Disbursed Meditations

The London Olympics 2012: An Overview

2012-02-01T13:42:00.000+05:30

(Published in The New Indian Express, School Edition, on 1 February, 2012, retrieved from ttp://expressbuzz.com/school/the-london-olympics-2012-an-overview/358863.html)

NOTE: This contains very little opinion. It's a summary of the events leading up to the London Olympics, 2012.

From 27 July to 12 August 2012, London will play host to the 30^th Summer Olympic Games. The city won its bid in 2005, through a process that would become one of the many controversies plaguing the Games. The bid was led by former Olympic champion Sebastian Coe, who heads the organising committee for the games.

Despite concerns such as security cost, risk of terror attacks, and even devaluation of property once the Olympics are over, the committee has tided over most of the issues that have cropped up. The one that continues to cause tension is the £ 7 million sponsorship by Dow Chemicals, the parent company of Union Carbide, held responsible for the Bhopal Gas Tragedy of 1984.

How did London win the bid?

By 15 July 2003, nine cities had submitted bids to host the 2012 Olympics:

· Havana

· Istanbul

· Leipzig

· London

· Madrid

· Moscow

· New York City

· Paris

· Rio de Janeiro

Of these, London, Madrid, Moscow, New York, and Paris were shortlisted. Even though the visit of the inspection team from the International Olympic Committee coincided with riots in Paris, the French capital was considered the favourite to win the bid. On 6 July 2005, London squeezed past by a narrow margin. The French media blamed then President Jacques Chirac’s statement that the British had the worst food after the Finnish, when two members of the IOC were from Finland.

How is London organising the Olympics?

After the success of the bid, two bodies were created: the London Organising Committee to oversee the implementation and staging of the games, and the Olympic Delivery Authority to get the venues and infrastructure in place. The government appointed a unit, the Government Olympic Executive, to supervise the £ 9.3 billion of public sector funding, among other things. The IOC’s Coordination Commission has already made 9 visits to London to check on its progress, and is due to make a final visit in March.

A mixture of old stadiums and new venues will be utilised for the Olympics. Most of these fall into three zones within Greater London: the Olympic Zone, the River Zone and the Central Zone. The football matches will be held in stadiums across the UK, and some competitions, such as sailing, will be held outside London.

A 500-acre Olympic Park has been built. This caused some hullaballoo for a while, as several companies and families were forced to relocate for acquisition of this land. Despite several campaigns, the protesters eventually lost out.

The transport system is being given a boost too. Since public transport was one of the areas that London scored low on during the bidding process, Transport for London has set about expanding some of London’s underground and overground lines, introducing a new bullet-train service called Javelin, and making improvements to the Docklands Light Railway. Plans for constructing a cable car link across the River Thames, at a cost of £ 25 million are under way.

Who are the mascots?

On 19 May, 2010, the mascots for the Summer Olympics and the Paralympics were unveiled simultaneously – they are Wenlock and Mandeville, animations representing two drops of steel. They are named after the town of Much Wenlock in Shropshire, which held a forerunner to the current Olympic Games, and Stoke Mandeville, a village in Buckinghamshire, which staged a forerunner to the Paralympic Games.

What are the controversies?

The Bidding: In December 2005, IOC official Alex Gilady, claimed there had been a voting error, which had given London the winning bid, but his contention was dismissed.

Ticketing: Though only 6.6 million tickets were made available, more than 20 million tickets were sold, and then withdrawn. The fact that money had been taken out of bank accounts before people knew what tickets they were being given didn’t sit well with consumers, but the LOC stood by the system.

Scheduling: As the duration of the Olympics nearly coincides with Ramadan (20 July to 19 August), there are concerns that Muslim athletes who are fasting may be at a disadvantage. Calls for rescheduling have not been heeded, though.

The Logo: This has been at the Centre of several controversies. Created by brand consultancy Wolff Olins at a cost of £400,000, the logo triggered off ridicule and protest when it was unveiled on 4 June, 2007. Some said it looked like a distorted Swastika, while Iran claimed it spelt ‘Zion’ and temporarily threatened to boycott the Games. The organisers insisted it represents ‘2012’, but some people thought of some rather naughty interpretations. Animated footage released along with the logo was reported to have triggered epileptic attacks in people suffering from photosensitive epilepsy.

Social Media Guidelines: The IOC’s guidelines seem to prevent athletes from commenting on other participants, promoting their own sponsors, or using the word ‘Olympic’ except under certain circumstances, on their websites and other social media. This has been criticised for hindering their freedom of speech.

And the biggest controversy: Dow sponsorship

Late last year, it was revealed that the Dow Chemical Company is one of the partners of the Games, having signed a deal for £ 7million dollars. The sight of the specialised decorative wrap it was commissioned to produce for the Olympic Park set off protests across the world.

Thousands of survivors of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy burned Sebastian Coe in effigy, and blocked several train lines on 3 December, 2011, the 27th anniversary of the disaster, in protest. Coe refused to budge, and as some sort of defence, said his maternal grandfather was Indian!

In addition to its purchase of Union Carbide, Dow Chemicals is notorious for manufacturing Agent Orange and napalm, which were used during the Vietnam War.

Protesting the sponsorship, campaigner Meredith Alexander, one of the volunteers on the Olympics’ watchdog body, the sustainability commission, resigned last Wednesday.

On Sunday, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan demanded that India boycott the Olympics if Dow Chemicals remains a sponsor, and said the Centre should speak to the organisers in London.

Despite fears of a boycott, though, so far the Indian Olympic Association has said there is no question of India doing this.

SNIPPETS

London will become the first city to host the modern Olympic Games three times – 1908, 1948, 2012.
It is expected that 204 nations will participate; 146 have already qualified.
More than 10,000 athletes are expected to take part in 302 events in 26 sports.
4700 medals, each 7 mm thick and weighing about 400 gms, will be minted for the Games. Designed by David Watkins, each will have the sport and discipline engraved on it, along with a representation of the Greek goddess of victory, Nike.
The Opening Ceremony has Danny Boyle as artistic director.
The Olympics will showcase renewable energy, though the percentage of green energy to be used has been docked from 20% to 9% for safety reasons.
All food packaging will be made from either recyclable or biodegradable material, including starch and cellulose-based bioplastics.
Special online technology is being developed to stream highlights of the Games.
30 stamps have been released, featuring an Olympic sport along with the logo, to commemorate the Games. Incidentally, 1908 and 1912 are the only years when no special Olympic stamps were issued.
Prices of tickets range from £ 20 to £ 2012, and about 8 million tickets are expected to be available.
For the first time in Olympic history, sailing events will be ticketed. The marathon, triathlon and road cycling remain free events.
Military personnel, as well as survivors and families of victims from the 7 July 2005 London tube bombings, will receive free tickets.
Security arrangements include 13,500 members of the armed forces, and 10,000 police personnel, in addition to naval ships, Eurofighter jets and surface-to-air missiles. The cost of the security arrangements is estimated to be £ 553 million.
A digital clock in Trafalgar Square has been set up to count down to the London Olympics.
On 27 July 2011, a special event was held to celebrate the one-year-to-go theme.
For the first time, the same logo design will be used for the main Olympics and the Paralympics.

THE GAMES BUDGET

£ 5.3 billion for building venues and infrastructure
£ 2.7 billion for a contingency fund
£ 600 million for security
£ 800 million for VAT
£ 400 million for elite sport and Paralympic funding
£ 2 billion for staging the games

The Devas Deal and the ISRO Row

2012-01-31T16:04:00.000+05:30

(Published in The New Indian Express, School Edition, on 31 January, 2012, retrieved from http://expressbuzz.com/school/the-devas-deal-and-the-isro-row/358514.html)

NOTE: This is not an opinion piece. It's a summary of the row over the Devas deal.

Over the past couple of days, four men who were among the most celebrated in the space science community of India have been blacklisted, and banned from holding any government-affiliated jobs in future.

Madhavan Nair, former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief, K Bhaskaranarayana, former scientific secretary of ISRO, K N Shankara, former director of the ISRO satellite centre, and K R Sridharamurthy, managing director of Antrix, the ISRO’s commercial wing, were apparently being penalised for their role in allocating S-band spectrum to private company Devas.

That deal was annulled last year, and the reason given was that the spectrum was needed for strategic purposes by the nation. So, why are the scientists in trouble now?

What is the Devas deal all about?

On January 28, 2005, a deal was signed between Antrix and Devas, a private company headed by M G Chandrashekhar, a former scientific secretary at ISRO, stating that ISRO would lease 90% of the transponders using the S-band (2.5-5 GHz) on two satellites that the ISRO was planning to launch in 2013. Devas was to use these transponders for digital multimedia broadcasting purposes. S-band wavelength is usually reserved for a country’s strategic interests.

Devas was to pay Antrix $ 300 million (Rs 1500 crore at the time) over 12 years. ISRO later admitted that no competitive bidding procedure was followed. According to reports, Antrix got permission from the Space Commission and the Union Cabinet to launch the two satellites, at a cost of Rs 400 crore, without informing the agencies about the deal.

The policy guidelines say that private sector providers can use spectrum only on a non-exclusive basis, and the deal went against this. Later, the Department of Space called it a security risk to allot so much spectrum to a private player. In February 2011, the deal was cancelled. Radhakrishnan, who had succeeded Madhavan Nair as ISRO chief by then, said this was because there had been no prior intimation that the satellites were meant mainly to fulfil Devas’ business purposes, and that the government had decided to hold on to the spectrum for national “strategic and social priorities”.

What were the controversies then?

Newspapers reported then that the deal gave Devas 70 MHz of S-band spectrum for about Rs 2000 crore. This was compared to Rs 67, 000 crore, which was acquired by the government by auctioning 15 MHz of airwaves for 3G spectrum allocation.

While some people maintained that the two entities were incomparable, and the PMO rubbished claims that there was revenue loss, the opposition BJP held that the Prime Minister, who heads the Department of Space, is responsible.

There was controversy on two counts – that Devas could sell equity in the spectrum it has acquired for profit, and that the scarce resource of S-band spectrum was needed for defence and strategic purposes.

On 17 February 2011, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh formalised the annulment of the deal. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) was said to be looking into the deal.

On January 13, 2012, a two-page order from the Department of Space, signed by its director Sandhya Venugopal Sharma, said the four scientists “shall be excluded from re-employment, committee roles or any other important role under the Government.” It also says “these four former officers shall be divested of any current assignment/consultancy with the Government with immediate effect.”

Why is the business murky?

Questions are being raised because there has been no explanation from the government about the circumstances under which the deal was struck, and what the role of government officials in the business was. What had led to the signing of the Antrix-Devas deal?

Reports in the media said the Department of Space (Dos) had sent a note to commissions set up to look into the deal, saying only 4 of the 8 members of the Antrix board had approved the deal, and the decision to go ahead had been made in a hurry. Even more strangely, the agreement was reached before permission had been acquired for the satellites to be set up. But in an earlier note to the CCS, the DoS did not mention these issues at all, only saying that the spectrum was needed for strategic reasons.

There is also some concern that the four scientists have been banned from holding government office, without being given a chance to speak for themselves. This has led to speculation that the PMO is trying to hide the government’s role in the deal. The PMO has said the action was taken based on the report submitted by a five-member team headed by former Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) Pratyush Sinha. Nair’s successor Radhakrishnan was part of this team, and Nair has accused him of pursuing personal vendetta.

Also, the team was constituted following a report submitted by a two-member high-powered review committee, comprising Planning Commission Member B K Chaturvedi and Space Commission Member Professor Roddam Narashimha.

Neither report was made public. The only report that has been made public is the initial CAG report, which pegged the potential loss to the government as Rs 2 lakh crore.

What were the reactions?

Madhavan Nair called the government order “discriminatory and unfair” and said he may take legal action as he had been given no opportunity to defend himself.

The next day, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office V Narayanasamy hinted that the scientists had been made an example of, saying, “The government wanted to send a strong message to our scientist community that no wrong-doing will be tolerated.”

Professor C N R Rao, Head of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, defended the scientists, saying angrily that they had been “thrown out like garbage.” He also hit out at Narayanasamy, saying, “I don’t know where he got his basic education.”

Two days after the row broke out, Nair was said to have told friends that he intends to focus on the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), headquartered in Paris, which he is now President of. Incidentally, he is the first man outside the US to hold its Presidency.

WHO HAS BEEN BLACKLISTED?

G Madhavan Nair, former chief of ISRO

K Bhaskaranarayana, former scientific secretary at ISRO

K R Sridharamurthi, former managing director of Antrix

K N Shankara, former director of the ISRO satellite centre

TIMELINE
January 28, 2005	A deal is signed between Antrix and Devas, granting the latter almost exclusive use of S-band spectrum through satellites GSAT6 and GSAT6A.
October 31, 2009	Madhavan Nair retires as ISRO chief, and is succeeded by Radhakrishnan .
February 9, 2011	Radhakrishnan announces that the Devas deal has been scrapped, following a decision made in July 2010 in the interest of national strategic and social priorities.
February 10, 2011	PMO constitutes a 2-member committee to review technical, commercial, procedural and financial aspects of the S-band allocation.
February 17, 2011	Cabinet Committee on Security announces the annulment of the contract.
March 12, 2011	The 2-member committee submits its report.
May 31, 2011	PM constitutes 5-member high-level team under former CVC Pratyush Sinha.
January 13, 2012	DoS sends a secret order asking for a ban on the re-employment of the 4 scientists, and termination of their current involvement in any assignment or consultancy with the government.

