Feet firmly in the mouth- By Pritish Nandy

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/extraordinaryissue/entry/feet-firmly-in-the-mouth#comments

We have what appears to be one of the most inept, corrupt and foolish governments India has ever had the privilege of seeing in power. But is it really all that bad? Or is it that this government simply has no clue as to what to do or say in moments of crisis? Every time one occurs, as indeed one did in Mumbai last week, the nation watches helplessly as its leaders make a fool of themselves. Having been a journalist for three decades, one has seen worse, far worse governments, though not perhaps as corrupt. But never have I seen one that has both its feet so firmly in its mouth.

Almost everyone who speaks for the UPA has zero communications skills and, curiously, none of them, from the Prime Minister downwards, have chosen a single convincing person to speak on their behalf. Their speech writers are lousier. More often than not, they make things worse by what they say. Let’s take last week’s bomb blasts and start with what the Maharashtra chief minister had to say: “I think it’s unfair to say there was a failure of intelligence. If there was something available and we failed to pick it up, that would be considered an intelligence failure. This is not intelligence failure.” What was it then, Mr chief minister? Three bomb blasts took place in the city last week and we still have no clue as to who did them. If this is not an intelligence failure, pray what is?

Nitpicking over semantics is the worst way to react in moments of such grievous human tragedy. But Prithviraj Chavan chose to do precisely that before millions of TV viewers. Not once. That would have been forgiven as a badly phrased response under stress. He repeated it several times on different networks, to everyone’s horror. When bomb blasts take place it’s always an intelligence failure. It’s the job of intelligence agencies to prevent such crimes, not float a whole lot of theories afterwards. That’s the job of the media.

The Union home minister was no better: “Whenever there is any information, we share it with the states concerned and vice versa. Unfortunately, this incident slipped through. Intelligence is collected every day, every hour. The blasts are not a failure of intelligence agencies. Whoever has perpetrated the attacks has worked in a very clandestine manner.” I beg your pardon, Mr home minister? All terrorists work in a clandestine manner. That is the very nature of their business. By this argument, no terrorist attack can ever be stopped because the terrorists have not declared their intent by holding a press conference in advance.

The general secretary of the Congress, Rahul Gandhi added to the melee by saying, “It’s very difficult to stop every single terror attack in the country. Terrorism is something that’s impossible to stop all the time. But 99% attacks have been stopped due to strong vigilance and intelligence efforts.” Which 99%, may I ask? If this is indeed true, the intelligence agencies must have stopped 9000 terror attacks by now. How come none of them were reported? How come none of the guys caught are in jail? I don’t think anyone in India, including Mr Gandhi, will find these statistics credible even if they agree with his theory that terrorist attacks are not easy to anticipate and even more difficult to stop. However, a statement like this, immediately after such a bloody strike which left so many people dead and wounded, dismays people. It further erodes their confidence in the government. 

The Prime Minister’s statement was bizarre: “The terrorists had the advantage of surprise,” he said. “This time there was no advance indication. Now our task is to find out who the culprits are and how we can work together to bring them to justice.” Unfortunately, this is not the first time the Prime Minister has been caught by surprise. Raja caught him by surprise. So did Kalmadi. And now, even Dayanidhi Maran. Pretty much everyone in his cabinet catches our Prime Minister by surprise, which is something which surprises the rest of us. Maybe he can surprise us all by hiring a communications expert who can phrase his responses better next time. Inanities at crisis time leave everyone exasperated.

Terrorist strikes are always sudden, brutal, and unspeakably cruel on innocent people. Those in power must learn the language of sympathy and compassion and stop speaking in ridiculous clichés that upset people who are already reeling under the impact of a terrible tragedy. Since our leaders are not adequate communicators, why not simply hire people who are, who can speak on their behalf or write down what they ought to be saying? Otherwise, you end up having people like Digvijay Singh talking absolute nonsense and further alienating an already angry and frustrated nation.

