There’s an old story about a miser who had caused all his wealth to be converted into a chunk of gold. Every night he would take the gold out from where he had hid it in a hole in the garden and gloat over it. One day the inevitable happened – a thief found the gold and stole it. The miser was weeping over the stolen gold when a sage happened by. He told the man – “Take a stone and put it in the hole and take it out every night and gloat over it, imagining it’s your gold. It will do you precisely as much good as your gold which you put in the garden.”

I’m reminded of this story each time I consider how the Incredible Democracy of India (IDI) treats that part of it which is called Kashmir. (It actually treats the states of the North East a good deal worse, but the difference is that the North East doesn’t exist as far as the average “mainstream” Indian is concerned – most of them have literally never heard of it.)

A potted history of Kashmir since the 1930s: Kashmir actually comprises three parts: Ladakh, with a Buddhist majority, in the east; Kashmir, with a Muslim majority, in the centre, and Jammu, with a Hindu majority in the south. Overall, though, it was a Muslim-majority state ruled by a Hindu king who wanted to remain independent after the British quit the subcontinent in 1947. While various negotiations were going on about its final status, Pakistan sent in “tribal irregulars” to take over the territory. These “irregulars” (including a fair supply of the troops of the new Pakistan army) whipped the ass of the Maharaja of Kashmir’s forces and only failed to capture Srinagar, the capital, because they allegedly spent so much time looting and raping on the way.

Meanwhile the Maharaja of Kashmir was persuaded to a temporary accession to what was then the Dominion (self-ruled state without formal independence from the British) of India. The accession was explicitly stated to be temporary, a measure that would allow India to send forces to face the “tribal irregulars” (which seems a pretty specious reason when you come to think of it – I don’t see why one country can’t send forces to help another unless the latter merges into it). The then Prime Minister of India, Nehru, explicitly promised a plebiscite on the issue of accession – as soon as peace was achieved. It was a promise he never intended to keep.

While the Indian army forced the “tribal intruders” back from Srinagar, about a third of the state still was in the hands of the invaders when Nehru went to the United Nations and accepted a UN-ordered ceasefire, which means that a third of the state still remains in Pakistani territory. Meanwhile, Nehru locked up the most important Kashmiri leader, Sheikh Abdullah, and began imposing a succession of puppet regimes in rigged elections, something that continued well into the 1980s. These puppets, not unnaturally, had a price for keeping their side of the bargain – they could steal all they wanted. Kashmir’s villages to this day don’t have electricity, running water, or roads – and yet, because of certain “privileges” allegedly afforded the state, the right wing Hindu parties of India insist that Kashmir has always been “pampered”.

Meanwhile, Pakistan, unwilling to come to terms with the fact that it didn’t control all of Kashmir, and smarting after 1971 because of the loss of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) at India’s hands (an Indian blunder of monumental proportions, as I have argued elsewhere) – and having failed at inciting a popular uprising against India in 1965 – took advantage of the Indian government’s monumental incompetence and venality to help sponsor a genuine uprising against India in 1989. This soon degenerated into a mindless jihad, with Hindu Kashmiris (Pandits) being ethnically cleansed and the movement soon fragmenting. That jihad, and the counter-violence imposed by India, which has one of the world’s largest occupation forces in situ, continues today.

Current crisis: Every year, large numbers of Hindu pilgrims make a trek to the Amarnath cave in the Himalayas. This used to be a relatively minor affair till the eighties, but with the rise of Hindu right wing fundamentalism the number of pilgrims has increased many times and the organisation of this pilgrimage is now openly associated with Hindu right wing parties and corporate houses. While there has always been heavy security cover for this pilgrimage, you understand that the pilgrimage is entirely through Kashmir and that it depends on the co-operation of the local people. These are the same Kashmiris who feel alienated and suppressed by the Indian state. Fine so far?

Earlier this year, in a move that might have seemed logical but was strictly speaking illegal, the state’s then Governor (a right wing Hindu fundamentalist ex-general named SK Sinha, and we all know the Indian army is politically neutral, don’t we? Ha, ha) transferred 40 hectares of forest land to the Amarnath trip organisers to create shelters for the pilgrims. The politicians of Kashmir seized on this as a pretext for protests, calling this the thin edge of a demographic wedge designed to transform Kashmir’s Muslims into a minority in their own land. Utter garbage, of course, but the alienated, unrepresented, and oppressed Kashmiris seized on this opportunity to come onto the streets in masses so great the government lost its nerve, removed the Hindunazi Sinha from his post, and revoked the transfer order.

At once the Jammu region, most of which has a Hindu majority and through which all roads to Kashmir pass, exploded in a protest organised by the Hindu Taliban against the revocation of the transfer. These mass protests, unlike the Kashmiri protests (which had long since passed out of the control of the politicians and become a genuine mass movement) were, and are, carefully directed Hindunazi “nationalist protests” (how a protest against the revocation of an illegal transfer can be nationalist is beyond me, but I’m neither a Hindutwit nor a nationalist). Since all roads that now pass to Kashmir must go through Jammu, the Hindunazis then began a blockade of Kashmir – which the Indian government and the corporate media are only reluctantly admitting even exists, and have done nothing to end.

Kashmiri fruit growers, their produce rotting with no way to export them to the Indian plains, decided the only way out was to send them to the pre-1947 market – the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, the road to which had long since been blocked off by loyal patriotic nationalist Indian occupation forces. Said forces fired on the (completely unarmed) marchers who tried to cross the border, killing several including a prominent Kashmiri separatist politician.

And that did it.