Delhi Diary: Of Rushdie, Republic Day and Cycle Rides

2012-01-30T12:24:00.001+05:30

(Published in Sify.com, on 29 January 2012, retrieved from http://www.sify.com/news/delhi-diary-of-rushdie-republic-day-and-cycle-rides-news-cities-mb3mnkajbae.html)

“It touched 15 degrees in Madras!” I had told my Naarthie friends excitedly, “I think I can handle a Delhi winter again!” And so it is that on a misty morning in late January, I find myself stepping out of the luxurious Terminal 3 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport into the choked lanes of the city I once called home, where lemon-yellow-hooded autos fight for space with black-hooded Lamborghinis.

Day 1:

My taxi driver wants to know whether I’m going to Jaipur, and that’s when I realise just what a carnival that particular literature festival has turned into. The newspapers are a reminder. For the first time in my memory, three articles on the front page are attributed to a civilian other than Anna Hazare – Salman Rushdie.

Will he or won’t he? everyone wants to know. Well, what did we expect, really? Rushdie would not make even a virtual presence at the festival, but he hits the headlines pretty regularly through the week.

Is this really Delhi? I wonder, in some dismay. I’ve got used to seeing literary events confined to the middle sections of newspapers, and it’s never occurred to me that one day, four national dailies will carry editorials on Rushdie in their Delhi editions. So, I’m rather relieved when I read an equally long article, also on the front page, about a couple that waited thirty years to get divorced, after the bride ran away on her wedding day.

Day 2:

Since the Gucci-, Fendi-, Prada-, and Christian Louboutin-sporting divas and dandies have reportedly driven khadi kurtas, faded jeans, jhola bags and oversized silver jewellery out of Jaipur, I make my way to Mandi House, with a two-hundred rupee bag that regularly gets mistaken for Fendi.

I meet some of those disillusioned discards in the theatres lining that stretch. Some tell me from the lawns, concrete steps, tree branches and gates they’re flopped against that the Jaipur Literature Festival was once a quaint little event.

“It’s two bloody tents and a hall, yaar,” one mumbles, as the smoke from his cigarette cuts through the thick winter air, “Where is the space for all these people?”

“But why would anyone want to go someplace where Oprah’s behind is scheduled to be pressed up against Scoop Lady’s lips?” another says.

I don’t know. I’ve never been to the Jaipur Literature Festival, and don’t plan to go.

“So we’ll just brave the cold and linguistic barriers and stay here. Haha...owwwww!” my chattering teeth have just made a fresh puncture in my cracked lips.

A silent, mournful alumnus of the National School of Drama offers me his lip balm.

The Smoker says, “There are subtitles in all the audis this time, though.”

“They’re subtitling the plays?!” I gasp.

“Yeah. It’s going to kill the drama,” The Smoker sighs, “Everyone’s selling out.”

Everyone looks so gloomy that I decide to disguise my delight and contort my face into a grimace. I also wonder whether The Smoker meant the plays were literally sold out, or whether intellectuals were selling out to the mass. I am not destined to find out, but I do understand the regional play I watch at the NSD festival.

Day 3:

“Bhaiyya, Select Citywalk,” I say, and am about to bargain, when the auto driver nods and turns on the meter.

Whaa...? That was a rare treat in the Delhi I lived in, though unheard of in most other metros. But the Metro’s apparently made auto drivers more accommodating. The meter is actually used most of the time.

On the way to Select Citywalk, the auto takes several diversions. I’m beginning to think the meter was not a particularly good idea, when the driver grumbles about the “January 26” arrangements.

There’s security everywhere. Twenty-minute drives take two hours, and traffic jams clog the wide roads. That gives everyone plenty of time to glare at the empty BRT corridors, segregated from the other lanes when the Bus Rapid Transit System was brought in before the Commonwealth Games 2010.

Day 4:

Having been deprived of watchable cinema as mediocre Pongal releases swarmed the movie halls back in Chennai, my heart sings as I head off to watch Coriolanus, which I still cannot believe released in India.

The distributors may not make that mistake again. I am the only one in the cinema at 11:10 am, ten minutes after the film is scheduled to begin.

An apologetic manager tells me they may have to cancel the show, and will either refund my tickets or give me tickets to another film. I refuse to let that happen to Shakespeare or Ralph Fiennes, or myself, and throw a tantrum.

“I’m reviewing this film!” I say, shaking my head vigorously, “I have a deadline, and I trusted your cinemas to show it. Now, I’ll have to write that the show was cancelled.”

The manager consults with his underlings, and then offers me coffee. I tell him I’m going to miss my deadline if they delay the screening by another five minutes, and they assure me they will play the film.

So begins my first movie experience sans crying babies, singing mobile phones, screeching women, shouting men, and giggly teenagers.

Sometime after the interval, a middle-aged couple stroll in, and look at me in some bewilderment. They hurry out, and I wonder what they were planning to do in the privacy of a cold, dark, cavernous room beaming giant images of Gerard Butler and Ralph Fiennes.

I pray that my midlife crisis, when it does arrive, should not bring fantasies as kinky – and if it does, I add a clause, please let no columnist witness it.

Day 5:

I’m nearly done with my trip to Delhi. And one of the high points of that visit is an interview with Mark Tully at his West Delhi residence.

Sitting in his study, where a library of books towers over the table, I speak to the cheerful, energetic, much-adored veteran journalist who began his adult life in India as a BBC foreign correspondent, and went on to write several books that brought the real India home to Indians.

I bid goodbye at last to Mr Tully, his colleague and partner Gillian Wright, and their two large dogs, and think the day can’t get much better.

It does. I rush through the closing doors of a Metro, into the general compartment. The ladies’ compartment is too far off for me to reach and hunt for a seat. Luckily, a college student picks himself off a seat, near me, and I beat another man to it.

Four stops later, I see the college student standing near a door, still waiting for his station to arrive, and realise with astonishment that chivalry exists.

Day 6:

The chivalry of the previous day is to take a rather bizarre, borderline unsavoury turn today.

I find myself in one of those gol chakkars with signboards that seem to be designed to confuse everyone, and I decide to ask for directions.

That’s tricky in Delhi. Most people will ask you to walk straight ahead, while pointing to the left, and ask you to take a left while pointing to the right. On the rare occasion you’re given the correct directions, an eavesdropper will approach you and misguide you.

But a septuagenarian on a cycle, who looks like a retired watchman, seems a safe enough bet. I ask him where Rajesh Pilot Marg is.

“Oh, that’s near Khan Market,” he says, “There’s a bus from...”

“No, I was told it’s near The Claridges,” I protest.

“Oh, okay,” he says, and thinks, “why don’t you get on my cycle, I’ll drop you.”

Warning bells go off in my head, and a Rajnikanth song seems to be playing in his. He flashes a nearly-toothless grin at me, and I stammer that my car is parked at The Claridges, and head off quickly to the hotel.

Day 7:

As I arrive at Terminal 1D for my return flight, I pick up a newspaper and find Salman Rushdie hasn’t left the front page yet. This time, his video conference at the Jaipur Literature Festival has been cancelled; and an entire paragraph has been devoted to what its writer clearly believes to be an evocative description of the ashen appearance of William Dalrymple when the news was announced.

I drag myself, my suitcase and a bag full of books to the bottom of the stairs, and nearly trip up someone.

“After you,” he says, and I mumble, “No, go ahead.”

“No, no, please,” he insists, and to my embarrassment, I can’t push the extendable handle back into my suitcase.

The next thing I know, the person-I-nearly-bumped-into is grabbing it from my hands, and carrying it up the stairs, promising he won’t run away with it.

The second display of gallantry in a world where feminists consider the concept outdated. I’m about to fall in love, and then wonder whether I’ve been pushed into an alternate reality. It doesn’t help that I’m reading Murakami’s 1Q84.

Deposited upstairs, I wait in line for coffee, still considering the likelihood of my being in a Murakami novel.

Then, I hear a woman ask a man, “Excuse me, were you before me in the line?” The man pretends not to hear her, and she says, “I was here before, I think.” He places his order, and she shakes her head vigorously, rolls her eyes at me and mutters, “Indian men!”

I laugh, and she asks, “Are you from here?”

“Yeah.”

She replies, “I wonder how the population expands if this is all you women have to choose from!”

And I know I’m in the real world. Now, where’s that person-I-nearly-bumped-into?

Agneepath: Hrithik Overshadows Big B

2012-01-30T03:15:00.002+05:30

(Published in The New Sunday Express, dated 29 January, 2012, retrieved from http://expressbuzz.com/entertainment/reviews/agneepath/357976.html)

Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Sanjay Dutt, Rishi Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Zarina Wahab, Kanika Tiwari

Director: Karan Malhotra

Rating: 4 stars

Okay, I’ve a confession to make. I don’t remember much of 1990’s Agneepath. I do recall Amitabh Bachchan being given life lessons by a cop who looked younger than he. And I know I was on Danny Denzongpa’s side because I was a huge fan of Ajnabi .

What I’m trying to say is, when 2012’s Agneepath opens to a chorus of “Masterji!” and a man who could be advertising Ujala marches up to the crowd, along with an aging woman in a sari, I assumed they were mother and son. Turns out Zarina Wahab isn’t Chetan Pandit’s plump Ma, but his pregnant Biwi! So, all right, I spent a decade watching Nirupa Roy deliver babies in huts and lose them in fairs, but at least her husbands didn’t look like they’d stepped out of ads where they delight in the coffee their svelte wives make.

But the film goes uphill from there. When the crusading Masterji Deenanath Chauhan takes on a contraband ring run by Kancha (Sanjay Dutt), the dark elements of the film come into play – the manner in which Chauhan is made out to be an enemy of the people is horribly unsettling, and its outcome fills the viewer with a sense of foreboding that lasts right through.

Despite its three-hour duration, there’s no time for idyll in the film. Every time our hero Vijay (Hrithik Roshan) is touched by hope, a reminder of the past haunts him. His unwavering adherence to his mission is echoed in the focused storyline.

There are no good bad guys here, not even Vijay. He seems to have no problem with the child prostitution racket run by his mentor Rauf Lala (Rishi Kapoor), as long as his childhood friend Kaali (Priyanka Chopra) and sister Shiksha (Kanika Tiwari) aren’t targeted.

Having cut off the fat of complicated parallel stories, the movie concentrates on characters and quirks. When Vijay’s long-lost sister comes to the chawl she left as an infant, hordes of neighbours expect her to recognise them. As Kaali does a hasty aarti with smoking coals for Vijay, she curses whoever’s thinking of him enough to cause him a coughing fit. A beauty parlour board reads ‘We specialy in bridal makeup’.

While Agneepath has been marketed as a tribute, Hrithik Roshan plays a completely different Vijay. He breaks into sobs, he seethes with rage, he remains calm even as his nerves recoil, he takes several beatings. He brings in so many shades to the character that the viewer is left guessing whether he’s being calculating, callous, or loyal. When Rauf Lala declares, “Ab mere do nahin, teen beten hain”, he smiles “Lekin teenon mein se ek shaheed honewala hai” on the day of Lala’s son’s wedding. In retrospect, the line takes on sinister tones. When he wells up, as he does several times, the tears are blinked away rapidly, and their remnants glisten in his eyes. His intense scenes with Kancha are exquisite, and he looks so good that one sort of gets why Sanjay Dutt has a penchant for fondling him. The slow morphing of his nervousness around his sister to devotion in the face of her open trust is portrayed in a nuanced manner.

The natural acting is aided by screenplay that accommodates spontaneity. For instance, the shy Shiksha turns to her brother for approval before dancing in step with the boisterous Kaali. Priyanka Chopra is likeable as the rustic, impulsive Kaali, giving her all for the man she loves, and yet strong enough to let him go when the time comes. I can forgive her propensity to overplay her cuteness. What I find hard to look past is the incongruity of a village belle coming up with, “Get moving!”

While using the kitsch of symbolism – Vijay literally fills Rauf’s shoes – the film sidesteps several clichés. It’s over the top at times, and dispels with the laws of physics when guns are fired, but I suppose that’s part of the tribute. The film could have done without some manic ranting from Kancha about his looks, though. And some below-par graphics. And an awkward Katrina Kaif whose jiggles and thrusts are rather too vulgar. Instead, Vijay’s relationship with Inspector Gaitonde (Om Puri) could have been fleshed out.

The Verdict: It’s not often masala and art make a miscible mix. Here, it clicks.

The Descendants: Farce in Tragedy

2012-01-30T03:02:00.000+05:30

(Published in The Sunday Guardian, on 29 January, 2012, retrieved from http://www.sunday-guardian.com/masala-art/when-farce-turns-tragic)

Cast: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller, Patricia Hastie, Nick Krause

Director: Alexander Payne

Rating: 5 stars

The opening scene of The Descendants wouldn’t be out of place in a documentary on Hawaii. Neither would the voiceover. Until Matthew King (George Clooney) tells Paradise what it can do with itself.

“How can they possibly think our families are less screwed up, our heart attacks and cancers less fatal, our grief less devastating?” he wonders, looking up from the work he has brought to a hospital.

This is a film about loss – of people, of land. When someone dies, s/he wins. However that person has let you down, you’re the one feeling guilty, you’re the one wishing you’d done all those things you could have. And what if there’s someone left, someone who represents the departed? Does the person left behind become the target of your anger, or the symbol of your forgiveness?