As for the official spokespeople and the political opposition, the less said about their comments, the better. For an India impatient with its politicians, they have simply ceased to matter.

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Thanks Mr. Nandy… you do it once again…..

This seems a good divert from the main issue & the politicians should be relieved that for once people are not discussing their ‘Capabilities & Intelligence’. To come back to the basics, every time something like a bomb blast happens, the media is flooded with such hatred articles, stinker mails, etc . Then, I hate my CM, I hate my PM all that shit happens. Well, today I feel even our writers are exhausted of ideas & instead of beating about the bush on terrorism they have started paying heed to who the government should hire or not hire.

It’s actually amazing that if we as commoners can gauze such lacunae in the system then why does it not strike the members of the “clean & democratic system”? (Point justified!!)

As rightly said by Mr. Nandy, India is witnessing the ‘most inept, corrupt and foolish governing system’  in power. And nothing can be done about it!

The statement by our highly educated PM “The terrorists had the advantage of surprise:” is humorous & am afraid that such excuses could not have come from a person of such stature.  Anyway, we all know our dearest politicians (no pun intended) go by their set rules of “If you can’t convince them….confuse them…”

It’s been quite some months that I have not been blogging… was trying to write a diary instead… But I think writing on your own blog gives much more satisfaction. I realize there is a huge difference which I have discovered within myself since then…

I don’t know whether to call it coming of age, maturing or just being stressed and aggravated because of my work schedule, people around me or what??

Random changes in surroundings, distinctive behavioral changes in loved ones or over expectations in the work front is what I have been experiencing over a few months. Sometimes I tell myself, all of this is not new to me; rather this may have been happening before, but I can only see them now. This is a result of growing old I believe and turning 25 is, believe me … Scary!!!

‘The world changes at 25’, I have heard this an umpteen times and life begins to take a new turn, relations are broken and made but so drastically.

My friends say that I have become temperamental, get to snap within split seconds, unable to tolerate jokes and the chirpy-bubbly myself has died somewhere…

I hate this phase of mine and crave to move out of it. Had never imagined that there would be a point of time in my life where I would start hating my ‘best  pals’ , ‘my fav hang out place’ and many more other stuffs…  I wanna get out of it……

Another morning.

Usual chores, catching a bus, sitting for hours; waiting to reach my destination. This is how my day usually begins . Normally on my way to office, I take a window seat in the bus so that I can keep my eyes open to the world outside. I see a lot of things which happen exactly at the same time each day. Few girls waiting at the bus stop with heavy ladden bags, same guy passing by in a red car with his wife, same men sipping their morning chai (tea) at the tapri (stall) with poha (rice flakes); I really like to see what other people do in their lives and then imagine what their lifestyle would be. It’s exciting for me.

There are always few men who are lying on the pavement with shabby clothes, uncut hair and beard. Offcourse they are not normal like us. We call them poor, mad or dirt so to say. I really empathise for them. Every day I see people who drive cars to work, some travel by bikes, some by bicycle and some unlucky ones donot have privilege to work they are only fit to lie on the pavement. I feel immense pain to see people like that. They suffer so much, they have no work, no family, nobody to look after them. Here in Pune, I see so many such people . I think the admin or government must do something for them. It’s rather a shame to read in papers about India shining and yet not paying heed to our basic roots of humanity. Well, what I wanted to share was a little affection from our end towards these people. If each one of us think that we can contribute in some way or the other to them, would make a big difference to their lives….. then it will be a different another day everyday!

It was a bright sunday morning again but shadowed… a little with dark clouds releasing  crystal droplets of water which were eventually  increasing as it began clogging on the already clogged roads of Mumbai. I know I am contradicting my own words of a bright day when it’s pouring like cats and dogs; it is perhaps my mood which is bright and shinning with jovial thoughts of going for shopping in Mumbai with a dear friend. But something happened which completely changed my perspective towards life.