Ever since then, the people of Kashmir have decided enough is enough. Every day they are coming out in the thousands, braving barricades and curfews and the nationalist patriots who manage to kill innocent bystanders while shooting at unarmed marchers. Day by day the movement’s getting stronger…until, for a few days, the Indian government decided that if it did nothing, the Kashmiris, a soft and lazy race according to Nehru, would tire themselves out and stop of their own accord. No such thing happened. The Kashmiris aren’t sure if they want freedom (“azadi”) or to be part of Pakistan, but they know damned well they don’t want to be part of India. And no reasonable person will blame them. So now the patriotic nationalists are shooting to kill unarmed protestors, and the same people who were condemning China for crushing the violent riots by the stooges of the Bush-bemedalled feudal theocrat Dalai Alpaca in Lhasa a few months ago are cheering on the murder of these completely unarmed protestors.

So, should India hold on to Kashmir?

The arguments for retaining Kashmir: Here are some arguments I’ve heard for India holding on to Kashmir:

The keystone theory: according to this line, much beloved of the Muddle Class, if Kashmir is allowed to secede, then other parts of India will also follow and India will fall apart. Very impressive article of faith, I’m sure, somewhat marred by the fact that these same worthies love to go on about how India is a unique nation, of unity and harmony in diversity. How India will fall apart if it really is that strong is something they don’t, wisely in my opinion, try to explain.

The minority theory: According to this theory, the Kashmiri protests are the work of a small minority; the vast majority are content to remain under the Indian boot. Apart from the fact that these people don’t seem to have taken a look at what’s actually going on in Kashmir, the so-called Indian freedom movement was also the handiwork of a tiny fraction of the country’s population, who were outnumbered many times over by that part of the Indian populace who actively collaborated and helped maintain British rule. By these peoples’ argument, then, India should have still been a colony.

The two-nations theory: according to this idea, India is a unique secular experiment (unlike Pakistan) and allowing Kashmir to secede will knock the bottom out of that experiment. Try telling the story of Indian secularism to the victims of anti-Muslim pogroms who still live in refugee camps or ghettoes and watch their attackers roam about freely all about the glories of Indian secularism. 

The eternal borders theory: Hilarious, since the nation state is a completely new concept in Asia and the Indian nation, and its “eternal borders”, are just sixty years old.

The strategic bulwark theory: Kashmir can’t be let go since it’s a strategic bulwark against Pakistan, say the “strategists”. Umm, I thought we had a nuclear arsenal to deter Pakistani attack? If you say Kashmir can’t be let go in order to fight a war against Pakistan, you admit the nuclear arsenal is useless. Make up your mind.

The democracy theory: India is a democracy, Kashmir won’t be if it’s independent. Right, tell that to the Kashmiris who have seen decades of rigged elections.

The independent-Kashmir-won’t-be-viable theory: Once we let it go, in my opinion, what the hell does it matter what happens to it? It’s no longer our business.

The what-will-happen-to-the-poor-Kashmiris theory: They’re poor innocents who will be taken over by the Taliban…a racist, condescending argument which in any case also ignores the point that what happens once we get out is none of our business anyway.

The banish all Muslims to Kashmir theory: Beloved of Hindunazi idiots. Not even worth commenting on.

There may be other theories stupid and hilarious by turns, but these are the main ones.

Right, my take:

Let Kashmir go.

I believe I’ve already mentioned several points invalidating the usual arguments against letting go of Kashmir. So I won’t repeat them. Instead, here are my arguments why we should let it go:

In the first place, we have no right to rule a people against their will. If they haven’t been reconciled to Indian rule in sixty years, they never will be. Let them go.

I see many Indian journalists who foamed at the mouth condemning China for crushing the Dalai Vicuna’s vile and violent stooges have no problem demanding India crush these unarmed protests.

Then, we can’t keep spending billions on keeping Kashmir. This is an argument that should have come from the capitalist class, which insists that we live in a globalised world without borders, but for some reason has not. Remember that India is among the worst places to live in if you go by the Human Development Index and not by the lies spouted by the so-called Prime Minister, the Bush worshipper Manmohan Singh, who has never won an election in his life yet is the “leader” of this “democracy”, the Incredible Democracy of India I mentioned above.       

If India doesn't have to spend to hold on to Kashmir, something that has done it no good at all and is like a cancerous growth on he body of the nation, it will have much more money left over for social projects. I would also say (although I live in the North East) that the North East is even more of a draining wound than Kashmir and needs to be let go of.

Simple economics would tell one that when something is more of a liability than an asset, it's time to get rid of it. if India truly believes in a capitalist future and all it entails, it should have no qualms about ridding itself of Kashmir and the North East - and then maybe large parts of North India as well.

Otherwise let's have an end to all the "logic of the market economy" rhetoric, once and for all.

But, either way, let’s not be like the miser and his chunk of unused gold.

Let Kashmir go.

    

(Anyone who doesn't know me and is getting all set to blow a gasket about this is advised to research my actual attitude towards homosexuals before blowing a fuse...Bill)   

Gays are evil, don’t you know the truth

Servants of Satan, corrupters of youth.

They want to destroy religion, society and all

That they say so glibly holds us in thrall.

 

Gays are evil, believe it, now do

Before they turn their evil eyes on you.

Gays will hurt you and cause you harm

Hug you with hatred and keep you all warm.

 

Gays are evil, don’t you all know

In the Devil’s way they all do go

Clever and friendly? It’s a big lie

They’ll make sure that in hell you’ll fry.

 

Gays are evil, enemies of the race

Creative and friendly all to your face

They plot in secret – your world they do hate

And have planned for it a terrible fate.

 

Gays want you to be gay – that’s what they need

More lesbians and homos to obey their creed

Enemies of family and parenthood and such

As provide Society the essential crutch.

 

Gays want that no children be born

Sons and daughters from parents be torn

That the cities empty and licence abound

Till no good person anywhere be found.

 

Gays stand for abortion, evolution and things

That reached the fair world on satanic wings

Like compassion for the poor, the raghead and gook

Evil hiding in each cranny and nook.

 

Gays are all Commies – this is the fact

Possessed maybe with a little more tact

The ruin of families, more than the Red

Because they’re in, not under, your bed.