What seems to be a simple family drama about a father trying to reconnect with his daughters is, on another level, an allegorical tale of the bond between man and land. An impending death, an affair, a substance abuse problem and a taste for explicit vocabulary are at the heart of this dysfunctional family’s story. Meanwhile, a larger family, descended from a banker and Princess, must figure out what to do with 25,000 acres of inherited land that will soon be tied up in a legal mess. The parallel is brought out in a brilliantly-worded confrontation, where each party picks up on a different layer.

The story follows King, his daughters Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) and Scottie (Amara Miller) and Alexandra’s goofy boyfriend Sid (Nick Krause) on a mission they hope will resolve the family’s issues. And throughout, you never know whether to laugh or cry.

Skirting maudlin with irony, the film takes a quirky look at the hilarity surrounding tragedy – the stifling concern, the cold pragmatism of organ donations, the eulogising of the sinful, the laying of blame – which could drive you into seeking advice from someone you labelled “retarded”.

What do we get attached to when we lose the things we thought were ours? the movie makes one wonder. Alternating silence with yodelling, Hawaiian songs and American classics, the texture of the film contrives to weave nostalgia and hope together.

The characters are rounded, and the acting nuanced. Clooney’s mastery of his craft shows in his willingness to be directed, his ability to deliver lines as if he’d thought them up. It’s hard to believe this man once wore a purple bodysuit and indigo chastity belt, as he dashed around Gotham City with his...ahem, rainbow ally.

Verdict: I can’t think of a single drawback. This film is, to me, perfect.

Agneepath: Darker, Stronger, Sleeker

2012-01-30T02:56:00.001+05:30

(Published in The Sunday Guardian, on 29 January, 2012, retrieved from http://www.sunday-guardian.com/masala-art/roshan-revels-in-remake)

Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Sanjay Dutt, Rishi Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Zarina Wahab, Kanika Tiwari

Director: Karan Malhotra

Rating: 4 stars

Vijay, the Angry Young Man, is back. And this time, he’s no aging superstar. A perfectly-toned Hrithik Roshan exudes both power and vulnerability, redefining the Vijay Deenanath Chauhan Amitabh Bachchan played in 1990.

In an era of shoddy remakes, Agneepath adapts itself to a contemporary audience, and is bold enough to speak of CSA and underage prostitution. Where the original had Masterji lynched for visiting a brothel, the implication is darker here. Yet, it’s aware of its temporal setting – 1977 to 1992 – subtly portrayed through movie posters in the background, costumes, and telephones. No nods to international events, no allusion to politics.

This is a film meant for the theatre – the surging crowds, pulsating music, elaborate dance routines, and artfully choreographed fights make for a spectacle. There may be a song or three too many, but debutant director Karan Malhotra does well to intersperse these with combat sequences.

The fleshing out of minor characters gives the film a strong foundation, and the story is cleaner for the lack of sub-plots. Nope, no Krishnan Iyer – presumably, Bollywood’s figured out educated Tam Brahms don’t typically sell coconuts in Bombay. Rishi Kapoor excels as Rauf Lala, a creepy underworld don who mentors Vijay.

The character of young Vijay (Arish Bhiwandiwala) is perfectly in keeping with the avatar donned by Hrithik Roshan. They don’t have the same light eyes, but they share fiery expressions. And it comes through beautifully in a photograph with his childhood friend and to-be-partner Kaali (later played by Priyanka Chopra) – he stares into the camera as she beams at it.

Sanjay Dutt is a sinister Kancha: his hairless face with its nasty smile is chilling. The horror and bewilderment of the mute, autistic Azhar Lala (Deven Bhoja) at the ugly events he witnesses make for understated social commentary. Chetan Pandit stands out in his brief appearance as Masterji, determined, kind and inspiring.

Hrithik’s gaze is so intense he doesn’t look ridiculous even when he’s commanding an army of hijras. Unlike Bachchan, he delivers his dramatic dialogues with restraint that doesn’t lend itself to meme. He only barks out his name on one potent, memorable occasion. The only real tribute to Bachchan seems to be a flutter of sepia leaves that’s reminiscent of Toofan.

What didn’t work, then? The final fight stretches too long to be plausible. The Ma sentiment is a misfit in the fresh template. The glamour quotient is contrived – the chawl Vijay lives in seems to run a midriff-exposing contest, and Katrina Kaif makes a poor Chikni Chameli. And yaar, don’t ask us to believe Zarina Wahab’s pregnant. Really.

Verdict: Version 2 beats the original.

The Descendants: The Loss of the Land

2012-01-28T21:03:00.000+05:30

(Published in City Express, The New Indian Express, dated 28 January 2012, retrieved from http://expressbuzz.com/entertainment/reviews/the-descendants/357800.html)

Cast: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller, Patricia Hastie, Nick Krause, Beau Bridges , Robert Forster, Matthew Lillard, Judy Greer

Director: Alexander Payne

Rating: 5 stars

The laughing woman in early middle-age, helming a speedboat, as The Descendants opens, could be a representative image of Hawaii. Turns out she will be the most important character in the story, a potent absence.

In the sardonic tone with which he speaks of his missionary ancestors who bought islands, or married princesses and inherited theirs, Matthew King (George Clooney) tells us his friends in the mainland think Hawaiians are “all just out here drinking mai-tais, shaking our hips, and catching waves” and snorts, “Are they nuts?”

It is this “place of contradiction”, this land whose language they don’t know, that the Kings who have descended from a Princess must reconcile their relationship with. And as lawyer Matt King – the sole trustee of their fund – guides his cousins through the legalities of disposing of vast tracts of inherited land, he must re-evaluate his ties with his wife Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie) and his daughters, Scottie (Amara Miller) and Alexandra (Shailene Woodley).

In a story that revolves around impending tragedy, you may laugh far more than you expect to. How can you not, when the matter-of-fact narrative drawls, “Don’t be fooled by appearances. In Hawaii, some of the most powerful people look like bums and stuntmen”? And the film is all the more poignant for its humour.

Forced to be a single parent while his wife is comatose, a man who didn’t “blow [his] share of the trust money”, a man who doesn’t want his “daughters growing up spoiled and entitled” and believes in the adage “Give your children enough money to do something, but not enough to do nothing”, must be their friend and minder. And these daughters are the kind who’ll swear like sailors, drink like fish, and party like Paris. They’ll also bring home idiots like Sid (Nick Krause), who moves Grandpa Thorson (Robert Forster) into punching him in the eye minutes into their acquaintance. They’ll give people the finger, they’ll stuff their bikini tops with sand, and they’ll surf porn.

The Descendants makes us wonder: Do we realise our responsibility towards what is ours only when we’re pushed to it, when we’re tested, when loss draws near? The film's evocativeness lies in its idiosyncrasy. And its heaviest messages are carried through quirky scenes – a calf loitering about on a lawn, a friend spelling out the name of a paramour, a sheepish glance from a father who mumbles, “You act like you don’t respect authority” to a glowering daughter.

The black and white photographs of stiff ancestors in severe clothes are placed in contrast with the hearty chatter and constant motion of their descendants in flamboyant outfits; their missionary zeal, and their concentrated efforts to stop the Hawaiians from surfing and doing the hula, in contrast with their descendants’ beach hopping and willingness to sell their land for less if the money comes from a Hawaiian firm.

How does one safeguard a memory? How does one preserve what’s lost? How does one recast the beginning of a relationship gone sour? How does one channel rage into reconciliation? Whom does one blame for the loss of something, or someone, one treasures? Those questions, which figure so often in the dynamics of love and trust, which so deeply affect our regard for someone, or something, we’ve taken to be our love, our friend, our pain, our joy, may never before have been asked in such a gossamer-light narrative. The gentle notes of the eclectic musical score may never before have been mixed into a track with so many expletives. And the idea of morality may never before have been stirred through such petty desires.

Verdict: It says something about the story that even a cinema full of people who giggled at the nudity of Greek statues could fall silent for the seconds it takes to hear the wind and waves on an island. It says something about George Clooney that, going in with a tabula rasa as I did, I was startled to discover he had neither written nor directed the film. Don’t miss this one.

Contraband: A Drug-Induced Heist Fest

2012-01-28T20:36:00.001+05:30

(Published in City Express, The New Indian Express, dated 28 January 2012, retrieved from http://expressbuzz.com/entertainment/reviews/contraband/357797.html)

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Kate Beckinsale, Giovanni Ribisi, Caleb Landry Jones, Ben Foster, J K Simmons

Director: Baltasar Kormákur

Rating: 2.5 stars

We’ve seen movies like this. Mostly, they starred Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta, and other Italian-origin actors with stilted drawls and a penchant for swearing. Thirty years on, someone decides to film a good old gangster movie remade from the Icelandic original, with the German-sounding Mark Wahlberg, playing a guy phonetically named after a British scientist, who’s thrown into Latin America to smuggle currency and drugs. Predictably enough, the film is predictable.

It all begins when Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) proves himself inept at running drugs. After the bad guy Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi) nearly kills him, tough guy brother-in-law Chris Farraday (Mark Wahlberg) steps in to save his wife Kate’s (Kate Beckinsale’s) little bro. Now, Farraday and all his smuggler buddies have settled into nuptial bliss, making an honest living from plumbing, carpentry and sundry odd jobs. The fact that they have to work for a living at all would seem to indicate they weren’t great smugglers to start with, but the movie would have you believe otherwise.

In fact, it calls for a willing suspension of disbelief from the word go – I mean, how do you explain someone as lovely as Beckinsale having a brother who looks like Jones?! Or why the odd job men would put their necks on line for a friend with a nutjob brother-in-law? Yeah, that’s what they do – a bunch of them join Farraday on one last sea adventure to run contraband and save the bro-in-law, while his best friend Sebastian (Ben Foster) is assigned to protect the missus. Eventually, you’re not sure whether to treat it as comedy or as thriller.

To its credit, the film doesn’t get boring, and manages to introduce several twists at the right moments. But what annoys me is the complete lack of logic through all the narrow escapes. People seem to turn into ether on cue. There is that stretching and compressing of time that begs spoofs in which cars hurtle towards their prospective victims five times, before the victims are rescued by acrobatic women in catsuits. A group of incompetent drug-runners and moneychangers suddenly acquire the ability to recognise a Jackson Pollock painting.

Somewhere between the random shootouts, and juggling games with gigantic containers, and crashes involving armoured cars, and people sniffing out their way to secret warehouses in crowded, unfamiliar cities, I began to wonder whether some of the cocaine used so liberally in the film hadn’t begun to mess with the director’s head. Then again, the director is Baltasar Kormákur, the population of whose country is a third that of Panama City.

The humour hinges on double entendres involving furry animals and male kitsch that comes off as some kind of homophobic machismo. There is the odd well-timed jibe, and Ribisi’s high-pitched voice goes well with lines like, “You got your grandma selling cocaine?”

What else does the film do? In a nod to Beckinsale’s hotness, everyone wants a piece of her. And yet, there seems to be a lesson somewhere in there – smugglers can be gallant husbands, good daddies and even give up drinking temporarily if they join AA. They can occasionally stop cement from setting, especially if someone’s being buried alive, but never mind.

As the film flirts with a gruesome ending, the viewer’s treated to an unexpected twist, which is largely funny thanks to J K Simmons. Mark Wahlberg doesn’t have much to do, and that made me wonder whether Kormákur, who played the lead in Reykjavik-Rotterdam, was trying to make some sort of dark statement. But then, I began to fantasise about a Bollywood remake directed by Wahlberg, starring Saif Ali Khan as the smuggler, Priyanka Chopra as the wife, Johnny Lever as the brother, Arjun Rampal as the villain, and Boman Irani as the Captain. I’d watch that, I think.

Why Jay Leno and Co. Would Be Software Engineers in India

2012-01-26T00:27:00.000+05:30

(Published in Sify.com, on 25 January 2012, retrieved from http://www.sify.com/news/why-jay-leno-and-co-would-be-software-engineers-in-india-news-columns-mbzjPQfiegc.html)

(Picture Courtesy: Sify.com. Unauthorised reproduction of this image is prohibited.)

“Remember, I told you about this stalker of mine who asked me what the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon was?”

“Is this heading towards a dirty joke?”

“No, no. He said something about how you can stir tea with a teaspoon, but can’t...”

“Oh, God, yes. Did you run into him again?”

“No, I was just thinking that becoming a software engineer is the easiest way to downgrade one’s sense of humour. And a miserable sense of humour is the only way you won’t get sued in this country.”

“Right, so this is an oblique reference to Jay Leno and his Amritsar gag.”

“Well, yeah, I mean, you’d think Mitt Romney’s the one who should be pissed.”

“Hanh, I’m still trying to figure out why India’s got its knickers in a twist. We’ll have a Lokpal before we develop a sense of humour, man. No wonder Indian stand-up comedians suck so much, huh?”

“Well, most of them lift their material off gigs on YouTube, so the cultural references don’t make any sense.”

“They should be careful anyway. Can you imagine what would happen if someone stole Rowan Atkinson’s Devil sketch?”

“There’d be hell to pay, hahaha.”

“Yeah, man, you’d be fighting off Church groups on the one hand for making the Devil cool, and the Saffron Brigade on the other for bringing in the Biblical character instead of Yama. And if they flicked his Indian waiter skit, the Hoteliers Association or Waiters’ Association or something would object to the portrayal of Indian waiters.”

“Plus, it’d be banned in all the dry states. How many were there at the last count?”

“How many states, or how many dry states?”

“Never mind. Seinfeld’s a relatively safe guy to pinch stuff off. Especially since none of our airlines seem to have the money to take people to court.”

“And the handicap parking gig sends out a strong social message. The government would probably endorse it and make a PSA out of it too.”

