22 Feb 2019

THE HOT CHOCOLATE RENDEZVOUS


Glancing at my wristwatch, I knew she was late. We had agreed on 12.30. Being a journalist, I always knew the importance of being early to a meeting.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

There, my legs didn’t know the end of it. Whenever my patience ran out, my feet would start rhythmically beating the floor.

I picked up the menu and read it for the 9th time, knowing perfectly that Croutons salad, would come before the overly priced Corn one.

‘Would she act all pricey?’ ‘Who should pay the bill in our case?’ Thoughts ran swift through my mind, the wait was taking its toll.

The swipe right decision was now pricking me, as my breaths started coming out with angry humphs every now and then. I decided to take a glance on the door, to find a maiden in stilettos, eyeing the corners of the cafe.

Damn, Have you ever experienced, a brain freeze? That feeling when the ice cream hits your tongue and brain simultaneously. You don’t know what to think, how to react or what your next move should be. I stared at her blankly, while she located me from far and mouthed a whispering ‘Hi’.

Like a frolicking river, she swayed into her seat gently after giving a warm handshake. I had to keep my eyes focused on her beautiful smile, and keep a straight face, to hide the blood rushing to my cheeks.

“Sorry, I am late. Traffic woes”, she mumbled, while sipping on the water I had ordered an hour ago.

As she proceeded to ask the basics, and I answered her with my conscious mind, my subconscious mind, couldn’t help but notice, the sheen that her lip gloss was giving out. The floral dress, long hair in a bow hairband, and blushed cheeks, every inch of her was screaming that she was daddy’s lil princess.

She hid her laughter behind a napkin or the back of her hand whenever I made a silly comment. She wasn’t all talk though, she showed a genuine interest in knowing me too. She looked me in the eye and complimented my short cropped hair, a feature that my parents despised.

As we sifted through a mutual love for K-pop bands, Kumar Sanu, 90’s shows, Pav bhaji, and more, I noticed how strikingly different yet similar we were.

Did the cafe have these many coffee options, I thought, as I was ready to order my 4th drink that morning. Suddenly, Leah, snatched the menu, from my hand, and exclaimed. “ Do you know that the peeps over here make the best Hot chocolate, you should defoooooo try one RHRN”.

I wasn’t sure I should. You see, I was never fond of chocolates, since my young age. I preferred darker, bitter things, maybe the childhood experiences had mold me into liking the dark stuff and despising the sweet.


I stirred the froth and cream, and placed the spoon away, before taking a small sip and letting the molten liquid trickle down my neck.  

But here I was, with a date, I couldn’t afford to or want to disappoint. To my amazement, she placed the order faster than I thought and beamed a 100 watt at me. We resumed talking about life, love and other things couples usually talk about on a date.

The steaming cups of Hot chocolate arrived, and before I could help the lady out, she in true gentlemanly style served me first. As I drew the cup closer, she stared at me with an anticipating smile.

“What”? I exclaimed, with a surprised laugh.

“ Nothing, I want to see the expression on your face, you are having it for the first time right?”, she replied.

I stirred the froth and cream, and placed the spoon away, before taking a small sip and letting the molten liquid trickle down my neck.

Again, a brain freeze. But this time, a warm one.

A comforting, soothing, relaxing one.

I closed my eyes, and let the warmth travel across the million tiny neurons, across my head and face.

In that orgasmic moment, I still kept the assertiveness mode on, and nodded, “It’s Good”.

“There! Told ya” and she broke into a clap and cackle.

Two hours after that Hot chocolate, the conversation was still a swiftly moving and an interesting one. We didn’t linger a lot on any topic, and a brief mention of our families came up every now and then.

“So they accepted you, as you are”? she asked intrigued.

Though my heart wanted to open up to her and tell her the countless stories so that she could warm me up, just like the hot chocolate did, I still managed to smile and say one word.

“Yes”.

“ Lucky you!”, she blurted. “I’ve been to hell and back”

“ Well, I can understand” I claimed.

“ So, are you a movie person, Amarah?” she asked.

Wow, I didn’t know my name could ever sound so beautiful. Because of my canvas shoes, the lack of feminine skincare, the ripped jeans and cotton shirts, people generally call me Amar, Ames, and whatnot.

“ Yeah, Marvel or DC”?, I asked.

“ Marvel, any day!”, she smiled.

‘Yeah, princess, I know you. You go by what you read on Quora, and don’t make your own decisions.’ I thought in silence.