 

Oh hearken unto me, thou godfearing man

Gather unto thee family and clan

Make me a crusade, seek thou no rest

Leave on earth’s surface no homosexual pest.

 

Kill me a gay, a lesbian or bi

Stay not thy hand at its piteous cry

It ain’t no human, a devil it is

And killing it will bring eternal bliss.

 

God cursed the gay, and it is thy job

His cursed Enemy to cheat kill and rob

God hates the Gay, so said the Pope

So prepare for them the hangman’s rope.

 

If it be thy brother – off with his head

Thy sister? Take her directly to bed

Teach her first the feel of a man

Then burn her alive – ashes in the can.

 

Believe me brothers the need for this purge

More than GWOT or glorious Iraqi Surge

The Gay’s the enemy, the terrorist is not

Terrorise the Gay and all sin’s forgot.

 

 

 

Sometime back I got one of those self-consciously "funny-but-makes-you-think" e-mail forwards. This one went something like this: "You're a desi (ie Indian) if you...blah blah...save old jars and reuse them...blah blah blah...use old towels as dishcloths...blah blah."

I normally ignore this sort of stuff, but I was stricken by the fact that the reuse of jars and old towels seemed to be something the character who wrote this originally (almost certainly an Indian software engineer domiciled in the US) thought worthy of making fun of. And then I remembered that often - and even more often in recent days - I read in the papers right wing columnists and economists bemoaning the fact that Indians have yet to "develop a disposable culture". You know the reason - those who save old jars and towels don't buy custom-built jars and new dishcloths, etc, so the profits of the bastards are hit. But the way they present it, it's as though it's some kind of national disgrace that we don't follow the lead of the US and generate even higher mountains of garbage than we are generating already.

Incidentally, nowhere among these writings have I read a word against the reuse of medical supplies like syringes - which is something that has to be stamped out. But then bandage manufacturers and syringe suppliers don't advertise in the general press or sell their products in the fancy malls for the credit-card carrying rich, so I guess  they don't register on these peoples' radar.

These people are those who say they want India to be more like the US - which is, although it still uses so much in the way of resources that if everyone were to live so wastefully, we would need six more  earths to provide the sustenance - at least trying in a fashion to reduce its wastage.
        
Those among us who laugh at people who re-use ball-point pens instead of throwing them away want to reach a point of convergence, I guess, where the Americans and we are wasting the same amount. Then they might think of reducing wastage.

But if there's money to be made from it, I wouldn't bet on that either.

This is a story of a hero and how he met a monster.

 

The hero was a wandering adventurer, a rescuer of damsels, a seeker of fortune, a slayer of dragons, invincible on the battlefield, passionate in love, known throughout the Seven Kingdoms. His name he had long since thrown away as no longer useful. Now he was simply the Hero.

 

The Hero rode a steed black as night, and he was clad in plate armour black as the depths of the sea where the sun never shone, and he carried on his back his mighty Sword, whose name was Ybore. His great triangular shield bore on it the Device of the Fifty Silver Stars, and he rode always alone.

 

The Hero would find danger and rout it. He would seek out and destroy evil and punish the maleficent. It was a path not questioned; it was his Destiny. He would not rest till evil was gone from the earth.

 

When the Hero rode on his way, the earth smoked and the air seemed to burn, and the very waters turned red to mark his passage. Everyone knew the Hero; and only the evil feared his coming.  

 

The Monster’s name was Tarka. Like all monsters he was ugly and evil, with a mouthful of sharp teeth and two handfuls of grappling claws. He moved ponderously slow and he gathered up great numbers of tender young virgins and feasted on them, eating them so that the crunching of their bones covered their agonised screams. He lived in caverns beneath a lost City in the jungle.

 

The City had been lost because its people had abandoned it, and they had abandoned it because Tarka had eaten so many of their virgins there were none left to go around, a sad state of affairs indeed for a people that obeyed their god and maintained the old traditions. At first they had thought the monster would only eat virgins, and the young women began sleeping around as though their lives depended on it (as of course they did), much to the dismay of the older folk. But then they had run out of virgins, and thought the depredations would stop. But Tarka had simply switched to eating everyone, male or female, young or old. He would eat them, and make musical instruments out of their bones.

 

Night after night the monster would emerge from his caverns and sit in the Tower above the city, and watch the jungle creep back to claim its own, and he would play wild, beautiful music on his instruments. He would play very well indeed because he had such a vast hoard of instruments, and he was such a good musician.

 

Night after night the former inhabitants of the city would creep to the edge of the forest and listen to the distant music and grit their teeth as they thought how the forest was reclaiming their homes and hearths, and how a monster would not only kill and eat them but make instruments from their skin and bones.

 

And so it went on, for seven years and a day.

 

Then it was at last that the Hero’s wanderings brought him to the Forest in the midst of which the City lay.

 

The Hero never visited a place in secrecy. His fame had spread so far and wide that he had only to think of going somewhere and the evil forces of those parts would feel a chill of fear in their spines. So it was to be expected that – given his mastery over all forms of evil – the monster Tarka would hear of his coming and flee in terror. So the erstwhile denizens of the City came to the edge of the forest expecting to hear the music stilled and the monster gone, but they still heard the music playing in the silence of the night. And they knew not whether to be sad or rejoice, for the monster was still in residence, but the Hero was coming, and then his destruction was yea assured. So spoke the priests and the oracles.

 

And the Hero came. He came on his black steed and the fields planted with the winter’s fodder burst into incandescent flame at his passage, rendering to ashes the food supplies of the livestock through the winter months. He came as a storm does, as a bolt of lightning, as a force of nature does. He was flood and earthquake and tsunami and volcano. He was Hero.

 

For the entire first night he sat his black steed in the black of night and listened to the monster play his music. Then he returned to the miserable villages where the erstwhile residents of the fair City now lived.

 

“Have there been other heroes before me, to fight the monster?” he asked.