“No, dude. Feminists would get ticked off. And remember, at the end of the episode, he says he wonders how they handle the handicapped parking at the Paralympics? That’s going to have the NGOs up in arms.”

“Oh, yeah. How about The Colbert Report then? He only makes fun of Americans.”

“Dude, can you imagine what would happen if someone used the one about the Norway bombing? The Darul Uloom Deoband would protest, and the Centre would ban him from performing in India. I can so see a very grave PM or FM going ‘We cannot allow anyone to insult any person of any religious persuasion in India’. And Stephen Colbert would go, ‘But...whaa...? No, see I was being sarcastic. It’s sarcasm. When I said these people were doing a service to the nation, I meant...’ ‘No, Mr. Colbert, we cannot tolerate sarcasm against any person of any religious persuasion in India’. ‘But the sarcasm was directed against the media, not against Moslems!’ ‘We must respect the media too, Mr. Colbert.’”

“Then Jon Stewart’s gag about All American Muslim and the protests against it by the family association that wanted Muslims portrayed as terrorists wouldn’t work either.”

“Well, in that case, you’d have some women’s association baying for his blood for calling the guy’s account of sympathetic pregnancy boring, as well as Residents’ Welfare Associations across the country accusing him of making fun of their beliefs, plus the minority associations going ballistic.”

“That leaves us with the British stand-up comedians. John Cleese has that nice one on women...actually, several on women and alimony...oh, no, no, the NCW would be all over it. Well, there’s the one on free speech.”

“I don’t think anyone in India would find that funny. That’s pretty much what all our talk show hosts do, right? And we love them for it. His search for The Cleese Idol may work, though.”

“You think? If he were Indian, the lot from those laughter challenges and most wanteds and most talenteds would cry foul. I mean, they’ve been unearthing prodigies who can see through bandages and suchlike, and here’s a guy making fun of them! How about Fry and Laurie? They had that hilarious one about the poem, remember?”

“I can’t think of a single group that wouldn’t object to it. Teachers, homosexuals who don’t like poetry, Baba Ramdev...”

“Well, Baba Ramdev could probably teach Stephen Fry a few yoga exercises that would set him straight. He’s the one who invented some potion to cure gayness, no?”

“Potion or position, I’m not sure. But Fry and Laurie wouldn’t last in India anyway. That cricket commentary of theirs would have the BCCI speaking to the MCC.”

“And doing what? Bullying them into selling bananas instead of strawberries?”

“Well, they’d be banned for introducing kids to vulgarity in that piece on new swearwords anyway.”

“How about the Onion News Network? The media’s kind of hated anyway, na? Someone could steal that piece on the bullsh...hey, am I allowed to speak of animal excreta under the government’s new policy?”

“I’m not sure. But whoever flicks that gag will likely be fined 100 crore rupees for showing the wrong bear or something. And that’s why the only things we can laugh at are Malayali accents and Punjabi pronunciation, and those tired cracks about bargaining with autowallahs, and how Indian men can’t wear tuxedos without looking like waiters.”

“By the way, are you sure software engineers can’t sue us for this?”

“Ummm...”

A Matter of Honour: The Army Chief’s Age

2012-01-26T00:10:00.001+05:30

(Published in The New Indian Express, School Edition, dated 25 January 2012, retrieved from http://expressbuzz.com/school/a-matter-of-honour-the-army-chief%E2%80%99s-age/356717.html)

NOTE: This is not an opinion piece. It's a summary of the row over the age of the Chief of Army Staff, General V K Singh.

From being the first Commando to take over as Army Chief, General Vijay Kumar Singh has become the first serving Army Chief to take the government to court, less than two years after he assumed his post.

At the centre of it all is a dispute over his age. The Army Chief, supported by evidence ranging from his PAN card, driving licence and school-leaving certificate to an identity card issued by the Indian Military Academy, maintains that his date of birth is May 10, 1951. However, the Ministry of Defence, going by the date on a National Defence Academy admission form, says it is May 10, 1950.

The resolution of the issue will not only determine when the Army Chief retires, but also who will take his place.

What is the fuss about?

There are two branches that keep records of Army officers in India. The official record keeper is the Adjutant General's branch, but the Military Secretary's branch maintains records too.

It all began in 1966, when the future General took the exam for entrance into the National Defence Academy (NDA). The previous year, as a 14-year-old boy, he had apparently written his year of birth as ‘1950’ by accident. In August, 1965, his father, also an Army officer, Major Jagat Singh, provided the NDA with a certificate from 14 Rajput Regiment’s commanding officer certifying Vijay Kumar Singh’s date of birth as 10 May 1951, as per his father’s service records. In 1971, he presented his school-leaving certificate as evidence that his year of birth was 1951.

While the Adjutant General’s branch listed his year of birth as 1951, the Military Secretary’s branch went by the application form to the NDA. So, there was a discrepancy in the records. He made efforts in 1985 and 2002 to get the anomaly corrected.

But the issue cropped up in 2006, when his name came up for promotion. Noticing there was a discrepancy in his date of birth, a bureaucrat asked the Military Secretary's branch for clarification, as that is the branch which handles promotion. This branch said the year of birth was 1950. Military Secretary Lieutenant General Richard Khare wrote to Singh about the issue, and Singh replied saying he had thought it had been corrected, and if it hadn’t, it must be done at once.

The problem came up again in 2008, when the Army Headquarters asked the General to accept 1950 as his year of birth ahead of promotion to Army Commander. Under threat of disciplinary action, the General wrote to say, "whatever decision is taken in the organisation's interest is acceptable to me." He wrote a neutral letter, saying he had listed his year of birth as 1950 “as directed”, subtly indicating it wasn’t the correct year.

General V K Singh took over as Army Chief on March 31, 2010, and would continue to serve for a period of 3 years, or till the age of 62, whichever came first.

On October 25, 2010, IAS officer Kamal Tiwari filed an RTI, to ask the Ministry of Defence what General V K Singh’s date of birth was. The MoD forwarded the request to the Law Ministry and the Attorney General Goolam Vahanvati, who answered with May 10, 1950.

The Army Chief then sought again to have his date of birth corrected, but the government would not allow it. Even as several ministers vouched that they believed General Singh’s word, they cited the rule book, which said a change in date of birth must be made within 2 years of the officer presenting the records to the Army.

General Singh responded, saying he was seeking a correction and not a change, but the government stuck to its guns, after the Attorney General said a change now would cause “large-scale disaffection in the Army”.

The Army Chief then decided to take the case to court, saying he had the right to retire with dignity after 40 years of service. In his petition, he said the then Chief of Army Staff, General Deepak Kapoor, had assured him in 2008 that he would resolve the issue of the date of birth. But when nothing was done for 3 months, Singh wrote again to Kapoor, asking for justice to be done. The 66-page petition is supported by 150 documents.

The Conspiracy Theories

The government’s refusal to relent has set off speculation about the reason for its stance. While some Army officers have told media that they are disillusioned by the political establishment’s message that it does not trust its seniormost officer, others have spoken of General Singh having enemies within the Army.

He took over as the Sukhna and Adarsh land scams had damaged the Army’s reputation. He promised to weed out corruption in the Army, and called for the punishment of four officers of the rank of General, who were embroiled in the scams.

The names of General Deepak Kapoor and former Military Secretary, Lt Gen Avadesh Prakash, are among those alleged to be involved in the land scams.

Who supports General V K Singh?

Four former Chief Justices of India — Justice J S Verma, Justice V N Khare, Justice G B Patnaik and Justice R C Lahoti — have all come out in support of General Singh. They say the government can only change the date of birth of an officer after seeking his response, if there seems to be a discrepancy. He must also be informed of the reason they decided to change the date – in this case, from 1951 to 1950.

But the government, through the Attorney General, says the discrepancy should have been fixed by 1973, two years after Singh presented his papers to the Army. The Attorney General also says “there is no record available of any effort to correct the date of birth between 1971 (when the SSC certificate was purportedly received) and 2006.”

Several retired officers and Army veterans have come out in support of General Singh. To the Congress’ embarrassment, its own Captain Amarinder Singh sent in a letter of support for Singh to Defence Minister A K Antony, who refused to accept it.

What will happen now?

The outcome of the court case will determine who General Singh’s successor will be, as the Chief of Army Staff is appointed on the basis of seniority, and not merit. There are several possibilities:

If the date of birth is accepted as May 10, 1951, General V K Singh will be given an extension of 10 months. After that, current Northern Army Commander Lt Gen K T Parnaik will take over in 2013.
If the General retires on May 31 as scheduled, Eastern Army Commander Lt Gen Bikram Singh will take over.
If he resigns prematurely, Vice Chief Lt Gen S K Singh will be appointed Acting Chief, until Lt Gen Bikram Singh takes command on August 1.
If he resigns in February, when the most senior officer after him, Lt Gen V K Ahluwalia, retires, Western Army Commander Lt Gen S R Ghosh will be appointed Chief of Army Staff.

TIMELINE
1966	Singh’s date of birth is filled in as May 10, 1950 in the UPSC form, despite his father submitting a certificate stating it is May 10, 1951.
June 14, 1970	Singh joins IMA, Dehradun, after passing out of NDA, and is commissioned in the Army. He is given an identity card with May 10, 1951 listed as his DoB.
1985	Singh makes an effort to get the discrepancy sorted out.
2006	Military Secretary’s Branch submits his DoB as May 10, 1950, saying it does not have the authority to verify age.
2008	Singh writes a letter, allegedly under duress, saying he accepts 1950 as his year of birth, “as directed”
July 1, 2008	General Singh writes to General Deepak Kapoor, asking for the issue to be resolved.
October 25, 2010	IAS officer Kamal Tiwari files an RTI seeking to know the Army Chief’s date of birth.
July, 2011	Ministry of Defence determines his date of birth as 10 May 1950.
August, 2011	Singh makes a statutory representation to the Defence Minister, asking for a review of the decision.
December 30, 2011	The representation is rejected.
January 16, 2012	General Singh approaches the Supreme Court to seek redress.
January 17, 2012	The government sticks to its stance and decides to fight the case out in court.

PROFILE OF GENERAL V K SINGH

He is a third-generation officer of the 2 Rajput Regiment. Commissioned in 1970, he commanded the same battalion from June 1991 to May 1994.

He is a graduate of the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, US Army Rangers Course at Fort Benning, USA and US Army War College, Carlisle.

A veteran of the India-Pakistan war of 1971, and Operation Pawan in Sri Lanka, and a Counter Insurgency, High Altitude Operations and Line of Control operations specialist, his honours include the Yudh Seva Medal, Ati Vishisht Seva Medal, Param Vishisht Seva Medal and the Ranger Tab.

The General took over as the 26^th Chief of the Army Staff on 31 March 2010, the first trained commando to do so.

On 11 March 2011, Singh was inducted into the United States Army War College (Class of 2001 graduate) International Fellows Hall of Fame, the first Indian to receive the honour.

Coriolanus: Get Thee to the Cinema!

2012-01-24T01:24:00.000+05:30

(Published as 'Fiennes Channels Welles' in The Sunday Guardian, dated 22 January, 2012, retrieved from http://www.sunday-guardian.com/masala-art/fiennes-channels-welles)

Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Cox, Jessica Chastain, Jon Snow

Director: Ralph Fiennes

Rating: 4.5 stars

Thanks to the very popular Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged), Shakespeare’s Coriolanus is best known by the last four letters of its title. Ralph Fiennes’ modern day screen adaptation is best known for shocking Indian film aficionados by landing up here. And so, I was the only one in the hall, and had to persuade the manager to screen the film.

In a testimony to the timelessness of Shakespeare’s lines, Coriolanus reimagines the story in a contemporary setting.

A tattooed, sinewy arm polishes a knife, as the trusty face of Jon Snow appears on the ironically-named Fidelis TV to tell us of the hunger crisis in ‘A Place Calling Itself Rome’. The ticker flashes ‘Thousands wait for food’, ‘Senate declares state of emergency’. The man with the sinewy arm, Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler) frowns as it reads ‘General Martius suspends civil liberties’, and that’s our first sight of the man who will become Coriolanus (Ralph Fiennes).

Severe, gritty and tonsured, Caius Martius is the toast of Rome, and the dread of the Volscian land, whose army is headed by the equally brave, far more approachable Aufidius. The countries are caught in a “flaring border dispute”. But Martius must first deal with angry plebeians who want food. He stomps to the Central Grain Depot, and does with his domineering stance what Senator Menenius (Brian Cox) couldn’t do with diplomatic speech. He disperses the crowd, and then heads to the Volscian city of Corioles, the capture of which will earn him his honorific.

The film plays out as an allegory on uprisings across the world today. As a dedicated news channel beams images and screams headlines, millions take on the harried establishment. Seasoned campaigners coach a man who calls voters “flatterers” in political posturing, while opportunists want him hanged for treason.

Caught between his mother Volumnia (Vanessa Redgrave), mentor Menenius, wife Virgilia (Jessica Chastain), noble enemy Aufidius, and the people, Coriolanus must weigh honour against policy. With imaginative storytelling and stellar performances, the film underscores Fiennes’ mastery of acting and direction.

Verdict: If you’re the kind who frequents Mandi House, and doesn’t mistake Murakami for a kind of noodle, rush to the cinema. A film this good can’t run long.

