News analysis - Mar/Apr 2008
What is common between Naipaul and Advani?
Well lots… Not many might have figured it out but LK Advani and VS Naipaul have a lot in common. For one, both left their home countries, circumstantial or otherwise, to find new homes – the former in India and the latter in the United Kingdom. Two, both have lived a life, mostly in the last decade, along the tightrope balancing their path to remain in-between self inflicted controversies on the either sides. Three, both support Hindutva. While Naipaul described the destruction of Babri Mosque as a “creative passion” and the invasion of Babur in the 16th century as a “mortal wound”, Advani’s inflammatory speeches, arguably, brought the monument actually down in 1992. Four, both habitually court controversies and have a Pakistani link. Naipaul, all of us know, is married to a Pakistani Journalist Nadira, who he married just two months after the funeral of his wife Patricia, and Advani has a yet to be finished case in Karachi court regarding a controversial plot he had supposedly hatched to kill Jinnah. Surprised? It dates back to the pre independence days. Wow! And last, but not the least, intriguingly their biographies too have hit us readers at the same time.
Tibet and China Olympics
So Baichung Bhutia seems to be the last man standing. Or is it? Difficult to reckon with hordes joining the 17 April slated Rajpath Olympic torch run. Add to that the French incident which is still fresh in our memories. There seems to be a lot of action readying up. And with China bent upon using force to douse the uprising in Tibet – or so we are made to believe – the acting aspirations of the world’s most populous state is at last getting a serious stage fright. It is show time guys. Bent upon to impress, the conducted tour of journalists (India left out) too haven’t done them much good. There are a lot of canons still required to be fired to water the uprising and the consequent relative global unpopularity.
Some say, politics and sports don’t match. Wrong. Because if it doesn’t match then why so much trouble? Games, just like war, are a serious step towards politicking fulfillment when other methods fail. After all, nobody spends so much just for kicking balls and seeing sweating bodies slither on the race tracks. The fascination of watchers and cheerers are made; cultivated over a time. It is international politics boys and we are in the middle of it. Let’s wait and watch what happens. For me, politics or otherwise opportunists who are diluting the struggle of Tibetans are the real trouble makers. And there are a plenty of them.
Civility and Indians
There was a time in the recent past when I used to curse the Indian people honking and spitting on the roads all over the country. These two typically Indian habits were obnoxious enough for me to consider running away from the country. Frankly, I contemplated so several times. So when last week Mumbai decided to have a honk free day and Delhi decided to fine spitting people a little earlier, I was among those persons who breathed easy. At last, we are beginning to evolve in the civil sense. Though there hasn’t been significant change in the way people still honk and spit, at least a word has spread that these are prohibitory habits. Hopefully, by the time my overseas friends come visiting next, I won’t be as ashamed.
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