 

“Yea, sire, perhaps half a hundred and more,” said the villagers. “But the fell monster killed them all, yea, every one, and made his instruments from their skins and their bones.”

 

“The music,” said the Hero then, to himself. “That music, it must be the source of his power. I must still the music, and then the monster is as putty in my hands.”

 

“And what will you offer me,” he asked the villagers, “to rescue you and restore your city from the evil clutches of this tyrannical monster?”

 

“Virtue is its own reward, Sire,” he was told. “But as you would prefer some more material reward, we will offer up to you half the products of the sapphire mines on which our fair city is built.”

 

“Half? No, all. Or you get nothing at all,” quoth the Hero. “No city and nothing else.” 

 

“As you desire,” said the villagers. “Since there is no alternative.”

 

The Hero then made his way, under the huge trees of the forest, past the eyes of nameless beasts, to the City. Far below the ground, in the caverns that were his home, the Monster slept, his snores making the streets tremble slightly. The Hero thought of going down into the caverns to kill him, but rejected the idea. The caverns were the Monster’s natural haunts. There Tarka would hold the advantage.

 

The Hero went to the Tower, which was beginning to fall to ruin under the weight of time and the encroaching forest. He climbed up its nine hundred and ninety eight steps and reached a room at the top, where he found a great number of exquisitely crafted instruments of bone and skin, flutes and drums and violins with strings of human sinew. Ruthlessly he smashed the instruments, one by one, until there remained not one. Then he sat down to wait.

 

When night fell, Tarka emerged from his cavern and went to the Tower, roaring.

 

He was huge. He was monstrous. He had a mouthful of jagged, murderous teeth, two arms ending in immense hooked claws and a tail that could not just knock down a man but gut him with a flick of its razor sharp edges. He climbed the tower from the outside and leaped into the room at the top, and stood staring at his shattered instruments.

 

“I have broken them all,” said the Hero. “So you must yield to me.”

 

“Yield?” Tarka seemed surprised. “Why should I yield?”

 

“Because, foul beast, I have destroyed your instruments, your source of power.”

 

“So you have, Hero.” Tarka stood wrapped in thought. “I’ll ask you a question. What makes you want to have me yield to you?”

 

“Because you are evil and I am good. Therefore my victory is certain, all the more so because I have destroyed your source of power. In order to save your foul life, you should yield to me.” The Hero drew Ybore from its sheath and waited, visor down, for the monster’s answer.

 

“Are you sure you are so good? You have condemned the beasts of the former inhabitants of this city to death by starvation by your coming. You have taken from them the reason why they hacked this city from the forest that had done them no harm, the sapphire mines on which the city is built. You will destroy the beasts and birds of the forest if the people come back, the beasts and birds who are under my protection. Why do you think you are good?”

 

“Because I am arrayed on the side of good. Therefore everything I do is good, and there is no reason to discuss the point further. I will destroy you because it is the burden of heroes to destroy evil where we find it.” Ybore flashed in the moonlight. “Yield or I will kill you with this.”

 

 “You would deny me the right to defend myself?”

 

“You may defend yourself if you wish. It will do no good, because I have destroyed your instruments of music, the source of your power.”

 

The monster smiled, showing his sharp jagged teeth. “You made one little mistake,” he said. “My power does not, and never did, lie in the instruments. I just happen to enjoy music.”

 

Then he stepped forward, batted the sword aside with one hand and broke the Hero’s neck with one blow of the other, and he ate the Hero, and after he was finished he went down and ate the horse as well.

 

The next night, when the Hero had not returned, the erstwhile denizens of the city went to the forest’s edge and listened to the wild haunting music.

 

Tarka was in an excellent mood, and he played on his new instruments into the dawn of the new day.  

 

I've just finished writing Call Of The Khokkosh (originally titled Guardian At The Gate, which title I've retained for the first chapter only) - all 24 chapters of it.

To remind you - the first six chapters are here for all readers, and the next five only for contacts, but only temporarily. Within 48 hours I intend to pull all except for the first three, so if you want to read any part of it but haven't - read it now.

I have been sending enquiries out to as many literary agents as possible, and so far three have asked me to send portions to them for reading. Let's see how it turns out.

In the meantime, I have sacrificed food and sleep to write this book. I began writing it on 29 July, so it's rather less than a month since I started. I shall therefore be taking today off and not touch the computer till tomorrow evening.

Last night I almost didn't sleep. When I dozed off I dreamt of a museum where, upstairs, monsters resembling Jabba the Hutt's pet rancor in Return Of The Jedi picked up human beings by the legs like lollypops and ate them alive. The stairs were too narrow for the people to get down. It was a fun dream. Lots of screaming.

I need to sleep tonight, but am feeling charged up, so am not sure if I will.

Anyway, good night, all.
    

I read in one of Carl Sagan's books about a certain episode in 19th Century England. Beekeepers suddenly had a massive drop in their honey collections. So major was this problem that they finally got together and called in a biologist, a man called Charles Darwin (maybe some of you may vaguely recall having heard of him).

This Darwin studied the situation and told the beekeepers that to remedy the situation they must...get more cats.

The 'keepers, fortunately, had the faith in science to accept this bizarre suggestion and acquired cats in greater numbers, after which the honey yield went right back up again.

Here's how it worked. The bees fed primarily on the nectar of clover growing in the fields. A population of field mice also ate the clover. Now the field mice were going through a population explosion and gobbling up all the clover. Result - no nectar left over for the bees.

Now, imagine this happened in India, now, today. Let's see the likely scenario:

1. Honey yields fall drastically.

2. Beekeepers get together and hold a special prayer to the honey gods, and sacrifice a barrel of honey to him/her. TV cameras and the print media are invited to watch.

3. Local politicians claim that this is because of  the "stepmotherly attitude" of the Central government towards the beekeepers. They demand adequate compensation.