Where The FBI Story Meets Brokeback Mountain

2012-01-24T01:15:00.000+05:30

(Published as 'Let Down by Stilted Acting' in The Sunday Guardian, dated 22 January, 2012, retrieved from http://www.sunday-guardian.com/masala-art/let-down-by-stilted-acting)

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Judi Dench, Naomi Watts

Director: Clint Eastwood

Rating: 3 stars

The opening scene of J Edgar tell us four things, through a mask, a speech, a retort and a clipping – this is a film about a man who will not brook opinions contrary to his own, about an institution that circumvented law to eliminate outlaws, about how the man and his brainchild appear to the world, and about how power pulverises scruples.

Soon, we see it follows the same flashback template as Mervyn LeRoy’s 1959 film, The FBI Story – an old man tells stories of how the FBI tracked down criminals whom the media romanticised.

But this is not just the story of the longest serving Director of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover; it’s the story of the man, his insecurities and his ideals, his sexuality and his PR machinery. And Clint Eastwood follows Martin Scorcese’s lead in casting Leonardo DiCaprio as the eponymous character of a period biopic about a troubled, successful man with an OCD. And DiCaprio plays J Edgar Hoover so much like Howard Hughes that it appears all men who’re wary of germs talk fast.

Like most Hollywood biopics, the emphasis here is on the ‘human’ aspect. So, while Clint Eastwood brings several Wikipedia pages to life – the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s son, G-Men, Mrs. Roosevelt’s speculated lesbian affair, the JFK assassination, the clash with Martin Luther King – he does make room for the love-friendship dynamic and mommy issues. Judi Dench is a formidable presence as the conscience-keeper, guilt-tripper, and sexual-orientation-alterer of her son Edgar. Our main man is further weakened by a speech disorder that calls for a seething-before-a-mirror scene à la Colin Firth.

J Edgar is absorbing at times, and makes for a rather interesting history lesson and social commentary – the perfunctory nature of crime scene investigations in the 1920s, and the bureaucratic bottlenecks that allowed terror a free rein find uncomfortable echoes across the world today.

But the problem with a period film that revels in its costumes, sets, and colours, about a group of men that bask in their cockiness, intelligence and couture, rendered through a narrative that straddles crime, power play and legislation, is that the bombast can overwhelm the story. And it’s a pity when the profusion of quotable quotes camouflages as witty a quip as, “It’s easy to be an expert if you’re the only person in the world with the interest”; or, when clichéd interactions along the lines of kids-say-the-darndest-things undermine quirky touches in the screenplay.

Leonardo DiCaprio has proved, when given the opportunity, that his face is far more expressive than his tone, and the film may have been a far more nuanced if it were less verbose. By cramming its dialogue with details that one could easily find on Wikipedia if interested, J Edgar falls into a trap – it overdramatises the silent sequences, focusing on a signature here and an ironic smile there.

The movement of the film relies rather too much on devices such as the very deliberate repetition of lines by different people in similar contexts, and the laying down of conditions that will either be flouted (with tragic consequences for the characters), or milked (with tragic consequences for the viewers).

The temporal indicators struck me as being rather overdone too. Does a film set fifty years ago demand staccato speech, purposeful strides and shoulder jerks? We could have done without the exaggerated enunciation, robotic expressions, pedantic speeches, and shoddy makeup.

What makes me wish Eastwood has stuck to his less-is-more mantra is that the subtler moments in the film worked so beautifully. The relationship between Hoover and his longtime personal secretary Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts) touches a chord the one between Hoover and his companion-protégé Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) doesn’t. The minor roles, notably those of Albert Osborne (Denis O’ Hare) and Robert Kennedy (Jeffrey Donovan), are portrayed convincingly. The pathos of one scene, which examines the effect the death of a loved one may have on us and the crazy things we do to pretend s/he is still with us, is heartrending.

However, to the film’s detriment, it talks too much. And while Eastwood maintains that this is no eulogy to Hoover, the natural tendency of a filmmaker – and a viewer – is to empathise with the subject to such a degree that his failings come through as forgivable, rather than destructive.

Rushdie’s Reverses: The Controversy in Jaipur

2012-01-24T01:01:00.002+05:30

(Published in The New Indian Express, School Edition, on 23 January 2012, retrieved from http://expressbuzz.com/school/rushdie%E2%80%99s-reverses-the-controversy-in-jaipur/355922.html)

PLEASE NOTE: This is not an opinion piece. It's an explanatory article on the controversy over The Satanic Verses, and the fallout of the protests ahead of the Jaipur Literature Festival 2012.

Salman Rushdie, who has visited India several times in the past decade, may have been surprised when the vice-chancellor of Islamic school Darul Uloom Deoband, Maulana Abul Qasim Nomani, demanded that he be denied a visa for his appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival. He may have been more surprised because he didn’t need a visa to visit the country of his birth.

But even as the government announced that he was free to attend the festival, the police stepped up security and the festival organisers held everyone in suspense about whether the Booker prize winner would turn up, Rushdie issued a statement saying he had chosen not to come to India. He cited police intelligence warning that assassins may have been hired to eliminate him.

So, why are people so against Rushdie’s scheduled visit that they want to kill him? No one really knows why they’re baying for his blood now, but his 1988 work The Satanic Verses caused the Iranian regime to issue a fatwa for his death.

Why is The Satanic Verses controversial?

The novel is a sort of account of the life of Prophet Muhammad, through the imaginings of an Indian filmstar in London.

The title of the novel makes a reference to lines that had a context in Islamic history. According to Islamic scholars, Prophet Muhammad advocated the worship of a single God, and this didn’t go down with his own tribe, the Quraysh, who, like the rest of the people of the Arab peninsula, worshipped several deities. The Quraysh shut Muhammad’s people out of Mecca. As the feud appeared to be heading towards the banishment of Muhammad, a compromise was proposed. Muhammad said he had heard a revelation that three goddesses from the Quraysh’s Pantheon could be worshipped. The deal was that he must worship them to broker peace. And so, Muhammad is believed to have said:

Have you thought on Al-Lat and Al-Uzza, and on Manat, the third other?

Along with this, he is also believed to have said:

These are the exalted birds whose intercession is approved.

These would become known as ‘the Birds Verses’ in Arabic, when Muhammad withdrew them, saying the Devil and not God had sent him the ‘revelations’, before the peace could be brokered. Eventually he and his people would defeat the Quraysh tribe at war. These verses were called ‘the Satanic Verses’ in the West.

This story is recast in a different manner in The Satanic Verses, and was among several things that some Muslims considered blasphemy. The issues considered provocative in the book include the names of the characters, which draw from specific references in Islam: Angel Gibreel is a movie star, a character called Saladin becomes a devil, and the names of the wives of Prophet Muhammad feature in the novel as those of prostitutes.

In 1989, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie, as well as the editors and publishers of the novel. This was withdrawn by the moderate leader President Mohammad Khatami in 1998 – he said the government of Iran no longer supported the idea of killing Rushdie, but would not hinder it either.

In the first few months following the issuance of the fatwa, Rushdie’s family is said to have moved once every three days. Several attacks occurred on bookstores in the US and UK stocking the novel. Bomb blasts were planned, and riots occurred in Turkey and Bombay. Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi, was killed, while Italian translator Ettore Capriolo and Turkish translator Aziz Nesin both survived assassination attempts, as did Norwegian publisher William Nygaard.

Rushdie reacted by “apologising” through a diplomatic statement:

“I “I profoundly regret the distress that publication has occasioned to sincere followers of Islam. Living as we do in a world of many faiths, this experience has served to remind us that we must all be conscious of the sensibilities of others.”

Iran refused to accept the apology.

Rushdie then announced “I want to reclaim my life” and asked his publishers not to bring out paperback editions of the book, nor to commission further translations.

How did the current controversy play out?

On 9 January 2012, the Darul Uloom demanded that the Indian government deny Rushdie a visa to visit India. As media latched onto the story, Rushdie tweeted that he did not need permission to visit India, saying, “Re: my Indian visit, for the record, I don’t need a visa.”

Following the Darul Uloom’s call, several Muslim organisations organised protests against Rushdie’s appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival.

While the government initially said Rushdie was free to visit, there were rumours by 12 January that the Rajasthan state government had suggested that the Centre advise him against the visit, following concerns about law and order.

The organisers of the festival first spoke of space for free speech, and pointed out that Rushdie had attended several book events in India, and later said they “stood by [their] invitation”. India’s Twitterati came out in support of the writer and his scheduled visit.

On 17 January, Nomani hinted at a conditional withdrawal of his opposition to Rushdie’s visit, asking for an apology from the author for “hurting Muslim sentiments.” As no reaction seemed forthcoming, the Central government asked Rajasthan and Delhi to make sure adequate security arrangements were made. Three-tier security was arranged at the venue of the festival, and guests were to be scanned at several entrances to the Diggi Palace, where the event is held. The festival organisers said Rushdie’s visit had been postponed, but not cancelled.

The festival began with an air of suspense over whether Rushdie would, in fact, attend or not. Finally, on 20 January 2012, Salman Rushdie said he had cancelled his trip to India, following fears that he may be assassinated.

He said: “I have now been informed by intelligence sources in Maharashtra and Rajasthan that paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld may be on their way to Jaipur to eliminate me. While I have some doubts as to the accuracy of this intelligence, it would be irresponsible of me to come to the festival in such circumstances.” Later, he tweeted: “Very sad not to be at Jaipur. I was told Bombay mafia don issued weapons to 2 hitmen to ‘eliminate’, me. Will do video link instead. Damn.”

How has the festival reacted?

On the opening day of the Jaipur Literature festival, author Hari Kunzru read out sections from Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, and writers Amitava Kumar, Jeet Thayil and Rushir Joshi tried to follow suit. However, the organisers clamped down and requested that the excerpts not be read.

While most writers of literature expressed their support for Rushdie and stance against the ban, pulp fiction writer Chetan Bhagat came up with, “Let's not make heroes out of those people who are banned”.

Booker prize winner Ben Okri was more ambivalent. He said the interpretation of the book had been affected by the fatwa issued over it, just as the reading of J D Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye changed after John Lennon’s assassin Mark David Chapman was found to have been influenced by it.

Protests heightened after the reading, with several Muslim clerics calling for the arrest of the writers involved, and security was bolstered further.

TIMELINE – THE SATANIC VERSES
September, 1988	The Satanic Verses is published in London, and nominated almost immediately for the Booker Prize, which it didn’t win.
October, 1988	Khushwant Singh suggests the book should be banned to avoid rioting. Parliamentarian Syed Shahabuddin persuades Rajiv Gandhi’s government to ban the book in India. As the call for a ban grows louder elsewhere in the world, Rushdie cancels scheduled trips and hires a bodyguard.
November, 1988	South Africa and Egypt ban the book
January, 1989	Pakistan and Bangladesh ban the book, as do Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Somalia, Sudan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Qatar.
February 14, 1989	Iran’s Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini issues a fatwaagainst Rushdie, the editors and publishers, without having read the book. Rushdie and his family go into hiding.
February, 1989	Several bookstores ban the book.
February 24, 1989	12 people are killed and 40 wounded in police firing during a riot in Bombay.
May, 1990	Publishers drop or delay the publication of Rushdie’s forthcoming books.
July 3, 1991	Ettore Capriolo, the 61-year-old Italian translator of The Satanic Verses, survives a stabbing in his apartment in Milan.
July 12, 1991	Hitoshi Igarashi, the 44-year-old Japanese translator, is killed in his office at Tsukuba University.
December 11, 1991	Rushdie makes a surprise appearance at Columbia University to make a speech.
August 11, 1993	Rushdie makes a surprise appearance at a U2 concert and tells Bono, who is dressed as the Devil, “real devils don’t wear horns”.
September 24, 1998	Iran lifts its death sentence on Rushdie.
February, 1999	India issues Rushdie a visa to travel to the country.
June 15, 2007	Rushdie receives knighthood for his contribution to literature, resulting in an outcry from Islamic groups.
June 29, 2007	Bombings take place in London that are thought to be linked to Rushdie’s knighthood.
January, 2012	Rushdie cancels his visit to India as controversy rages about his right to make an appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival.

Suppandi: The Simpleton with a Fan-Following

2012-01-24T00:47:00.000+05:30

(Published in The New Indian Express, School Edition, on 23 January 2012, retrieved from http://expressbuzz.com/school/suppandi-the-simpleton-with-a-fan-following/355921.html)

It was three in the afternoon, and everyone in my office was starving. Every few minutes, someone would step out to ask the morose watchman whether the office boy had come back with lunch, and the watchman would shake his head glumly, even as he burped after his own meal.

Finally, the boy turned up at four-fifteen.

“What happened to you?” we asked, “How long does it take to go buy lunch?”

“I didn’t get a bus, madam,” he sighed.

“Why do you need a bus? The hotel’s straight down this road!” we said, puzzled.

The boy looked bewildered, “But you said Adyar Ananda Bhavan! And we’re in T Nagar!”

“Thank God no one asked for Mysore bonda,” a colleague sighed, “Suppandi would have been waiting for a train now.”

And that’s the story of how our office boy was named after the legendary Suppandi. To those of us who grew up in the eighties or later, the moronic servant with a flat head and angular face was a constant presence in our lives. He messed things up when he obeyed his master, and he messed them up further when he thought for himself. And yet, his stupidity made him endearing to us, and must have to his employers, if they retained him after all those debacles!

In Tinkle, where the cowardly Shikari Shambhu ended up an accidental hero, and the scheming Tantri the Mantri ended up saving the king he was trying to kill, Suppandi stood out by frustrating his employers consistently for decades. His expression of wonder, his smug confidence in his own intelligence, and the exasperated yells of his employers make us laugh, even when the joke is apparent from the start.

