Rahul Gandhi's meditational recess

Raju Korti

Politics is a 24X7 calling that thrives on personal high and perpetual adrenaline. Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, does not need those qualifications. He has hordes of antiquated Congressmen who will fall over themselves to do his bidding.
The young man who has been a butt of derisive sneers all through his gaffe-ridden tenure, afforded himself an expansive 56-day sabbatical in Yangon, Myanmar when one seriously wonders what could be the propriety of such a break when his party was providing him that perk with its trade-mark sycophancy.
The very idea of Rahul Gandhi seeking a sabbatical is redundant. The son, grandson and great grandson of Indian Prime Ministers had already lost sheen before embarking upon a leave of absence prior to the budget session of the Parliament. The party had handed his detractors in the ruling dispensation enough ammo to hit back and say "Go and find Rahul first" each time it sought to criticize them. After all the brouhaha, it now transpires that the young man whose public appearances are largely limited to clumsily drafted orchestrated speeches, chose the south-east Asian country to find solace in "meditation".
While the Media continues to beat chest on not being able to locate his whereabouts all through the two months, I have been creaking my brains as to why did he have to leave the shores of the country to perform a chore as simple as meditation unless he was living it up there; far from prying eyes and trying to get over the electoral loss of face.
As someone who has practiced infrequent meditation to fight the unending blues of life, I can vouch that there is distraction when there are nagging thoughts and meditation happens only when there are no thoughts and a sense of detachment. Rahul has far too much baggage to have gotten into meditation and if he has still managed to take his mind off the debilitating times that he and his party have gone through, it should really serve him right. The first recipe for contentment is to avoid too lengthy meditation on the past. 56 days is not exactly a short span of time. It is long enough to gloss over all the failures of your life. Quite rightly, baiters in the party have a point when they say he should be more hands-on and lead from the front. And if a section of the party is to be believed, the party is still struggling to make a choice between Rahul and Priyanka. Whatever their leadership caliber, one still cannot see what difference it will make to bring the party out of the quagmire it is stuck in.
Just how much inner enlightenment Rahul has found in his two-month sojourn will become evident when he dons the mantle afresh ahead of the second phase of the budget session. The party should also clarify whether the sabbatical was an exercise in introspection or meditation. In either case, it is in tune with the party's culture of only the Gandhis calling the shots. If Rahul was sulking that some party men were baying for his ouster and chose foreign climes to shrug them off, the meditation and introspection theories go for a toss. Rahul himself hasn't come clean on his sabbatical and to be fair to him, he should be given his right of privacy. That, however, becomes difficult given the circumstances that surround his unexplained break.
Contemplation is the only luxury that costs nothing. Hope Rahul has had that enlightenment in his luxurious sabbatical.
        

Crowing about an uncommon bird

A file grab from wikipedia

Raju Korti
When you have precious little to do with a mind desperately seeking to go into an overdrive, your eyes look for something that you have been seeing ever since you can remember but never actually registered. It is better to have a fair intellect that is well used than a powerful one that is idle.
So in tune with my latest talent for discovering engaging pastimes that don't cost a dime, I have found one that consumes most part of my day wherever I may be. The object of my riveting attention these days are the much reviled, despised crows, especially the ones that flit around and perch themselves on the huge tree that faces my bedroom. It is extremely rare that you get to look at a crow straight in the face, eye-to-eye. But having encountered its X-ray gaze on a numerous occasions, I have come to the unassailable conclusion that much of the revulsion people have for this condemned species of birds is misplaced and unfair. It is actually a sharp, intelligent and quick-on-the-uptake bird that has a canny knack for survival compared to the songbird variety that corners all the admiration.
I am pretty sure that those who look down on crows as intellectually-challenged birds have had a lost childhood and since my adulthood makes for no concession of my kid years, I will recommend crows like I am their hired attorney.
My respect for crows grew when as a growing kid I first read the meandering stories of Pandit Vishnu Sharma's celebrated work Panchatantra where he dedicates one full technique of existentialism and life to the philosophy and intelligence of the crows. In my prime stage of youth, I read writers who often compared the hair colour of beautiful women with that of a Raven.
Wittingly, I became more conscious of the ubiquitous presence of this bird with a petite 7-inch frame and it became a hobby of sorts to try and look at it straight in the eye. It was both knowledge and revelation that it had many feathers in its smooth pate visible only to the discerning like me.
Mark Twain took my esteem for crows to the next higher level although his famed eulogy has frills of derision to it. I will reproduce his words to allow you to draw your own conclusions:

"In the course of his evolutionary promotions, his sublime march toward ultimate perfection, he has been a gambler, a low comedian, a dissolute priest, a fussy woman, a blackguard, a scoffer, a liar, a thief, a spy, an informer, a trading politician, a swindler, a professional hypocrite, a patriot for cash, a reformer, a lecturer, a lawyer, a conspirator, a rebel, a loyalist, a democrat,, a practitioner and propagator of irreverence, a meddler, an intruder, a busybody, an infidel, and a wallower in sin for the mere love of it. He does not know what care is, he does not know what sorrow is, he does not know what remorse is, his life is one long thundering ecstasy of happiness, and will go to his death untroubled, knowing that he will soon turn up again as an author or something, and be even more intolerable capable and comfortable than he was ever before."