4. Beekeepers call a strike and attack government offices. A far-right wing organisation adopts the agitation as its own and says that the beekeepers' problems are caused by those speaking other languages or professing other beliefs.

5. A nationally famous Feng Shui expert advises the beekeepers to arrange their beehives in particular patterns and to arrange for flowing water in the east of their apiaries, while any tree that grows in the south-western corner must be removed. An astrologer asks the beekeepers to add extra vowels to their names.

6. The Prime Minister visits the beekeepers and makes a speech about the Unclear Deal and 10% growth rate.

7. India wins a minor cricket match. The media go ape.

8. As a "temporary relief measure," the government decides to purchase honey from abroad at three times the price it is willing to pay local beekeepers. Major economists strongly support this decision.

9.  A beekeeper commits suicide. The media shows some mild interest.

10. A major, overhyped Bollywood film is released. The media have nothing else to talk about.

11. The rats outrun their food supply and their population levels fall. As time goes by the honey yield picks up.

12. The astrologer and the Feng Shui expert fall over themselves taking credit, but whine that nobody listens.

Ever wondered why news is no longer "news" but has become "infotainment" - propaganda, in other words?

Ever wondered why the "news" now resembles a plug for a political party or corporate entity?

Well, there was a time when you were a "viewer" or a "reader" of news.

No longer.

Now, you're a "consumer".

Any basic economics textbook will tell you in the first couple of chapters that any concern that wishes to stay afloat must give the consumers what they want. Therefore, you can't have any real news any more, because it might turn off your consumers .

You can only have packaged, slanted garbage. And if they can't twist the news to make packaged, slanted garbage, they'll invent packaged, slanted garbage and pass it off as "news".

And so you can stop wondering why the news claims Georgia was attacked by Russia and why so much time is wasted on which Hollywood star is sleeping with whom.  

Early yesterday morning, I got stung, in bizarre circumstances, by a bumblebee.

Hey, I didn't know bumblebees could sting. And it was around dawn, and I didn't know bumblebees could have enough body heat to be active at that hour.

In any case, you'll understand that I had no blame in the episode. I did not disturb the bee  or try to grab it or anything.

It happened this way:

A spider had, during the night, built a large and sticky web right across my garden path. In the dawn light, before sunrise, this web was well-nigh invisible. I walked right through the web.  And the bumblebee had been caught in the web and was struggling to be free.

So, when I broke the web, the bumblebee, swinging on its thread, struck my right middle finger. I saw it at the last possible second and withdrew my hand in pure reflex action, but just too late.

It was like fire exploding on the back of my finger.

I don't know much about bumblebee stings. Unlike wasps, which I have been stung by in the past, honeybee stings are barbed and break off in the wound (ripping the bee's intestine out along with the sting, which is why honeybees are kamikazes). I have no idea if bumblebee stings are like that. However, I do think it was due to my reflex withdrawal that the sting didn't penetrate far enough for the barbs, if any, to catch. So though the pain was intense it subsided to a dull ache and though it did swell, the swelling stayed under control. Today my finger's fine.

Oh, and I saw the bumblebee flying around after a few minutes. So I saved its life. Did it thank me?

    

These days I sleep very little, and when I do, I generally have long, complicated, and multi-themed dreams, most of which vanish from my memory on waking.

A bit of last night's (or, to be precise, this morning's) dream stuck in my mind, though.

You've heard of the favela tours some Rio de Janeiro tour groups promote?  Well, it was something like that.

Those of you who are Indian will know this; those who aren't will probably have heard of this: the Great Indian Habit of urinating in public, behind every tree and against every wall.

So in my dream there was this group of European tourists (assorted ages and of both sexes, but mostly young and male) who were being taken on a Pissing Tour of Indian cities. Yes, you got that right - a pissing tour of Indian cities, where they got to line up behind trees and pee in public against grey concrete walls. They looked pretty enthusiastic doing it too, queuing up for their turn. Liberated.

Well: tourists pay big money to visit foreign beaches and walk around almost naked, while the locals walk around those same beaches almost naked also. But the locals do it because they don't have and can't afford the clothes the tourists pay to take off, and tour groups make a living from slumming tourists, so why not a Pissing Tour, huh? While in Rome do as the Romans do, etc., and Profit is King.

I'm offering my idea, gratis, to any tour group that might be interested.   

  
    

Just suppose you've made a statement that I consider to be of breathtaking stupidity, such as, for instance, "Russia attacked Georgia," or "Saddam Hussein had WMDs", or "evolution doesn't exist", or something. So you made the statement, which has irritated me enough that I spend the next few minutes marshalling my arguments and crushing yours to ultra-fine powder.

And when I'm done, you say, "whatever," and depart.

See, I don't mind if you're unconvinced by my logic or my arguments. Even if I consider your views the depths of stupidity, you have a right to stick to them...so long as you aren't adversely affecting anyone by inflicting those views on them.

What you do not have the right to do is say "whatever" and yawn. It's disrespectful of me as a human being, it's disrespectful of logic as an analytical tool, and it's disrespectful of those who may hold the same views as you but have at least some kind of arguments to back up their stand.

What you can do, what you have the right to do, is tell me that you do not agree with me. You can tell me that you refuse to discuss this topic with me. You can tell me you'll find the facts to back up your arguments and get back to me.

What you do not have the right to do is say "whatever" and walk away. That is not the action of a human being, and if you do this, don't expect me to continue treating you as a human being.

That's it.     

Dear Abhinav Bindra

Greetings, and congratulations.

I’m not dissing you, Abinav. I know you worked your ass off to earn an Olympic Gold Medal in the air rifle 10 metre event. And I respect the work you put in, and wish you all the best.

I also appreciate the fact that, unlike virtually all your fellow-athletes, for instance the unbearably overhyped Sania Mirza, your success hasn’t,  yet, turned you into an instant know-it-all and chest thumper. Thank you for that.

All right, let me get to the point now.