Suppandi’s first appearance was in January, 1983, in Tinkle No. 27. He was different from other Tinkle characters in that he was not created by the editors and publishers, but by a contributor, Sameer Salman. Sameer sent in three narrative stories, and the man with the oversized head and skinny body was illustrated by Ram Waeerkar. Waeerkar would go on to draw the Suppandi sketches until his death in 2003, after which his daughter Archana Amberkar took over.

From following his masters’ instructions to the word – Suppandi has banged his head against a door after being asked to “use his head” to figure out how to open it, and he has brought his miserly employer’s friend a magazine neatly cut in half after being told to serve the guest only half the portion of anything he asks for – to coming up with alternate plans that he considers superior to his masters’, this dimwit leads us into one hilarious disaster after another.

He is one of India’s best-loved comic characters, and readers send in their own ideas for Suppandi stories very often. Having brought out several ‘Best of Suppandi’ collections, Amar Chitra Katha decided to put up some of his stories on YouTube too. In December 2011, the publication announced that they would bring out a new Suppandi magazine targeting teenagers.

Suppandi 48, a quarterly humour magazine, carries what the publishers called ‘young adult’ jokes, with references to drug use, among other things. The character was also given an alter ego, Super Suppandi, who dresses like Salman Khan and sports and eighties’ Bollywood hairstyle. He’s not just a servant anymore, but is seen failing at various professions and hobbies. The magazine has a disclaimer saying it “may not be suitable for sober, naïve or prudent readers”.

Coriolanus: The Man with the Dragon Tattoo

2012-01-22T01:44:00.000+05:30

(Published in City Express, The New Indian Express, dated 21 January, 2012, retrieved from http://expressbuzz.com/entertainment/reviews/coriolanus/355297.html)

Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Cox, Jessica Chastain

Director: Ralph Fiennes

Rating: 4.5 stars

Four centuries ago, Shakespeare wrote a play called Coriolanus, which no one bothered to stage in his lifetime. Forty years ago, John Osborne, the playwright perhaps best known for his Look Back in Anger (1956), wrote an adaptation, A Place Calling Itself Rome, which no one has yet bothered to produce. A decade or so ago, I was lucky enough to watch Ralph Fiennes play the titular role on stage. And this week, the release of this film, so unexpected in India, proves just how much Shakespeare lends himself to contemporary situations.

The movie begins as the play does, with riots nearly breaking out over shortage of grain. As the patrician Senator Menenius Agrippa (Brian Cox) soothes starving citizens on television, the heroic General Caius Martius (Ralph Fiennes) goes out to face an angry mob, and cows them down with a stentorian speech. He exudes power and determination, but it’s his utter contempt for the lower classes that silences them. He bends them to his will again when he returns after conquering the Volscian city of Corioles against all odds, and earns the surname ‘Coriolanus’ in honour of the victory.

However, a class that can be ruled can be led, and so it is that two conniving tribunes, Sicinius (James Nesbitt) and Brutus (Paul Jesson), incite their anger against Martius. What happens when a hero is labelled a traitor? And can two heroes who are sworn enemies, who can only be defeated by each other in battle, respect each other for their nobility? The answers unfold through Martius’ relationship with Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler), the General of the Volscian army.

The movie zooms through its two and a half hours, and strangely, its archaic language and fantastical names are never at odds with its contemporary setting. Shakespeare has been thrown into a world of machine guns and 24-hour news cycles before, notably in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. But Coriolanus scores far more simply on the strength of its actors – Fiennes, Butler and Vanessa Redgrave (playing Coriolanus’ mother Volumnia), all of whom are stage performers, and Jessica Chastain, who has perfected the role of the gentle, obedient wife, at least in her three 2011 releases.

The gripping action sequences are supported by lines only Shakespeare could have written. There is a kiss “long as my exile, sweet as my revenge”. Of Coriolanus’ twenty-eight scars, “every gash is an enemy’s grave”. “My gracious silence,” Coriolanus says to his wife, “wouldst thou have laughed to see me coffined that does weep to see me triumph?” There is “no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger”.

Who but Shakespeare could have expressed the need for hypocrisy among politicians so logically, articulately or beautifully? And who but Fiennes could have turned in a performance that is so nuanced, even with exaggerated stage movements? He spits as he seethes, the nerves on his shorn scalp stand out as he rages, and his eyes are voluble during the silences.

Fiennes’ finesse as a filmmaker is so obvious it’s hard to believe Coriolanus is his directorial debut. The recurring motif of an eagle in the play is captured not only through dialogue, but subtly portrayed in a painting. As Volumnia coaxes Coriolanus to further his political power, his wife Virgilia glances at the image in passing. Menenius’ description of Coriolanus as a “dragon, [who] has grown wings” is illustrated by a tattoo at the back of Coriolanus’ neck, which the camera doesn’t ever zoom in to.

The violence is not gruesome, and a suicide is made all the more poignant when the man carefully removes his watch and lays down his cigarette before slashing his wrist. The embers glow even as his life slips out. The less-is-more factor carries through to the end titles, where Lisa Zane sings an a capella version of Sta Pervolia.

Verdict: You need to let this film absorb you. If you’re looking for light entertainment, the cinemas have been flooded by plenty of Pongal releases that demand less cerebral exercise.

Rushdie Row: Are We Becoming a Nation of Bigots?

2012-01-19T14:34:00.000+05:30

(Published in Sify.com on 19 January 2012, retrieved from http://www.sify.com/news/rushdie-row-is-india-becoming-a-nation-of-bigots-news-columns-mbskOHhgjjd.html)

A couple of years ago, M F Husain voluntarily took up Qatari citizenship, setting off a wail from India’s acknowledged intellectia about the callousness with which he was forced into exile for exercising his freedom of expression.

Now, a man whose critical questioning of the faith he is familiar with, the religion he has grown up in, is at the centre of a row over his right to visit his country of birth. Coming, as it does, on the back of two ongoing cases in court, both to do with our right to say what we want to say, the brouhaha over Salman Rushdie’s scheduled visit to Jaipur is indicative of an insidious trend.

First, there was the allegedly “inflammatory article” How to Wipe Out Islamic Terror written by Subramanian Swamy in national daily DNA. Months after rightists and leftists of various persuasions fumed over it, Harvard University dropped courses taught by Swamy. He has now been accused of inciting communal disharmony, as if India had been a Utopian land of religious tolerance before the article came out. Ironically, the article has probably united several religious factions in condemning it, a phenomenon perhaps last seen after the repeal of section 377.

After Union Minister Kapil Sibal came across a purportedly offensive cartoon, the government decided to take on Facebook, Google and blog sites, charging them with exposing children to obscenity among other things. Children, really? I mean, if you’re going to be petty about something, is it too much to ask that you, at the very least, be forthright about the pettiness?

With this, we could be the first self-proclaimed progressive democracy that advocates and strives to emulate China’s clampdown on internet content. And yet, there are activists there who risk prosecution and torture to make themselves heard in China. People use Weibo to get around China’s ban on Twitter. Iran has grown a culture of subversion among students, journalists, writers and filmmakers, in response to the ultra-conservative regime.

And now, the Indian government is apparently bowing down to a bunch of hardliners who are unlikely to have read Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, hell, hardliners who are unlikely to be able to read it. And thanks to them, most of literate India has been deprived of the opportunity to read what is an intense, provocative book – provocative because it provokes questions, not emotions.

Every time a controversy over religion crops up, India’s solution has been to ban its source, in favour of building vote banks. From The Da Vinci Code to Taslima Nasreen’s Lajja, and from songs and scenes in Kamal Haasan’s films to the movie Dam 999, any voice that is considered dissident, any question that is deemed uncomfortable, is silenced.

I personally don’t think either Lajja or Husain’s ahem, interpretations, of the Hindu pantheon, or the motives that may have inspired them to indulge in those particular artistic expressions, are worthy of the newsprint spent on the furore over them. But how does the government get to decide whether I’m to be given the chance to make up my mind?

What makes it all the more ironic is that it’s hard to drive on a road in Chennai without encountering a vehicle bearing the flag of some Dravida party and a poorly-composed couplet about the ignorance of the theist, which is clearly intended to insult either religious or syntactic sentiments.

If one were to scour Satanic Verses for an ultimate message, how different is it, really, from Tahmina Anam’s The Good Muslim, or Nadeem Aslam’s evocative The Wasted Vigil, both of which examine the essence of religion and how it can be misinterpreted into an austere, extreme form of Islam?

What is the purpose of art in general, and literature in particular, if not to allow space for doubt? And are we, as a nation, so stunted, so bigoted, so tame, that we can be bullied into postponing, cancelling or evading the visit of one of our literary icons? Does an inquiry into religion beg a ban unless one wields political clout, and clings on to atheism as a stance?

Deus ex cinema: A question of faith?

2012-01-17T12:25:00.000+05:30

(Published on Sify.com on 13 January, 2012, retrieved from http://www.sify.com/movies/deus-ex-cinema-a-question-of-faith-news-hollywood-mbnm4Shabbe.html)

For decades, the cinema of critics and arthouse journals has been defined by non-conformity. But as the line between ‘festival films’ and ‘popular films’ becomes porous, if not blurry, has non-conformity acquired new connotations? Can God laugh His way to the Box Office?

There’s a tacit rule that applies when art – on canvas, paper or celluloid – is being judged: the merit of one’s work is directly proportional to the number of people baying for one’s blood. In cinema, the statute is simpler – a secular film is the product of a liberal mind, religious reflection is the domain of the rightist. However, even as cosmopolitan crowds shy away from the question of faith, cinema can remind us that it’s one of the most important dilemmas in our lives. As if to hint that God has a place in the Box Office, in 2011, three films which dealt largely with the idea of religion and its place in society were considered shoo-ins for the Academy Awards, and two are still in the running for nominations.

The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick evokes a sense of being lost in space and time, of searching for a spiritual context to the tangible realities of life. A Separation by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi studies the tension in the religion-law-society equation by precipitating an extraordinary, but plausible, turn of events in the lives of two families in Tehran. Habemus Papam (We Have a Pope) by Italian director Nanni Moretti is something of a pragmatic allegory, questioning the infallibility of God through the fallibility of His representative on earth.

Through their exploration of the dynamic between creed and culture, consciously in the case of Moretti, subtly in the case of Farhadi, and dreamily in the case of Malick, all three directors raised their share of eyebrows and ovations in their respective countries. But when the individual viewer, perhaps looking in from the outside, perhaps embedded in the society the film pertains to, is done marvelling at the narrative of these stories, s/he is struck by the boldness of their themes. More so because, with these films, the directors inhabit uncomfortable places in the collective conscious of their countries.

Asghar Farhadi is a rare thing in an industry that finds itself at the forefront of demand for social change in Iran – a director who has not been penalised by the ultra-conservative regime. Over the last decade or so, some of Iran’s biggest names have been silenced, but they haven’t been quiet about it. Acclaimed directors like Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf (who is himself in exile from Iran) were vocal in their support of Jafar Panahi (director of the poignant-yet-funny Offside), who was arrested for allegedly making an anti-regime film. Supporters of Panahi say the charge was fabricated, and that the arrest was actually for supporting the Green Movement in Iran.

Farhadi got himself into trouble for saying at an award ceremony in 2010 that he would like to see Makhmalbaf and Panahi return to Iranian cinema. He was banned from making A Separation, which he had started work on. Farhadi did what was unthinkable for an Iranian director in that situation – he apologised, and was allowed to resume filming.

In a country where an actress (Marzieh Vafamehr) was sentenced to a year in prison and 90 lashes, ostensibly for filming without the necessary permissions in Tehran, but believed to be for appearing without a headscarf in the film My Tehran for Sale, it’s hard to make bold statements. And Farhadi, like other filmmakers who have managed to stay on and work in Iran, relies on subtext to do this.

In A Separation, the oppressive nature of government control is evident at the start – Simin (Leila Hatami), whose coloured hair, nicely-cut clothes, and fashionably-worn headscarf indicate she’s from the upper middle-class, is petitioning an unseen judge to grant her divorce from her husband Nader (Peyman Maadi), if he refuses to relocate abroad with her. Why does she want to go abroad? Because she doesn’t want their 11-year-old daughter Termeh (Sarina Farhadi) growing up “in these circumstances”. Simin looks away when the judge asks her to explain the “circumstances”. She evades the question when he asks, “Are you saying the children growing up in this country don’t have a future?” Nader’s refusal to move abroad seems to have more to do with anxiety for his father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi), who has Alzheimer’s, than love for his homeland.

As Simin moves out of their home, awaiting the outcome of the petition, working-class woman Razieh (Sareh Bayat) is hired to take care of Nader’s ailing father. Razieh is troubled by religious taboos from the start – as nurse, can she touch a man who is not her husband, even if he is an octogenarian who needs her help to walk? Her problems are compounded by a devout, headstrong, temperamental husband Hojjat (Shahab Hosseini), whom she seems terrified of.

When an argument between two characters, spurred on by righteous anger on both sides, turns unintentionally violent, one of them is left facing a charge of murder. And the viewers wonder: What would we have done if the careless act of an instant could ruin the rest of our lives? What if we could only be saved by not just lying ourselves, but making our children lie for us? And what if we were on the other side? What if we had to choose between accepting blood money that could pay off our debts, and revealing a secret that could exonerate the accused? Is it easier to battle one’s conscience when one is not afraid of heavenly retribution? Does protecting the people we care about matter more when we’re not sure God exists? Eventually, the Quran will be the undoing of one of the characters, and this raises more questions – but Farhadi refrains from providing answers; he only hints that there is no right or wrong answer.