Quite a hefty package that! Twain has actually used "he" in place of "it", which to my understanding is an indirect admission of the crow's ability to stand heads and shoulders above the man with the love-hate traits that he so profoundly describes. And mind you, the icing on the cake comes when you realize that it is the Indian crow, not the American crow that Twain is at pains to labour over. You can decide finally which is the variety that eats the crow. In my kindergarten days I learnt it through a simple but lasting legend of a thirsty crow who stumbles upon a pot of water at its bottom. Unable to draw water, "he" puts pebbles to make the water level rise and then quench his thirst. There cannot be a better example of wit and brevity than this justified fable:

Ek kawwa pyaasa tha, ghade mein thoda paani tha
Kawwa laaya kankar, paani aaya oopar
Kawwe ne piya paani, khatam ho gayi kahaani.

For those who are vocal in their discrimination of the two poor cousins koyal and the crow -- there is little to discriminate on the colour of their skin -- the latter has a range of cawing vocalization. After hours of careful observation I have found out that "he" flies with a minimal movement of the wings and caws hoarsely with the throat puffed, head bowed and tail dipping. Ornithologists may not have been able to decipher "his"calls and postures, but I am sure "he" has an equally derisive thing to say to the man: Kawwa ban ne ki koshish mat karo (Don't try to be smart like me).
Just one word. If your head is reeling after reading this great piece of literature, please pop a Crowcin. 

From Cricket to Ashes: Richie Benaud, OBE

Small screen, large persona: Richie Benaud

Raju Korti
If there is one regret that I will consciously carry to my grave it is of not being able to meet the legendary Richie Benaud. My heart-burn gets only accentuated when I realize that I had the privilege to meet and hold a cart-wheeling conversation with the most articulate of commentators from the BBC Test Match Special and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). John Arlott, Brian Johnston, Christopher Martin Jenkins, Don Mosley, Henry Blofeld, Alan Mcgilvray, Freddie Truman, Trevor Bailey and Richie Benaud were the kind broadcasters who could keep listeners spellbound on the radio with a free-flowing narrative that would conjure up vivid pictures of the actual Test match in progress. That kind of thrall and photographic description doesn't obtain today even with a large screen and given the garrulous breed of commentators today who spout a lot without conveying much.
Now that Richie has died at 84 peacefully in sleep, the world of cricket commentary has lost its sardonic wit and eloquence. I have only faint memories of the man since he hung up boots in 1964 when I was barely eight years old with an elementary understanding that there was a ball that meant to be hit with a willow. That was a different era with players of a different caliber and mindset. It was cricket in those days!
Truman, Bailey and Benaud were experts who could analyze the game with a clinical precision a seasoned physician would have envied. Truman was blunt and brutal who often sautéed his comments with a giggle to match. Bailey was so crisp, it would be a lesson in editing. With him, all words were carefully measured and weighed before they got the Bailey Status. Richie's words carried the seasoning of a dry, laconic humor without being prosaic. But of course, his legacy extends far beyond the microphone. He was also an exceptional all-round cricketer and one of Australia's finest captains. Splitting his time between Australia and England, he became the face of cricket in both countries for more than four decades, his trademark cream jacket becoming as synonymous with the sport as leather and willow. When asked to sum up his commentary style, he said his mantra was: "If you can add to what's on the screen then do it, otherwise shut up." There is a lesson for all those commentators, especially in India for whom commentating is mostly describing the field position and reading out the score-card.
Arlott, Johnston and Jenkins who were in a class of their own, often said they always looked up to Richie because he was peerless with the mike. In that sense, Richie had the satire of Arlott, the wit of Johnston and the free-flowing recountal of a Mcgilvray and yet, he was a class apart. He had this unique ability to introduce a high emotion quotient without being too temperamental about it. It was only a Richie who could comment with a non-chalant, blank face, "So Glenn Mcgrath is out on two, 98 short of his hundred when a Truman would have said the same thing with a worst giggle.
Quiet and authoritative, Richie's pun with words and knack of coining a memorable phrase made him a popular subject for affectionate mimicry among cricket fans in England and Down Under. His signature greeting of "Morning Everyone" became a household refrain, while his delicious delivery of the word "marvelous" seemed to make everything seem well with the world. Only he could pronounce "s" like "sh" and sound it so stylish. Talk of gift of the gab! He had patented the art of turning one-liners into cricketing folklores. It came through so breviloquently when after dashing his car into a brick wall in 2013 he said with his trademark wit, "I am more worried about the car than my own health."
I do not believe that Richie had anything left to prove, but it rankles to know that a man who left an indelible impression on the game should have departed in such an unsung manner. Tributes and accolades will keep pouring over the next few days, though for the man who was perhaps the most influential cricketer and cricket personality since the Second World War.
I will say this for him: His was the voice of conscience in a sport tainted by politics and driven by self-interest. Richie Benaud was so Australian and yet, arguably the most justifiable mascot of Cricket. There will never be another Benaud.
 