You’ve said a lot of things, and you’ve said a lot of things unsaid. Let’s talk about some of those things.

Now, of course, you allow it to be said that your gold medal is a victory “for India.” You know it isn’t so. It isn’t so for many, many reasons, but let me list just a few:

First, you won a gold medal in shooting. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that except for the military and the super-rich, no one shoots in India, let alone on a competition level. No one even has access to firearms, let alone competition grade firearms. OK, I know you won a medal in air rifle shooting, but a competition air rifle isn’t a BB gun. And you know that.

If you’d won a gold medal in – let’s say – track and field, or weightlifting, or table tennis, or swimming, or something similar, which the common person might also be able to play, you might have been able to make that comment. As far as your medal goes, though, from where I’m standing it’s on a level with equestrian sports – which is to say, as far as the citizens of this country are concerned, not really a sport at all.

Then, I really don’t have to remind you, do I, that you aren’t exactly someone who has to worry where his next meal is coming from? You’re rich, Abinav, so rich that you don’t have to work at all, and you can spend your time devoting yourself entirely to your chosen sport. But for the average sportsperson in India, it’s literally a life or death question. Many, many are those who are talented, probably more talented than you, but had to abandon all sports activities because they couldn’t afford it. Do I have to really remind you of that?

The Indian state played no role at all in your medal win, Abhinav. It was because you were rich enough that you could shop around for the best equipment, and rich enough that you could spend your time training on it, that you won this medal. The Indian state had nothing to do with it. It’s your medal. It is not India’s.

Am I being churlish if I point out, therefore, that when you speak about India winning ten gold medals in the next Olympics you are talking through your hat? I think not. Not unless there are sports scholarships issued for the talented that will let them practice each day, every day, and leave them financially secure, win, lose, or draw, and I see no sign of that happening.

One of the reasons I see no chance of that happening is another problem I have with your behaviour, Abhinav. You’re super rich, and yet you make no demur when politicians fall over themselves announcing cash prizes for you. Instead of asking that the prizes be used to finance poor sportspersons (like the national level archery participant from Assam who now sells fish for a living, and hasn’t touched a bow in a year or more) you say nothing. Your silence speaks much, much louder than words.

You can still do some people some good. If the money you’ve been promised actually makes its way to you, which it might (seeing that you’re too rich to need it), then use it to set up the sports scholarship fund I mentioned. Do it quietly and do it at once.

Or else stop pretending that just because you’re Indian, your gold medal is an Indian gold medal, and stop prophesising about ten gold medals next time round.

Thanks, and regards

                                                                          Bill the Butcher    

        

It’s odd the baggage we carry around, even when we know it’s baggage.

Today when I was walking to work (I usually do on Sundays) I felt a stone in my shoe and memories came flooding back.

Many years ago, when I was about six or seven years old, I read one of the hundreds of stories churned out by the late queen of children’s literature, Enid Blyton. This particular story concerned a boy who went out one day and felt a stone in his shoe. On bending down to unlace his shoe and remove the stone, he saw a necklace in his path. Knowing whose necklace it was, he took it to her and was rewarded with a coin (or something). As he emerged from the gate of the woman’s home he felt the stone in his shoe again and bent to take it out. And when he did this he saw a book in his path. Seeing the owner’s name written on the first page, he took it to him and got a plate of hot cakes or something (I read this thirty years ago!) as reward. When he left his home, he felt again the stone in his shoe and, bending down, saw someone’s wallet…

So this little do-gooder spent his morning wandering the village (Blyton’s stories were usually set in villages) finding something or other each time he bent to take the stone out of his shoe, and consequently returned home well fed and with a full pocket. At his garden gate he felt the stone again, and finally took off the shoe to find a blue, star-shaped stone. He flipped it over the garden hedge and went in to his mum. Mum asked what he’d done all morning, and he went into ecstasies over his extraordinarily good luck, and how he’d found something each time he’d tried to take out the stone. Mom asked to see the stone. He described it and said he’d chucked it over the garden hedge. “Oh,” she said then, “that stone was your good luck…” The boy went running into the street but he never found that stone again.

For some reason, this story stuck in my mind like superglue. For years after, each time I’d get a stone in my shoe I’d take it out and examine it to see if it were blue and/or star-shaped . Even though it never was, I’d carefully preserve it. I never threw out stones I found in my shoes. To this day, I might be able to find some of them carefully gathered, back then.

Even now, I still examine stones I get in my shoe. Who knows, I might just find a blue star-shaped one…

(And today’s was just an ordinary piece of gravel. So I threw it away.)    

My god is a living god

And yours is a stone, so

My god is better than yours.

 

My god is formless and everywhere

Your god is in a body of base metal, so

My god is better than yours.

 

I venerate my god

While you nail yours to a tree, so

My god is better than yours.

 

My god has a heart and weeps

Your god is a jealous god, so

My god is better than yours.

 

My god redeems my sins

Your god condemns you to hellfire, so

My god is better than yours.

 

My god knows how to smile

Your god only demands eternal praise, so

My god is better than yours.

 

My god was born of this land

Your god is a foreign god, so

My god is better than yours.

 

My god made man in his image

Your god has no shape, so

My god is better than yours.

 

My god counts the fall of every sparrow

Your god sleeps with concubines, so

My god is better than yours.

 

My god will be my salvation

Your god condemns you to rebirth, so

My god is better than yours.

 

My god talks to me in my sleep

And comforts me when I weep, so

My god is better than yours.

 

My god created the world in seven days

Yours came after men created them, so

My god is better than yours.

 

I can chop off your head

And take your land for mine own, so

My god is better than yours.

   

        

Two men sit under a plastic sheet smoking something on tinfoil
Heroin? In broad daylight? On the street?
Yes.

Here, the bar now
With the hostess in the dark suit
Smiling from her exotic features
Not so exotic to me.

Clothing stores
With uniformed doormen
To keep out the poor and indigent
Who can't afford those prices anyway.