The idea of religion and its diktats is a far more overt theme in Moretti’s Habemus Papam. While Moretti is an outspoken political Leftist, and unapologetic atheist, this could be the first film in which he engages in theological debate so explicitly. The film does not discuss the political issue of vested interest in the Vatican, except perhaps in an oblique manner, symbolised by a bizarre volleyball tournament. It barely makes a passing reference to the relevance of the mandate that Catholic priests stay celibate. What is does, through a psychiatrist who is not a believer (played by Nanni Moretti himself), is to portray the Cardinals as humans, and analyse the dichotomy between who they really are and who they’re expected to be.

It would be easy to call Habemus Papam an it’s-lonely-at-the-top story. The Pope cannot speak of his conundrum to anyone, and the psychiatrist never tires of ranting that his fellow-psychiatrist wife left him because she couldn’t bear to be second-best. It is easier still to focus on the eccentric humour in the story, and call it a spoof: the PR machinery that carries out the damage control, the Cardinals who sulk because they’re not allowed to go sightseeing, the papal hopeful who hates to lose. But for all its eye rolls at the clergy, the film throws up a valid question – can God be wrong? And if God makes mistakes, who covers up for Him?

Long before organised religion became the norm, there was the Big Bang. And that’s where Terrence Malick takes us in his intensely elemental, wistfully personal film The Tree of Life, a movie that has befuddled critics by combining illustrations of Darwinian evolution with the portrayal of family life in the Bible Belt. The film opens with a tantalising flame flickering slowly as a halting voiceover whispers, “There are two ways through life: the way of nature...and the way of grace.”

With snatches of dialogue, long gazes into the sky, harmonic movements, and shots of nature at its most terrible and most tranquil, there is a real threat of the beauty of the film overwhelming its subject – but, somehow, that doesn’t happen. The imagery and the introspection, the music and the monologues make a cohesive whole, coming together to entrance the viewer.

One could interpret it as a coming-of-age story, following Jack (Hunter McCracken) from infancy into adulthood (Sean Penn), through the cruelty of childhood and the realisation of sexuality in adolescence. But the vast sweep of the film makes it about something larger, and the Creator, whom the flame just may symbolise, is an ephemeral but powerful presence throughout. Manifested as a gust of wind, a torrential downpour, an Arctic expanse, a desolate landscape, a gigantic wave, as a domineering father, a gentle mother, a smile on a child’s face, this Creator is primordial and yet, contained.

Reviews of The Tree of Life have spoken of its religious symbolism, and interpreted nearly every frame to unravel its metaphors – the glass lift that shuts Jack out from the world while allowing him to observe it, the sandy Heaven where everyone reunites, the water that signifies baptism...But in a story where imagination, wishful thinking and reality merge, can we really know what the director intended? And is that as important as what we feel?

When one watches this film, without the baggage of a Christian or American upbringing, every scene unfolds as a tableau. They could be scenes of joy or of sorrow; but the opening minutes ensure that the sadness is predominant – there is a sense of loss, a feeling of how-happy-we-were, the contemplation of a face that we will never see with wrinkles and white hair, the tenderness of a smile we only have memories of.

How little the universe matters to us, how little its celestial bodies and single-cell organisms, as we swaddle our children in cloth and cuddle up to our parents for comfort, one thinks. Does the sun matter but for the curious frown on a toddler’s face as he squints up at it? Does the rain matter but for the abandon of dancing with your family in the backyard, in a rare moment when age bows down to impulse? And there is a sense of wonder, that these enormous bodies of gas and rock that spin in synchronised circles were Created by the same Being who fit together the vertebrae of the tiniest carp fish and the mightiest dinosaurs.

All three films use music to broaden their canvas. The score for A Separation is about as influenced by the West as its female lead, and virtually carried by the piano. Habemus Papam uses operatic music that emphasises the grand scale of the happenings within the Vatican. The Tree of Life enhances the mesmerising cinematography with the exalting music of Berlioz’s Requiem, Brahms’ Fourth Symphony, Bedrich Smetana’s The Moldau, along with pieces by François Couperin, Mahler, Bach, and several others.

Perhaps the reason these films have universal appeal, despite the specificity of their main settings, is that the spiritual questions they raise are pertinent to all of us. And this allows them to weave several aspects of human weakness into the fabric of their stories, without straying from the pattern. Maybe that’s why the juxtaposition of a pagan flame with a quote from the Book of Job doesn’t seem incongruous. Maybe God has a place in niche cinema after all.

Arthur Christmas: Finally, Animation for Adults!

2012-01-15T16:15:00.000+05:30

(Published in The Sunday Guardian, on 15 January 2012, retrieved from http://www.sunday-guardian.com/masala-art/now-animation-for-adults)

Voice Cast: James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Bill Nighy, Jim Broadbent

Directors: Sarah Smith, Barry Cook

Rating: 4 stars

A part of you will die when Arthur Christmas opens to an idyllic town, where a pink-cheeked, wide-eyed girl stands on tip-toe to post a letter to Santa – well, that’s if you, like me, would rather kiss a rodent than a kid. But then, Gwen (Ramona Marquez) begins to read out:

If you live at the North Pole, how come I can’t see your house when I look in Google Earth? Are you St. Nicholas? – Because then you’d be incredibly old! How many cookies and mince pies have you eaten in all of history? Does your sack have to get bigger every year because of exponential population growth?

All right, a movie with Hugh Laurie and Bill Nighy in the cast can’t be a saccharine mess of candy floss and Christmas cheer, right?

As Arthur ‘Softie’ Christmas (James McAvoy) writes a maternal reply, ‘Santa-in-waiting’ Steve (Hugh Laurie) barks out orders to remote-control their father’s journey in the chic S1. Yes, Santa’s sleigh has been upgraded to something that Captain Kirk would covet; Steve likes his toys, and owns gadgets ranging from iPads to customised spy cams.

No wonder the bumbling Arthur is the Other Son. Hell, he ‘hoi’s his ‘hi’s and doesn’t tap his ‘t’s, so we know he hasn’t had Steve’s exclusive education, although Santa’s NGO seems to be minting money. Throw a 136-year-old grandfather with a point to prove (Bill Nighy), and a septuagenarian Santa who’s loath to retire (Jim Broadbent) into the mix – may the power politics play out.

We’re assured the writers aren’t targeting people whose age or IQ is in single digits when a man who wears Versace is given monogrammed boxers by a gay elf. There are several references to popular culture – the iconic sailor-nurse kiss that found a nod in The Watchmen is re-enacted, and an elf announces, “Santa has left the building”. The intriguing Mrs. Santa (Imelda Staunton) wants to hearSilent Night sung backwards. As if devil worship were not enough, there’s a crack about slave labour too.

The actors’ perfect timing and delivery make literal interpretations of idioms hilarious, and the unexpected twists take you by surprise. Political incorrectness finds expression through a buxom American President who trains her guns on UFOs, an Indian elf who’s migrated to the North Pole, a Scottish one that’s anal about wrapping presents, and asides about national protocol.

Hugh Laurie – oh, it’s nice to hear him sounding more like George from Blackadder than House from House! – is at his sneering best, and Bill Nighy, his grouchy worst. You know a Christmas film has worked when your eyes get a teensy bit moist despite all that sarcasm. The only downside to Arthur Christmas is that some of the action is so quick, and some of the wordplay so clever, that you may miss them on your first watch.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: Intricate, Nuanced and Embarrassingly Difficult

2012-01-15T16:07:00.000+05:30

(Published in The Sunday Guardian on 15 January, 2012, retrieved from http://www.sunday-guardian.com/masala-art/intricate-a-nuanced)

Cast: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, John Hurt, Mark Strong, Toby Jones, Ciarán Hinds, Benedict Cumberbatch, Simon McBurney

Director: Tomas Alfredson

Rating: 4.5 stars

When a two-hour film is based on a book that’s part of a series, how do you bring the audience up to speed? You don’t. You can’t. You choose a group of brilliant actors, and trust them to let the audience sense what’s going on. If viewers haven’t read John le Carré’s book of the same name, they’ll have to watch the film twice.

The opening scene sets the tone. Control (John Hurt), the head of The Circus –codenames are the only concession this story makes to the espionage genre – sends Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) on a confidential mission to Budapest, where a Hungarian General is willing to sell “treasure”: the name of a mole planted by Russians, right at the top of British Intelligence.

The debacle that follows disgraces Control and forces his right-hand man George Smiley (Gary Oldman) into premature retirement. Smiley is secretly brought back by Oliver Lacon (Simon McBurney) to ferret out the mole.

Wheels spin within wheels as his only ally Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch) is confronted by The Circus, now headed by Percy Alleline (Toby Jones). The whole of its top echelon – Alleline, Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), Roy Bland (Ciarán Hinds), Toby Esterhase (David Dencik) – is suspect, and the shades of grey in the narrative compound those of the cinematography.

The suspense is maintained till the end, though you may feel you got it right in retrospect. One of the actors may be rather too good, dropping hints with his shifty body language. But then, the story’s swimming with red herrings.

With languorous flashbacks, chronology is one of the many things you’re kept guessing at. There are symbols – a bee in the bonnet of a car, a game of chess – and poignant images: an infant trying to suckle at a woman with a bullet through her head. Mostly, there are tired, wary, disillusioned men reflecting in quiet rooms, alternately drained and invigorated by mentoring their protégés.

This is what intelligence gathering is really about, not being able to trust your spouse, not being able to trust your best friend, one thinks. Having served in the MI5 and MI6, where he was betrayed by a mole, John le Carré knows how it works. And he leaves his stamp on the film, which he co-produced. As you reflect on the movie, it may surprise you to think of how little violence you actually saw, and how much of it was in your mind.

Verdict: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy demands some work, and more than one watch; but it’s worth it.

Arthur Pongal Spreads Good Cheer

2012-01-14T08:43:00.001+05:30

(Published in City Express, The New Indian Express, dated 14 January, 2012, retrieved from http://expressbuzz.com/entertainment/reviews/arthur-christmas/353762.html)

Voice Cast: Hugh Laurie, James McAvoy, Bill Nighy, Ashley Jensen, Jim Broadbent, Imelda Staunton, Ramona Marquez

Directors: Sarah Smith, Barry Cook

Rating: 4 stars

It’s weird to walk into a Christmas movie when even the malls are taking down their tacky decorations. Oh, well, we’re still boiling milk and goading bulls, so why not celebrate the festive cheer, right? Maybe it was that the sight of 3D glasses makes me groan these days – the conversion is usually lazy, sloppy and unnecessary – or that the last animated film I watched was Alvin and the Chipmunks 3, but I had very little hope for Arthur Christmas when it started out.

However, as if they’re as tired of fat men sliding down chimneys to emerge spotless in their scarlet suits as you are, the filmmakers assault you with a Commando operation carried out by the First Field Elf Battalion (“Average height – 26 inches, Max load: 4.6 play stations”, they declare). It’s a dark beginning – no pun intended – as a camouflaged spaceship-like module descends upon Europe, scaring birds and even ridding a few of feathers.

Skirting around red alerts for ‘Wakers’, and silencing bothersome parrots, the elves dash across the world with a sleepy, superannuated Santa (Jim Broadbent), as his son Steve (Hugh Laurie) monitors their progress from HQ in the North Pole. The second son Arthur (James McAvoy), who looks a lot less like Johnny Bravo and is scared of everything from big animals to buttons, tries to be merry and ends up getting shown out of the control room by his super-efficient, gadget-toting big brother.

One feels for Steve. Santa isn’t particularly good at his job, but likes it too much to retire at 70, much to the contemptuous amusement ofhis father Grandsanta, a surly old man brought to life by Bill Nighy. Mrs. Santa (Imelda Staunton) isn’t great at keeping the peace in her home – she tries to sort out dinner table disagreements with Satanic chants. And as Steve is trying to get tradition to accommodate technology, there’s his sentimental, skinny kid brother, who posts hand-written replies to children, wears musical fluffy slippers, is afraid of lifts, and gets thrills from looking at sleighs and reindeer.

A turn of events sends Grandsanta and Arthur hurtling through the ether on a secret mission, along with Bryony (Ashley Jensen), an elf from the highlands who has an unhealthy obsession with gift-wrapping and bow-tying. To the movie’s credit, the corny Arthur is mocked so much and dismissed so often that one begins to find his goodness less irritating.

Having been a magical Faun, a doctor in Uganda, a rape accused and a paraplegic mutant among other things, James McAvoy has got rather good at playing the disillusioned idealist, and this serves him well here. Hugh Laurie comes into himself as the preening Steve who cares more about his toys than the children’s, and Bill Nighy is a riot as a centenarian ex-Santa trying to get his head around skyscrapers (sometimes literally).

Naturally, there’s a Big Speech about how every Santa was “keen as cranberry” to do his duty in his youth. But the maudlin is kept to a minimum, and punctuated by comic timing on cue. From asides about how Santa used to be the only one who could fly a vehicle, to the contents of a long-unused horn, to cheeky wordplay, to self-spoofing complete with dramatic music, the comic elements are nicely crafted.

You wonder whether the beauty of the animation, and its subject, would have been more apparent in two dimensions, because there are few sequences that merit 3D. But the only other question on my mind, at least, was ‘Who the hell funds Santa’s sleek operation?’

Verdict: Ideally, leave your kids behind and go watch this for yourself. And if you’re not a parent, the kids in this movie are far less annoying than non-animated ones.

Why are We So Quick to Condemn the Talwars?