An extravagance called mobile phone

Raju Korti

As someone who is always high on grandiose ideas but always cash-strapped to execute them, let me assure you in my limited wisdom that there cannot be a cheaper indulgence than to observe people. It is the most under-rated pleasures of life muzzled and overtaken by worldly pleasures that money buys you.
Observing people, their demeanor, disposition, body language, mannerisms and speech can be as exciting and entertaining as it can get. It is not as if you eavesdrop on them or enjoy being privy to something that should actually remain in the domain of their personal privacy but when pastime comes to you merely on your natural instincts to keep your eyes and ears open, why shoo it away?
One such frolic comes from a breed that cannot live without its cell phones. In a country where cell phones have become a sort of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), you will find people engaged with their contraptions in trains, buses, assorted public places, offices, homes and even toilets. Over the years, this breed has given me some of my finest moments of fun and pain. It is as if cell phones are their life line. I have detected a sense a deprivation in people whenever they misplace, lose or leave their cell phone behind (at home). This feeling of being dispossessed stands out particularly  when you realize that some 15 years ago the cell phone was more of a status symbol with only the well-heeled being able to shell out Rs 20 per minute per call. I come from a generation when even a landline was a luxury. It was with a sense of trepidation and awkwardness that we had to knock at the doors of someone who had a phone and allow us to make a call. Some were gracious enough and some acceded, reminding us with a stern face that we must leave Re 1 for the call made. Those were the days when communication was better despite less interaction. Today, it is no big deal to see two persons talking to each other in a local train in the same compartment, jostling against a milling crowd.
I once saw a man in a Gents First Class compartment of a local train speaking fast and furious to someone for more than an hour -- from Borivali to Churchgate -- reeling out a complex maze of calculations. Each time he spoke, he would hold his mobile phone close to his mouth and the minute he was done with, he would put it to his ears. He was an atrocity even by Mumbai's standards. When he finally got down at the last station, a visibly enraged co-passenger said to me: "Some people turn the compartment into an office. No discipline at all." I just nodded dumbly, having withstood the ordeal of that utterly uninspiring conversation of which I couldn't make head or tail. But not all such conversations can be dim-witted.
On one occasion I saw a man in his mid-thirties who just giggled and guffawed on his cell all the way for the same length between Borivali and Churchgate. Obviously the man at the other end must have been blessed with a terrific sense of humor. He was still giggling when he disappeared from my sight after getting down the train. As a journalist, I realized one could communicate without a single word.
Apparently I have the natural skills to court such people. One late night while travelling between Colaba and Dadar in a bus, I had a 50+ man sitting next to me and explaining -- of all the people -- his sister-in-law how he had downed five pegs and was still in his senses. I could make out that because he kept addressing the person at the other end as "Bhabhi". From the way the conversation went I could realize his sister-in-law was both outraged and worried with his drinking adventure. But the man airily allayed her fears saying that he was a gentleman in comparison at a time when people drank through the whole night and finally passed out on some footpath or a gutter. As I glanced around, I could see everyone in the bus was partaking the vicarious pleasure of that fabulous piece of conversation.
Most people are oblivious two persons can't see each other while conversing but they are all a flurry of gesticulations and show of temper. In one case, a man seemed to be having a normal  conversation on his phone when he suddenly blew his top. The person at the end had probably blown his fuse. Getting up from his seat violently, he burst into a series of  obscenities, raising his fist. For a minute he looked he was going to beat the living daylights out of someone. His rage was punctured by an elderly man who just patted him gently and asked him to calm down.
By far the best sight I was treated to was in a public loo. The man spoke animatedly, balancing his cell phone in his left hand and you-know-what in the other. After he had relieved himself, he walked out -- still talking -- zipping up his pants in full public glare. And then the number of times you see jaywalkers crossing busy through fares, talking with phone in one hand and warding off honking vehicles with the wave of the other. The streets belong to them, so run over them at your own risk! 
The first thing many people do when they settle down -- wherever they are -- is to whip out their cell phone and start fiddling with it, sometimes as early as five in the morning. While it could be a fair allowance for someone to check out for messages, quite a few get hooked on to games with weird sounds. These are the ones who are in a state of nirvana, for, they are blissfully unaware of what's going on around them engrossed as they are in playing games. You keep looking askance at them only to realize they are not even aware of your presence. There are only a very few who talk in voice not to disturb others and keep their conversation to the necessary minimum while there are also exhibitionists who will talk loudly enough to bare their entire horoscope. It is actually more by design than default.
I have two cell phones, the combined bill for whom works out less than Rs 500 a month. My friends can't figure out in the world how I manage to keep myself in check when they work up a bill upwards of Rs 2000 with just one instrument.
India is the second-largest mobile phone user with over 900 million users in the world. It accounted for over 10% of the world’s online population, according to a statistics issued by the Ministry of Telecommunications. No surprise that where people cannot have a proper bowel movement unless they carry their cell phones to the toilet.
I remember what Ghulam Nabi Azad, then a Congress minister, had said in a speech: "Our major policy objective is to reposition the mobile phone from a mere communication device to an instrument of empowerment." That objective has certainly been achieved.