Delhi,
Stand still in the street
And you'll see the nation pass you by.

Slim girl in the capris and danging earrings
Fat man in safari suit
Bar hostess from my part of the world
Heat dust bustle
Two men smoking something under a plastic sheet

Rust glitter and corrosion
Embodiment of a nation.

Delhi.   

There is an old tradition among kids: you’re the teacher’s pet and you want to get even with someone, say a bigger classmate, for something or other. You can’t take him on directly. So what you do is wait till you see the teacher coming, and just before he sees you, you hit the character you want to get even with. And when, quite naturally, he retaliates, you fall on the ground, screaming and doing your best to show that you’re dying.

Sounds familiar?

I guess I’m not the only one to be amazed and more than a little shocked by the media condemnation and slanted reporting of the Georgia-Russia war. All right, I know the media are scum, but when the BBC joins CNN in declaring Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s dictator, as some kind of latter-day democratic messiah, it’s obvious someone is telling some mighty big whoppers.

Let’s get to the point: Georgia picked, provoked, and began this fight. Georgia attacked South Ossetia, bombed Russian peacekeepers and Russian citizens, and converted the capital of South Ossetia into a sea of ruins. Georgia tried to do all this while the Olympic opening ceremony was on, in the apparent belief that it could get away with it while the world’s attention was diverted. Georgia miscalculated very, very badly and has now come a humongous cropper.

But Georgia is a prospective NATO member, a slavishly pro-Bush vassal led by a man who was a lawyer in the US and is more American than Georgian, and the “enemy” in this case is Russia, which is the enemy because it is no longer the supine and spineless entity it was under Yeltsin.

So we know who the teacher is, and who the teacher’s pet is.

And do we need to talk about the kicking and screaming? Georgia claimed Russia was bombing its capital’s airfield and barracks (which I would personally love to see done) – all signs of Russian aggression – and yet welcomed the French foreign minister in that airport with no sign of bomb damage. Where were the bombs, then? What bombs could these be? From the Special Effects laboratories of Hollywood?

When NATO accuses Russia of using “disproportionate force”, I might wonder, you know, why they used such masses of men and machinery to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. I might even wonder why it’s not “disproportionate force” for the so-called State of “Israel” (incidentally a major backer of Georgia) when it shells and bombs and bulldozes entire Palestinian villages and towns because a crude rocket lands somewhere, quite harmlessly, or when a kid throws a stone at a Zionist occupier.

Now let me say what I think Russia should do, regardless of what Russian President Medvedev actually does: Russia should annex all the liberated enclaves of Georgia, reduce the rest of the place to a charred cinder, and not stop until Mikheil Saakashvili’s head is displayed on a spike outside the ruins of his presidential palace.   

Why?

Because Russia needs to make an example of Georgia. Georgia is hardly unique: it’s one of a string of US controlled puppet regimes that are being used in order to “box in” Russia and China, the only two world powers capable of stopping American military hegemony.

This then is why Georgia must be wiped off the face of the earth: first, to provide an example to the other vassals of what they can expect, and, secondly, to demonstrate to potential vassals like India the utter impotence of American military and diplomatic efforts against a nation that stands firm.

In 1939, the then USSR fought and won a decisive battle over invading Japanese troops at Khalkhin Gol in Manchuria. So decisive was this victory and so devastating to the Japanese that even when the USSR was at its weakest in 1941-2, the Japanese never even tried to launch a military strike against them. Accordingly, the Soviets could concentrate their forces against the Germans and defeat them first.

If the Russians now crush Georgia decisively, they could well be creating a new Khalkhin Ghol and eliminate a lot of future conflicts. Remember, they’re the injured party in this war, whatever the US media may say (the same media that talked of WMDs and so on…)                

        

What do you do when a specimen ("patient", for the uninitiated) accuses you of trying to drive her insane?

This creature turned up the day before yesterday. She was fairly young (24) and well-dressed. Also, and this is significant, she is an ethnic Khasi (while I'm Bengali).

She needed a filling in an upper wisdom tooth. I told her she needed a filling in an upper wisdom tooth. She said filling or otherwise treating an upper tooth, "everyone" had told her, makes people go insane or blind or both because it damages the brain. Great.

Beyond the standard explanations, I didn't attempt to persuade her, knowing it was useless. She left saying she'd return "another day". Well, I don't think, I told my assistant.

Sure enough, an hour later I got a phone call from a dentist I know. This man, an ethnic Khasi as well, said that the female I've been telling you about had just visited him - and accused me of trying to make her blind or mad because she is, you guessed it, a Khasi and I'm Bengali.

If that's what she thought, I don't think she needs my help to damage her brain - if she has one.

Sometimes I try not to be cynical. Sometimes I try to think that what seems coincidence, is coincidence, that what seems innocent, is innocent, but sometimes it gets hard. I tell you, it gets hard.

Now, of course, we’re all aware, aren’t we (and the media are more than willing to remind us if we aren’t) that the Beijing Olympics are on. And we’re also aware that some countries are better at sports than others, and that some countries that don’t do too well don’t do too well for reasons, let’s say, that have nothing much to do with sports at all.

And among those nations that never do anything worth writing about on the international stage is India, which has a billion plus population but nary a medal to show for it (well, we did win one gold medal this time, in shooting, a sport that’s within the reach of only the military and the super-rich and so shouldn’t be called a representative sport at all). Elsewhere I’ve discussed some of the reasons why, but if we really want to have a perfect example why we won’t win a real medal this time either, we just have to consider the case of Monika Devi.

Monika Devi is a female weightlifter in the 69 kg class, a Commonwealth Games silver medallist, and hails from a village in the state of Manipur in North Eastern India. Manipur is famous, if that’s the word, for many things, such as the (reputedly) 32 insurgent groups active across the state, and the horrendous human rights abuses the people suffer both at the hands of the insurgents and the Indian “occupation forces”. But at the same time Manipur is, along with Punjab, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, one of the very few Indian states that have a strong sports culture and where women play as hard as men and more often than not do better.