2012-01-11T13:09:00.001+05:30

(Published in Sify.com on 11 January, 2012, retrieved from http://www.sify.com/news/aarushi-murder-why-are-we-so-quick-to-condemn-the-talwars-news-columns-mblk4Edbejh.html)

(Picture Courtesy: Sify.com. Unauthorised reproduction of this image is prohibited.)

It has been more than three and a half years since Noida woke up to news of a 13-year-old schoolgirl, with a playful smile and kohl-darkened eyes, having been found murdered at her home. On May 16, 2008, and for weeks after, television crews swarmed around the house, combing it for evidence and interviewing anyone who passed by.

Most news channels, including the one I was working for at the time, were based in Noida, and reporters found it convenient to dash from their homes to Sector 25, hop over for a bite to Sector 18, run back when they had to do live on-ground reports, and return to office to hold court.

Within hours of the discovery of Aarushi’s body, the excitement over a death in our turf had doubled – it turned out that a male servant, who had been suspected of the murder, had been killed. Hemraj’s body was recovered from the terrace of the house, thanks to a retired policeman with a rather morbid interest in the case, who decided to snoop around the house when the slain teenager’s parents were out.

Immediately, the media – and public – began to put two and two together, to come up with several mathematical possibilities. They decided the Class IX student of Delhi Public School was having an affair with the Nepali grandfather, and that her enraged father Rajesh Talwar had carried out an ‘honour killing’. Others put forward more imaginative, and disturbing, theories – that Aarushi’s dentist parents, Nupur and Rajesh Talwar, were involved in a high-society wife-swapping circle, that Aarushi had an incestuous relationship with her father, and that Aarushi was the child of Dr. Nupur Talwar’s lover, among other things. But everyone was sure of one thing – that the killers of the girl were the people who had brought her into the world.

Their reasoning was even more cocksure: How can you sleep through a murder (whether the victims shouted out or not)? If Aarushi did not scream when her throat was slit, her vocal chords must have been cut by someone who was familiar with anatomy, and who better than a doctor (even if the doctor in question was a dentist who had no reason to know how to sever vocal chords)? How could anyone have entered a house that was locked? (Forget that most, if not all, homeowners in Noida have flouted building norms, so that their houses share walls with a couple of others.) And here was the clincher: the Talwars had not shown enough grief. And by thus failing to shed the appropriate volume of tears expected of bereaved parents, they had indicted themselves.

After Rajesh Talwar was arrested a week later, media persons made a habit of thrusting microphones in his face, asking if he had killed his only child. They stalked Nupur Talwar to ask why she was standing by her husband, and whether she had been his accomplice.

The only interview I have read with the Talwars that does not judge them one way or the other was done by Patrick French for his book India: A Portrait. As one reads the description of the home the Talwars live in and the room they have maintained as a shrine to their daughter, and hears the Talwars speak of their trauma, one wonders why everyone in India seems to think s/he knows better than the investigating agencies that have repeatedly failed to solve the case.

The Talwars were stunned, horrified and furious at being suspected of involvement in the killing of the girl they had raised and loved. But what comes through most obviously is the despondence they feel – whichever way the investigation goes, and whoever is found guilty, their daughter is lost forever. And the Talwars have not only had to deal with the shock of their child’s death, but have been denied a chance to mourn and heal by a series of accusations based on conjecture, and media trials based on fancy.

Last Friday, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by Aarushi’s parents against their trial, and directed them to face court proceedings. The media’s reaction to the Bench’s decision was chilling. For years now, Indian media houses – especially television news channels – have seen themselves as the country’s only reliable anti-corruption agency, and now they treated the dismissal of the Talwars’ appeal as a personal triumph.

The celebrations broke out as tirades on television, and updates on Facebook. One reporter put up a link to an article detailing what the Supreme Court Bench had said, with a fervent wish that something ought to come of it this time. A comment on that post read: “These monsters shdve been tried earlier and shdve been rotting in jail by now...i have no doubt in my mind that they did it. I saw them...no remorse...monsters!”

But what revolted me even more was another comment, which read, “But those were fun days!”, complete with a smiley, and responses to that, reiterating how much “fun” covering the mysterious death of a schoolgirl had been.

How do people who are callous enough to refer to reporting on a tragedy as “fun” believe they have the right to call people who are suspected on circumstantial evidence of killing their daughter “monsters”? And when interrogations, investigations, forensic tests and narcoanalyses have led to dead ends, why do we think this is an open-and-shut case, and that all of us know who the guilty party is?

Memogate: The Scandal that Embarrassed Pakistan

2012-01-10T13:08:00.000+05:30

(Published in The New Indian Express, School Edition, on 10 January 2012, retrieved from http://expressbuzz.com/school/the-secret-memo-that-embarrassed-pakistan/351706.html )

NOTE: This is a round-up of events, not analysis.

For several years, ‘Memogate’ was associated with a controversy over documents that spoke of former US President George W Bush’s allegedly tardy service in the Air National Guard in 1972-73.

But in late 2011, the term came to refer to a confidential memorandum addressed to Admiral Mike Mullen, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in which the Pakistani government reportedly asked the Obama administration to help avert a takeover by the Pakistani military, following the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden.

It all began with Pakistani-origin American businessman Mansoor Ijaz stating in an editorial in British newspaper The Financial Times in October 2011 that “a Pakistani official stationed in the United States” had asked him to deliver the memo, on behalf of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. He wrote: “The embarrassment of bin Laden being found on Pakistani soil had humiliated Mr Zardari’s weak civilian government to such an extent that the president feared a military takeover was imminent.”

It was immediately speculated that this official was then Pakistan Ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani. In a flurry of damage control action, Haqqani was summoned to Pakistan, and replaced as Ambassador by Sherry Rehman. The Supreme Court of Pakistan is now conducting an inquiry into the scandal, as is a Parliamentary panel.

Why was the Pakistani Government Worried?

The raid on the Abbottabad hideout on May 2, 2011, which killed Osama bin Laden, caused a low point in US-Pakistan trust. The operation, conducted by US Nacy SEALs without the involvement – and knowledge – of the Pakistani government was heavily criticised as being a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. The Pakistani government was at the receiving end for allowing an ally to conduct such a raid, and also for not being able to find Osama bin Laden in all the time he had been hiding in the country. President Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani, and Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani held a meeting to discuss the situation. According to Ijaz, the memo was written by Haqqani at the behest of Zardari within days of the meeting.

How Was the Memo Drafted?

Mansoor Ijaz claimed Haqqani sent him a text via BlackBerry on May 9 last year, asking him to call him at a hotel in London. Ijaz was then asked to deliver a verbal request for help to Admiral Mullen, he said, the contents of which were dictated by Haqqani. However, the US officials he spoke to insisted on putting the proposal down on paper, whereupon Haqqani dictated the memo. Ijaz said he had emailed a draft copy to the Ambassador for proofreading. After Haqqani approved the contents, it was supposedly delivered to Admiral Mullen through former US National Security Advisor James L Jones, after Jones was assured that the memo had Zardari’s approval.

What Did the Memo Say?

The memo speaks of the Pakistani government’s concern that the Pakistani Army and its rogue intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), may stage a military coup and overthrow the democratically elected government, and asks the US for help to counter such an occurrence.

According to Foreign Policy magazine, which published the contents of the memo on its website, the memo asked the US to send a “strong, urgent and direct message to General Kayani and General Pasha”, telling them to abandon plans to bring down the civilian government.

It put the onus of negotiating with Kayani on the US, and in return, promised incentives such as:

A tribunal would be set up to conduct an inquiry into allegations that Pakistani military leaders had protected and helped Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders; independent investigators chosen by the US would be on the panel.
A new national security apparatus would be set up, which would draft procedures to either hand over terrorist leaders remaining in Pakistan “including Ayman Al Zawahiri, Mullah Omar and Sirajuddin Haqqani” or give the US “carte blanche” to conduct operations to capture and kill them in Pakistan, despite the “political risks”. This team would also remove ‘Section S’ of the ISI, which is believed to have ties with terrorist networks.
The Pakistani government would work with the US on an “acceptable framework of discipline for the nuclear programme”, and Pakistan’s “nuclear assets” would be brought “under a more verifiable, transparent regime”. This would supposedly counter the military-intelligence establishment’s fears that the US could violate Pakistan’s air space to destroy their nuclear assets.
The Pakistani government would cooperate in bringing “all perpetrators of Pakistani origin to account for the 2008 Mumbai attacks”, and even hand over those against whom there was “sufficient” evidence of guilt to India.

How Did the Establishment React?

Admiral Mullen first said he knew nothing about the memo, and the Pentagon said Mullen had never communicated with Ijaz. Later, Mullen said he knew of the memo but didn’t think it important. There was speculation in both Pakistani and international media that the denial was made at Haqqani’s request. The issue was complicated by the fact that there was no seal or signature on the memo, and all the evidence that the world had to go on was leaked BlackBerry communication between Haqqani and Ijaz.

Haqqani denied the existence of the memo, but offered to resign over the controversy. Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan was the first to claim the author of the memo was Haqqani, a fact backed by Ijaz later. Haqqani continued to deny his involvement, but then the leaked text messages were a threat to his credibility, and he left for Pakistan to discuss the issue with the government.

When Foreign Policy published the contents of the memo, and other media houses followed suit, President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Director General of ISI Ahmad Shuja Pasha, and Ambassador Haqqani called an official meeting. Following this, Haqqani resigned and was replaced by Sherry Rehman. Zardari called Memogate a “conspiracy” and said he would not have used intermediaries to contact his US counterpart Barack Obama even if he had decided to moot the proposal in the memo.

US spokesmen, in bumbling responses to pointed questions by the media, stuck to stock diplomatic responses and refused to comment on the issue.

The Inquiry

There were calls by the Opposition for a court investigation, but the Pakistani government insisted that this was unnecessary and that Parliament would look into the matter. However, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court by a group of opposition politicians, which included former Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif. Following this, the case began to be heard on December 19, and a three-judge commission was set up on January 2 by the Supreme Court of Pakistan to look into the scandal.

Immediately, Haqqani’s lawyer Asma Jahangir stepped down as his counsel, saying she had no faith in the judicial commission. But Haqqani was set to appear before the commission, and to continue pursuing his case in the Supreme Court.

In an interview with Geo News channel on January 7, Zardari – who has refused to give a statement to the Supreme Court about Memogate – said he considers the Parliamentary panel’s decision “sovereign”, hinting that he didn’t particularly care what the judicial commission said. However, he insisted that there was no fight with the Army or the judiciary, and that the struggles were part of a process of “evolution”.

The commission is expected to submit a report in early February. And going by reports, it isn’t having an easy time of getting the main actors in the scandal to cooperate. On January 9, Haqqani’s lawyer refused to submit BlackBerry data to the commission, saying it was up to the government to provide that. There are also difficulties involved in recording a statement from Ijaz, who is not a Pakistani national.

WHO IS HUSAIN HAQQANI?

Husain Haqqani started his career as a journalist, and had been settled in the US for about 7 years, when he was appointed as Ambassador to the United States in April 2008, after the Pakistan People’s Party came to power.

He was considered a powerful figure in Washington, because of his access to and familiarity with several officials in the Obama administration. He is known to be critical of the military, and makes no bones about it. His bookPakistan: Between Mosque and Military openly discusses the nexus between military officials and terrorist groups.

But, he has had his share of controversy as Ambassador. In 2009, there was furore in Pakistan over the Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid legislation, which the military establishment in Pakistan considered disrespectful. There were reports that senior military leaders were lobbying with the civilian government to have him fired.

In 2011, there were allegations of his granting visas to CIA spies. The raid that killed Osama was another tricky period for him.

TIMELINE
May 2, 2011	US Navy SEALs capture and kill Osama bin Laden in a covert operation.
May 10, 2011	A secret memo is allegedly handed to Admiral Mike Mullen, seeking US help in preventing a military coup in Pakistan.
October 10, 2011	British paper The Financial Times publishes an editorial by Mansoor Ijaz, in which he mentions the memo.
October 22, 2011	Lt General Shuja Pasha flies to London to meet Ijaz.
November 16, 2011	Zardari, Gilani and Kayani meet in Islamabad to discuss the controversy.
November 17, 2011	Ijaz tells Pakistani newspaper Dawn that Haqqani was the senior diplomat he’d mentioned. The memo is published byForeign Policy on its website.
November 19, 2011	Haqqani is asked to return to Islamabad.
November 21, 2011	The Pentagon says Mullen received the memo, but did not find the contents credible.
November 22, 2011	Haqqani resigns.
November 23, 2011	Sherry Rehman is appointed the new Ambassador.
November 28, 2011	Supreme Court of Pakistan admits a petition by Nawaz Sharif and other opposition leaders, seeking a probe into the scandal.
November 29, 2011	The SC formulates a nine-member bench and sets December 1 as the date for the hearing. It also seeks replies from all respondents, including Zardari, within 15 days.
December 8, 2011	Haqqani submits his reply to the court.
December 14, 2011	Ijaz submits his reply to the court.
December 15, 2011	Kayani and Pasha submit their replies to the court.
December 16, 2011	James Jones submits his affidavit.
December 17, 2011	Ijaz files a response to James’ affidavit.
December 18, 2011	Court serves notices to Gilani and Zardari.
January 2, 2012	A three-judge commission is set up to probe the case; Haqqani’s counsel Asma Jahangir resigns.
January 7, 2011	Zardari says his government will accept the Parliamentary panel’s verdict on the authenticity of the memo, hinting tacitly that the judicial commission’s report will not be considered.