I am going home for Diwali and had to buy gifts for my family and friends; so I and my best friend decided to pack our bags and shop from Mumbai. Least that we knew that it was pouring crazy there and to add to our bad luck we didn’t had an umbrella… Finally we bought one and figured out where to go  and what to buy from where… Till now things were fine we went exploring Dadar, Bandra- Linking Road, Hill Road, Pedder Road and finally landed up in Mohammed Ali Road. Its very famous for wholesale materials and one can get from bags to  cellphones to clothes and eatables…It’s a paradise during the month of Ramazan.

Well.. we were wearing chudidaar-kurta, actually can be called  inoffensive clothing, that’s it but we could clearly make out from the men present there that we were either dressed awkwardly or we were offending them in some other way. We bought few clothes from there, since it was raining continuously we found it difficult to carry our clothes and baggages. We went from shop to shop in search of things  but could not manage to buy too many things. Finally we landed up in a shop all managed by a fairly young boy. Dressed in denims and tee with a white topi on his head. His face had something about it I can’t relate to it but something like to be scared of or best to call those as passionate eyes. Lined with dark black surma and little grown beard can be easily spotted as a Muslim. I happen to like a bag there and  wanted to buy that so I began bargaining with him. He quoted Rs. 250 which I know wasn’t much but I quoted 200, the bargain went for quite some time and I realized I was really bad at convincing.

Unknowingly I had a slip of tongue and said “Allah kasam itna budget nahi hai bhai”, he paused for a while and said, “aacha thik hai 220 mein le lo..” , and I was like Oh No I shouldn’t have said that. Then he asked me ” aap Muslim ho..” I offcourse had no answer to him and just starred him for the moment. Well I don’t know what made me do that but something happened within me which shook me. He then packed my stuff and said with complete authority, ” kam se kam dupatta toh le ke nikalna chahiye aap ladkiyon ko….” I was put to shame so badly that I took my stuff and ran away from him.  In the mean while took out my scarf and put it over my shoulder.

I can still hear that young boy’s  murmer in my ear ” aap Muslim ho” … I exactly don’t know what can be inferred about this post by the one who’s reading it but I know one thing  I then realised that being a woman is not easy and to receive that concern which the Muslims have towards the minor of the two genders is something which one doesnot get to see everywhere. I donot know whether I am appreciating this fact or criticizing but just relieving my heart out to speak that I know that what ever happened I liked it. I liked it when he said those words……

Hi.. I just got started with wordpress … And to begin with i would want to write something about my city …This scenic beauty belongs to Jamshedpur- my city. It is Dimna Lake. Ever Green, full of scenic beauty and landscapes. Today, I am blogging on my city because I incidently came across the details of my city on wikipedia and some of the amazing things about my place was discovered by me.I am born and brought up in Jamshedpur but now am in Pune… missing my home town a lot, may be the people here are good, humble and caring yet nothing matches the love and warmth of one’s own home town.
I just happen to capture some of the big things about the place which I would like to share…
Jamshedpur is the first well-planned industrial city of India.
Jamshedpur is one of the greenest cities of India. Active reforestation and tree planting activities help in maintaining air quality, which would otherwise have been rather polluted by the presence of a large number of industries. More efforts are made every year to re-emphasise Tata Steel’s commitment to a cleaner and greener Jamshedpur. Tree plantation, an ongoing activity, found remarkable expression through the ‘Green Millennium’ Countdown. This unique programme has provided one and a half million additional healthy trees in the new millennium in company areas.
It was the first ISO 9005 certified city in India.
The city won international acclaim when it was selected for the 2004 Global Compact City award from the UN in India. It surpassed other contenders, such as Bangalore, Pune and Chandigarh, in recognition of its robust infrastructure, cosmopolitan outlook and strong industry. Only 10 cities in the world have been given this privilege.
Jamshedpur has an average literacy rate of 82%, higher than the national average of 59.5%.
So, I think so much to add to my city definately makes me feel proud to be hailing from a city named-Jamshepur.

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