Putin's machismo and the spectre of a war

Sabre rattling or more?

Raju Korti
For a self-proclaimed "trouble-maker", Russian President Vladimir Putin has flirted with trouble long enough to have actually fallen in love with it. His remarkable stint with the KGB and subsequent years in Politics have honed his talent in the craft with a carefully cultivated image of masculinity that Putin revels in underplaying.
In tune with that machismo image, the Russian President -- as is his won't -- has now issued a threat to the Americans without mincing words. "Try taking away Crimea away from us and we shall treat you to a nuclear war," Putin said with a nonchalance which to me, sits pretty compatibly on his deadpan face.
The Crimean Peninsula is a chunk of land mass to the south of Ukraine, now in the eye of an international political storm that involves two key players Russia and the United States. It became an autonomous Republic of Crimea within an independent Ukraine early 1991. Sovereignty and control of the peninsula got mired in a territorial dispute between Russia and Ukraine with Russia signing a treaty of accession last year and absorbing it into the Russian Federation. That accession fell foul of Ukraine and most of the international community. In some ways, this development to many was reminiscent of Kashmir's accession with India.
Putin's "meddling" in the affairs of the neighboring countries hasn't gone down well with the NATO countries led by the Commissioner of World Police, the United States. His role in Cold War, oil deadlock and Syrian crisis, to name a few, certainly shook the American self-arrogated right to dabble in world affairs. That doesn't come as a surprise at all.
From tagging dangerous animals to stopping wildfires, to playing half-naked with guns on vacation, Putin may not be among the most popular guys in the world, but he sure makes the world sit up and take notice. Even the ultimate pennant of masculinity Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't draw the kind of interest he does. Little wonder then the Americans try to demonize him and blink each time Putin rides rough shod and cocks a snook at their perceived superiority. The Americans are watching with gaping eyes as Mr Intrigue has now directly threatened to nuke them in case they harbored any ideas of meddling in Ukraine.
The Americans have by now very well realized that the authoritarian leader who didn't stop at "eliminating" his adversaries back home and who brazenly withstood allegations of a rigged election, couldn't care less if his country was eventually suspended from G8 for annexing Crimea.
The Ukrainian crisis was, of course, compounded by a trigger from within. Putin just took a cue from the exiled Ukrainian President who sought Russian military intervention to quell the revolution that threatened to rip it apart. The Americans watched helplessly as Putin managed to get an authorization from the Parliament to deploy troops in the region and gain a complete toehold in the Crimean Peninsula. In a referendum, considered bogus by the West, an overwhelming 90% plus voters demanded that they secede from Ukraine. If the Russians were hurt by the economic sanctions imposed upon them, they didn't show it. The Russian move to grant political asylum to Edward Snowden (who leaked classified information from the NSA) rubbed more salt on the wounds.
Under Putin, Russia's ties with NATO and the US were even more tumultuous. From a cautious beginning, Putin first supported the US war on terror where many saw a new strategic partnership building. All such hopes were quickly razed to dust when the US extended NATO's presence to Russian borders and the two nations relapsed into their old ways of scratching each other's backs.
Putin has made it clear that the NATO encroachment in the region by supplying weapons against pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine will invite a nuclear backlash. A potentially dangerous situation.
I would like to make parallel case studies here. Former US ambassador to India Daniel Patrick Moynihan had once described Kashmir as the world's most dangerous place on the premise of not entirely unfounded fears that it could trigger of nuclear conflict any time. Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has worded it differently by saying that "For the West, the demonization of Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one." Kashmir and Ukraine are evenly poised in terms of world peace or the absence of it. In Kashmir there are players with unsound mind while in Ukraine there are players who know what entails. As insanity keeps unfolding, both sit on a bomb and pretend it will only keep ticking.