But Manipur is in North East India, and for the “mainstream” Indian the North East literally doesn’t exist. One should remember that.

Anyway, here’s the point: the Indian Weightlifting Federation is probably the world’s most corrupt and drug-ridden, and its lifters have so often been banned in the past that this time there were literally no candidates to be sent to Beijing except in the women’s 69 kilogram category, where there were two, vying for the one slot: Monika, and P Shailaja from Andhra Pradesh. Shailaja had a great deal of covert political backing (in India sports administration is all about politics) but it was Monika who did better at the trials and who was therefore all set to be sent to Beijing. Clear so far?

So, Monika was in Delhi and all set to fly out to Beijing on the two days before the opening ceremony (no such fancy concept as acclimatisation here, I guess) on an early morning flight. She was supposed to pick up her air ticket and accreditation papers the evening before from the office of the Sports Authority of India (SAI). Still with me?

Fine. So, literally a couple of hours before she was supposed to pick up the ticket, the SAI, in the person of its boss, RK Naidu (an ethnic Telugu like P Shailaja) abruptly declared Monika Devi had failed a dope test and as such would be unable to go to Beijing. Apparently it was a pretty well known steroid, too, something no self-respecting doper would be caught dead using. Ah – while I’m on the subject, the SAI’s laboratories are neither up to international standards nor are their activities under public scrutiny.

So this is what happened: Monika Devi, who demanded that she be allowed to fly to Beijing and have another test there conducted by reputable institutions, was not just blocked from going, her name was immediately and with suspicious haste withdrawn officially from the Olympic team. There was no question of testing “B” samples or anything, no attempt to give her a hearing, nothing. Monika finally “stormed” into the SAI office in Delhi and demanded that she be given a copy of the drug test report. She was denied that, too.         

Meanwhile, in Manipur – and Manipuris carry a perpetual chip on their collective shoulder, you can take that from me – the people rose up in protest, which soon showed signs of turning violent. The state’s chief minister finally flew to Delhi to intercede personally with the Indian “prime minister” (the unelected Bush-worshipper Manmohan Singh) about Monika Devi. Wheels began turning and there were indications that an inquiry was about to be ordered.

And then what happened? Suddenly, in a matter of minutes, the same SAI that had said Monika Devi was guilty of doping reversed itself and said she was completely innocent. It exonerated her completely.

Meanwhile, of course, the woman’s name has long since been withdrawn from the Indian contingent in Beijing and she has no right to compete even though she’s officially guilty of nothing at all.

Since Manipur is part of the invisible North East and since people in Delhi and Bombay don’t give a tenth of a damn what happens in these parts, there has been no public outcry, nothing at all even in the “mainstream” newspapers. After all, who cares?

As I said, I don’t want to be cynical, but you might have a hard time convincing me that Monika Devi’s Beijing chances weren’t sabotaged deliberately by the clique that backed her rival P Shailaja (who incidentally has tested positive no fewer than five times in her career, or so Monika Devi says). Perhaps they couldn’t send Shailaja, but they could sure as hell ensure that Monika Devi didn’t stand any chances of winning anything.

With officials like this, who needs enemies?

NB I wrote this two days ago but because of internet problems couldn’t post it. The latest is that Manipur will henceforth not be sending sportspeople to any national level championship and will try to send independent teams to international championships, unless Manmohan Singh apologises within seven days and agrees to a proper enquiry. And good thing too.   

Meanwhile, one Abhinav Bindra has won a gold medal in air rifle shooting. Shooting isn't exactly an everyman activity in India. And as for Bindra: scion of a super-rich business family, he had access to the best equipment and could have bought his way into the team if he'd been left out, so his victory isn't exactly everyman's victory. Manipur has decided to ignore and boycott him. And that's another good thing, too.

 

Today, US vassal Georgia attacked Russian troops and citizens in South Ossetia.

I did predict this a while ago. Now they're going to whine about how the Russians are "targeting them."

Is it merely a coincidence that Condolences Rice says the US can't stop "Israel" from attacking Iran? Right, those "Israeli" planes are going to fly right round Gibraltar and round the Cape of Good Hope to come round and bomb Iran without overflying American-controlled airspace. Yes.

And is it only a coincidence that all this is happening when the Beijing Olympics just began? I - um - don't think so.

If Russia can be successfully distracted by Georgia, with China already neutralised temporarily by the Olympics, I assume there will be an "Israeli" attack on Iran within the next few days.

And since the price of oil has dropped to $116, they might be idiot enough to think the price won't  rise astronomically high even if the Straits of Hormuz are blocked. Anything's possible from people who get messages directly from God. 

Meanwhile, if Russia wipes Georgia off the map (and the best of luck to them if they do, the world can do with a vassal the less) - well, you can't make omelettes without breaking eggs, can you?

Manmohan Singh Traitor should take note.

From here on (Chapter 7) all chapters will be for contacts only. About future posts, I shall be asking some questions later to which I'd like some clear answers. But enough for tonight. I'm tired and ill (I have an infected leg) and I want to post and go to bed.

Happy reading, people.         

Some of you may have noticed that I'm no longer visiting your pages as often as I used to.

This is not because I've gone off you or something like that, and it is not because I'm not Multiplying, because I am.

As some of you may also have noticed, I'm at work on a novel, with the working title (it's not the final title, and for that I may invite suggestions) Guardian At The Gate. I am trying to maintain my current rate of writing a chapter a day, and I hope I can finish it within the month. In order to concentrate only on it I've more or less put all other writing on hold for the duration. And because writing a chapter every evening doesn't leave me much time for other pursuits, I've had to compensate by not visiting peoples' pages.

There it is. All I can say is, thank you for reading what I write, and I shall be back on your pages soon enough.

Just as soon as I've got this done.