, incomplete scenes indicate that editing was done by a 5 year old playing with scissors for the first time. This is a welcome change for an industry that believes in just hiring the best people to make films. Hats off.
• Deshdrohi dares to show reality. This reality is most glaring in the choreography. Instead of having unrealistic dance-steps no common man would ever do, the choreographers have chosen real life dance-steps straight out of the books of the lads who dance in front of a hindu baraat. To his credit, KRK dances to these steps exceedingly well, a complete natural. Watch out Roshan boy!
• Deshdrohi sets new benchmarks in acting and appropriate casting. KRK, not only looks the part of a 20 something college boy, he delivers a consistent performance throughout. His performance is consistent in that he handles a gamut of emotions – love, anger, friendship, disgust, guilt with the same expressionless face and monotonic delivery. Such a consistency is rare in today’s hype driven actors. He is more than ably supported by a stellar cast that includes Gracy Singh, Zulfikar Sayed, Hrishita Bhatt (marry me), and the Bhojpuri superstar Manoj Tiwari. Gracy Singh as the bike driving local goon; Zulfi as the hard-as-concrete, no-nonsense cop; Hrishita as the girl falling head over heals for KRK; and Manoj Tiwari as the city’s most feared sharpshooter fit their parts to the T and deliver a knock-out performance.
• Deshdrohi takes action to a whole new level. I am sure it’ll do what The Matrix did for action in Hollywood. Manoj Tiwari’s athleticism deserves special mention. Watch him in that scene where he jumps in that pool to beat up a goon. The amount of water that splashes out of the pool is a testimony to the guy’s action skills. Even Gracy Singh surprises with some never-seen-before action sequences. Take her entry scene for example. Baddies are tormenting a pan-wala. Gracy Singh enters riding a motorbike, stops about 100 feat from the baddies, and throws her helmet at the baddy leader, pushing him about 10 feet back. Whoa! Real star, however, is KRK. Imagine this – KRK is hounded by baddies and one such baddy is at a distance, holding a gun. What does KRK do? Slide up to the baddy on his knees and puch him in the crotch. Breathtaking stuff!!
• Deshdrohi, lastly, is a milestone in VFX technology. Two scenes deserve special mention. One is where Hrishita Bhatt confesses to KRK that she is truly madly deeply in love with him. Another one is where Gracy Singh’s aunt tells KRK that he is exactly like the prince charming she had been imagining for her dear niece. These scenes were, beyond doubt, filmed with Hrishita and the aunt in front of a green screen with KRK added in through VFX. It’s impossible to enact such a scene with seriousness otherwise.

Its dialogs would adorn the lexicons of the language of our time

If you’ve watched the trailers of Deshdrohi, you would have seen a glimpse of the pen magic at work in the film. Here are some dialogs from the film that are sure to make you stand up and applaud the wordsmiths responsible:

• KRK, to a politician he is about to shoot – “Nathu Ram Godse ki kya majboori thi ki usne Gandhi ko maara? Koi nahin.. lekin main majboor hoon. Mujhe aapko maarna padega!”
• KRK, introducing Gracy to a politician – “Yeh meri premika hai!”
• Zulfi, insulting KRK upon the later’s request to free Gracy – “Tu Raja se bikhari ban gaya?” (KRK’s character’s name is Raja)
• KRK, in response to the above – “Hey inspector, mera naam Raj Kumar Yadav hai, aur Yadav hamesha Raja hota hai, kabhi bikhari nahin hota!” (with all the reservation going on, the man has a point)
• KRK, regretting killing a goon in self defence – “Main use maarne se pehle mar kyon nahin gaya?” (Erm, well you did have the choice!)
• KRK returns home late after spending the night with friends at an item song. His grand-dad, Avtar Gill is wide awake. When KRK asks him why he hadn’t slept yet, Gill says  – “Neend to aankhon ko aati hai beta. Jis ghar ka jawaan ladka raat raat bhar ghar na aaye, wahan aankhen to ghar ke bahar raah dekhti hain. Unme need kaise aayegi?”
• Mukesh Tiwari has held Gracy hostage and has promised to release her if KRK kills the food minister. When KRK suspects that Tiwari may not keep his side of the promise, Tiwari assures KRK – “Main use jis kamre mein band karoonga, uski chaabi tumhare paas rahegi!” (Erm.. ok!)