“Let’s get out of here, Infinity war is still on ”, she exclaimed, and sprung out of her chair, as swiftly as she had seated herself before. She took my hand in hers and tugged at me. Collecting my headphones and motioning the server, to come get the bill, I rose up.

I couldn’t help but think of the countless people who would eyeball us, on the way, and how we would be judged, despised even, outside the premises of that cozy cafe. I wasn’t ready for the judgments, the prejudice, the laughs, catcalls and more. But I knew one thing, with Leah by my side, I was a little more confident than I was before I walked into the cafe that morning”.

2 Feb 2019

Seven reasons why BJP’s breast-beating about the grand alliance of Opposition parties doesn’t make sense unless you are a ‘bhakt’, bot, troll, or media lapdog

C: Churumuri

Dainik Jagran front page on the day after SP and BSP announced a pre-poll alliance in Uttar Pradesh, accompanied by another “searing attack” by Narendra Modi

***


The “United India” rally in Calcutta, where 20 political parties stood on one stage on January 19, has understandably sent BJP and its bhakts, bots, trolls, media lapdogs, and trojan horses into an almighty tizzy. Coming as it did exactly a week after the SP and BSP announced an alliance in Uttar Pradesh, 2019 doesn’t look quite as settled or promising as 2014 did.

With various back-of-the-envelope calculations showing that the BJP, which got 71 seats out of 80 in UP in 2014, could end up with anywhere between 20 and 37 seats as a result of the SP-BSP alliance—and overall ending up with around 100 fewer than the 283 it had got—there is a desperate attempt to demolish the alliance and what it portends.

So, in much the same manner as they attack Rahul Gandhi while terming him irrelevant, prime minister Narendra Modiand his ministers are attacking the grand alliance with an identical set of talking points while claiming it is a write-off.

Really?

Here are seven key claims Modi & Co are making to demolish the so-called ‘Mahagatbandhan‘—and the counter to them.

***1

Cartoon by Keshav in The Hindu

“Who is the leader of the ‘mahagatbandhan’?”

India is (still) a parliamentary form of democracy. You, the voter, do not elect a prime minister in a general election—you elect your representative (MP). A party or a combination of parties which has 273 or more MPs elects its leader after the election, whom the President of India then appoints as PM. This is as it should be.

You are, of course, free to elect your representative on the basis of her party or her leader, or other parameters, but it is immaterial in the overall parliamentary scheme of things. At least on paper. At least so far.

BJP, under Narendra Modi, has sought to turn elections into a US-style, head-to-head, presidential form of contest, urging voters to elect a “strong and decisive leader”. In fact, in some state elections, Modi has campaigned as if he is the chief ministerial candidate. In the absence of a second line of leadership, this ploy suits the BJP currently, but what if a pre-designated “leader” loses in an election? And will BJP go in for a presidential form of leadership after Modi?

***

The Telegraph report on how the grand alliance is occupying Narendra Modi‘s mind

“This is an unholy alliance. It’s a strange ‘mewa'”

In geopolitics, an “unholy alliance” is defined as a grouping of unnatural, unusual, even undesirable and seemingly antagonistic parties. By the yardstick, the sight of 24 pairs of hands going up in Calcutta may fit the BJP bill. But is this any more unholy than 1977 when the Jan Sangh, an earlier avatar of the BJP, joined hands with the Socialists and Marxists after Emergency in the Janata Party government of Morarji Desai?

Or in 1989, when the BJP joined the Left parties in supporting the V.P. Singh-led National Front government from the outside?

When the BJP joined hands with PDP after a fractured mandate in Jammu & Kashmir in 2015, former chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed described as the “coming together of North Pole and South Pole”. If a BJP-PDP alliance is OK, surely the alliance of parties ideologically opposed to each other should also be OK, mahagatbandhan or not?

In Karnataka, the “Hindu, nationalist” BJP tied up with Janata Dal (Secular) in 2004. Can there be anything more unholy than that?

More importantly, these are the seeds. Who is to know what the future holds? Who, for example, could have predicted with certainty a year ago that the Congress and TDP would be together in Andhra Pradesh, or the Congress and JDS in Karnataka?

***

“‘Mahagatbandhan’ has no agenda but to dislodge Modi”

Removing a leader or a party from office is a legitimate objective in power politics. In 1977, in the aftermath of the Emergency, the Opposition parties—which included the BJP’s predecessor Jan Sangh—sank their ideological differences and came together with the sole objective of removing Indira Gandhi.