Now these are just some of the gems that I remember. Trust me, there are many more. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself using them in real life.

It’s plot, characters jump out of the screen and reside in the memories of its audience like real incidents, real people

• Deshdrohi is about a man Raja (played by KRK) from UP/Bihar who comes to Bombay accidently and is a subject of much humiliation at the hands of the Mumbaiites. He decides to take them on and later becomes a pawn at the hands of the corrupt politicians and the underworld, who are essentially the same thing. Eventually though, he cleans them up better than Lizol floor cleaner. He changes clothes at whim, even though he arrived in Mumbai sans luggage, money. He can walk into the food minister’s office with a gun under his plastered hand and he can breach high level security of the Vice Chief Minister of the state with a gun held in hand. He can get a whole police force to put their guns down and make a politician confess his crimes on national TV by threatening to blow everyone up by detonating a plastic bomb he is wearing on his belt. Now, how can these characters and situations not be real? How can Raja be fictitious?

It can bring about change – in people’s beliefs, lifestyle, ambitions, imaginations, and in fact shape culture

I don’t know about others but the film definitely changed me

• KRK as the lead actor showed me that no dream is too small. If he can be a lead hero in a bollywood film, then I can become the captain of the Indian cricket team too – someday, someday. I had totally given up on this ambition of mine, but now I feel I can do it.
• Hrishita Bhatt (again, I repeat, marry me) falling head over heals for KRK changed my belief that I cannot get a good looking, sane girl to ever love me. It also strengthened my belief that most good looking girls are retarded.
• A couple of scenes in the film changed my belief that the brother-sister relationship is forever. I no longer see my sisters in the same light as before. Consider this – early in the film Gracy Singh’s brother gets shot in the chest. She leaves him for dead after some sob comments about sacrifice and runs away with KRK. Later in the film KRK gets shot, twice in the chest. Gracy somehow manages to find a pull-cart and carries KRK to the hospital. There he is saved by the doctors. Whoa.. sisters..!! My eves have been opened. This Rakhi wow for protection is a strictly one way affair.
• Lastly, the film changed me at a philosophical level. For the last few days, I had been wasting a lot of time, spending away precious moments that I am going to regret on my deathbed. But I wasn’t realizing my mistake. After sitting through this film for two and a half hours, I realized that I was wasting time on absolutely trashy things. I now want to spend my time wisely. I can’t say exactly which part of the film gave me this realization. It was more like an epiphany after the film as I was riding back home.

—

So well, my friends, I hope I need no more arguments to prove that Deshdrohi is indeed a phenomenon. It has every characteristic that makes films phenomenons. If you have not seen the film just because you are influenced by others, or because it is banned in your place, do the world a favor – go watch the film and be a part of this phenomenon. Years later, your children, grandchildren would envy us for having lived in a time this film was released, just like we envy those who lived when Elvis was alive or when Star Wars was made. You don’t want to be regreting then. You don’t want to tell them you did not see this film!! They’ll laugh at you, just like you were laughing at me earlier.

Obama has been the darling of the media and the darling of most people I have had the pleasure of interacting with. He promises to be the change that America, they say, desperately needs. Most “experts” (read morons who think they know too much) believe he’s better for the world and the United States.

Now honestly, I don’t trust pre-election promises and emphatic speeches too much. Bill Clinton was as charming and as good a speaker as America has ever had. He was supposed to be a Listerine powered breath of fresh air, like Obama is supposed to be today. But then who knew that Clinton had trouble keeping his pants on and smoked marijuana (oh, correction – he never ‘inhaled’). JFK, a person who Obama is often compared with, was again a pop celebrity like Obama is today. But then, probably under the influence of a gazillion kilos of medication he took everyday, he increased the US involvement in the Vietnam war by 20 folds.

So yes, I refuse to go by the hype, the promises. I hope Obama can walk the talk. My personal favorite was Sarah Palin. That woman is hot! And everytime I look at her I imagine Tina Fey, the woman most eligible to be my significant other. So that gives Sarah Palin extra brownie points. Before she came into picture, I was an Obama supporter just because Michelle Obama is much more attractive than Cindy McCain. But Sarah Palin made me switch.