So, why not now? Just because the BJP is in power?

Also, there is no pre-requirement that any alliance should reveal their agenda or announce their programme and policies prior to an election, or 75 days before it.

When the Congress-led UPA formed the government in 2004, the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) was drawn up by Jairam Ramesh of the Congress and Sitaram Yechury of the CPMafter the Left parties had lent support to the alliance. 

Similarly, in Jammu & Kashmir in 2015, Ram Madhav of the BJP and Haseeb Drabu of the PDP sat down to draft the CMP after the election results threw up a fractured mandate, necessitating an alliance between the two ideologically opposed parties.  

***

Economic Times screenshot of BJP adspend before the 2018 assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram

“Mahagathbandhan is an alliance of corruption…. They have ‘dhanshakti’ (money power)”

BJP was four times richer than Congress in 2016-17. BJP had a total income of Rs 1,027 crore in 2017-18; Rs 487 crore coming in from anonymous sources. The Congress, in contrast, saw a 62% decline in its income which stood at Rs 225.36 crore. BSP’s income was Rs 51.7 crore, NCP Rs 8.15 crore.

BJP was the biggest beneficiary of the dubious electoral bonds scheme, bagging 94.5% of all bonds sold in the maiden tranche. In other words, the 35 other parties which won seats in the last Lok Sabha together received 5.5% of all electoral bonds sold.

Trinamool Congress, which hosted the ‘United India’ rally, has not declared any income from electoral bonds.

In the recent assembly elections to Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, BJP was a bigger advertiser than FMCG brands. 

And in the Karnataka elections in May 2018, BJP spent three times the amount Congress did: Rs 122 crore versus Rs 34 crore.

***

Rajasthan Patrika screenshot of the United India rally in Calcutta, comprising 20 political parties with a combined vote share of 55.99 per cent.

“We have made an alliance with 125 crore people of India. We have janshakti (people’s power)”

Although it won 283 seats on its own in 2014 becoming the first party to win a majority on its own after 30 years, BJP secured a mere 31 per cent of the votes. When a Hindu nationalist party can bag less than one-third of Hindu votes in a 80% Hindu nation it tells its own story, of the party and the religion.

This voteshare for the BJP for the single-largest party was way lower than the lowest—40.8%—Congress had got 47 years earlier. So, BJP did not have an alliance with 125 crore people, which anyway is a misnomer because the size of the electorate in India is roughly half that: 67 crore.

It had it with about 20.77 crore people.

On the other hand, 14 of the 20 Opposition parties who were on stage in Calcutta had a combined voteshare in 2014 of 55.99 %, a full 25% more than what the BJP secured (see above).

***

“Mahagatbandhan has internal contradictions”

Of course, it does and thank God for that. The “United India” rally in Calcutta unabashedly showcased the inherent and blazingly obvious contradictions among the representative parties. Congress and AAP were on stage together when they won’t ally in Delhi. SP and BSP were seen with Congress, whom they couldn’t include in the UP alliance.

But far from being being a problem, these are welcome contradictions. India is a sum of its parts and, after 56 months of unipolar, road-roller, majoritarian politics, is in dire need of forces opposed to each other coming together, standing together, and engaging each other—even if they oppose each other. Unity in diversity is a lousy cliche but it is a step up from manufactured consent—and crushed dissent.

Don’t forget that in 2004, SP and BSP extended support to Congress from outside to form the government.

***

Mirae Asset mutual fund document which shows Sensex returns between one election and the next since 1980

“There will be anarchy if it is not Modi”

Asked about the difficulties that would befall France after him, King Louis XVI is supposed to have said ‘Apres moi le deluge’ (after me, the deluge). BJP claims that there will be problems if it is not Modi fall squarely in that category. This is usually seen from the standpoint of the economy and the stock markets.

Those who make that claim ignore the fact that P. Chidambaram’s so-called “dream budget” came during the H.D. Deve Gowda-led government in 1997, a 13-party coalition which comprised Janata Dal, SP, DMK, TDP, AGP, TMC, Congress (Tiwari), NC, MGP, and four Left parties.

More importantly, Sensex returns from one election to the next under the three BJP governments have been a miserable -1%, -4% and 13% respectively (see above).

Then again, what is the coming anarchy when you can be beaten to pulp for keeping meat your neighbour doesn’t like in the fridge; for loving or marrying as you please; for going to pray as allowed by the Supreme Court….

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