Apart from her looks, Sarah Palin and John McCain would have been good for my health, if the old adage – “laughter is the best medicine” is anything to go by. I’ll surely miss George Bush and Dick Cheney once they leave. Not a week passed without getting a video/email forward/news report of their douch-baggery – like shooting a friend while on a hunting trip, or spitting in public when no one’s looking, or being unable to define sovereign. Bummer.. with Obama as the president, what’ll happen to the jokes?

The only saving grace is the “gaffe-machine” Joe Biden who has the knack of blurting out something stupid at regular intervals. Biden reminds me of Nibbles, the diaper wearing grey mouse in Tom and Jerry, who gets into trouble frequently and has to be monitored by Jerry (Obama in this case) all the time. I’m hopeful Biden will keep us all entertained.

So yes, McCain – Palin would have been a better choice from the entertainment point-of-view. Sad it wasn’t to be. Though I have to admit I am happy that Martin Luther King’s dream has come true and a black man as indeed reached the pinnacle of, if I may say, world leadership.

In the last 3-4 months, I have, unfortunately, had the need to use these services and I am astonished at the lack of respect the companies offering these services have for their customers. My experiences have been so bad and so many that I’m forced to write a series of articles on them calling them the “Shame on you” series. I start with a probably unexpected contender – Standard Chartered (Stanchart) Bank.

Here is what happened:

I opened a savings account with Stanchart about 3 months back. Like most modern bank accounts I was entitled to a debit card with my account for which the bloody bank was charging me close to Rs 250 (USD 5) per annum. A month passed and no signs of the card. I called phone banking to register my complaint. After truckloads of promises and apologies, I was assured of a card in a week’s time. I didn’t get the card.

I called once more and again the same thing – apologies and promises. Still no card. I called a third time. Same thing. It was like a TV soap – same thing again and again. As luck would have it I got a call from some random female from the Stanchart survey department asking me about the extent of awesomeness of my banking experience. My guess is my call would be her last for the day.

So after a total of 4 complaints, still no sign of the card. Without a card these days, a bank account is as good as my personal piggy bank, minus the interest which is anyway offset by bank fines and fees (like fee for counting money for cash deposits – you are a bank, you f***ing morons, what else are you expected to do). In fact, Stanchart’s customer service number is not toll free so I spent like a 100 bucks on customer service calls.

Having had enough, I headed over to the bank to close my account. The reason I opened a Stanchart account was to avoid the headaches normally associated with public banks like SBI, and to avoid the evil of blood suckers like ICICI. Bravo, Stanchart has the worst of both – the inconvenience and evil both packaged in one. If this was SBI, I would have relented. Not here.

Of course, as Murphy said it, there was an ultra pretty looking chick at the counter (ok, I have to give it to the Stanchart HR if not their customer support). She was new and she requested that I give her a chance to fix the problem (and probably a chance for her to win like a gold star or something from the manager). In a rare case of brains above balls testosterone, I declined the offer and categorically asked for an account closure.

Here is the funny irritating thing – Stanchart wasn’t too sorry about what they did. In fact the crackheads asked me why I did not come to the bank brach straight instead of calling phone banking. I had 3 things to say:

• F*** you
• Why on earth do you have phone banking then if I need to come over to the branch for stuff like this? My guess is Stanchart runs a call-girl service under the pretext of phone banking.
• I had already been to the bank a week after I opened my account to fix my personal profile. The illiterate retards handling the admin stuff got my email, telephone number, address all wrong, rendering me incapable of even using e-banking. It took them like 2 weeks to fix that. Bank lobbies are not my idea of a lounge and so I don’t like to come over every week for some bloody fault of YOURS.

Ah well, like it happens with most institutions here (and even people), they choose arrogance over dignity and simply charge me 500 bucks for premature closure of account (less than 6 months). My ballsTestosterone overpowered my brain this time and not wanting to create a scene in front of the pretty chick, I simply paid it (I regret it now, honestly, damn women!).

So there it is – my banking experience with Stanchart. 3 months of headache, waste of time, money, and energy – precisely the things a bank is supposed to preserve with its services. Seriously, if you or anyone you know plans to bank with these shitheads at Stanchart please refrain. As I said, it’s probably more convenient to buy a piggy bank and keep money at home than to leave them with these incompetent jerks.

So, except for the pretty girl at the counter (muah!!), shame on you Stanchart, shame on you. All I hope this that you have shitloads of a certain kind of investment that has been in the news recently.