Cartoons Against Corruption

A lot has been said about Aseem Trivedi.

I have checked most of Aseem Trivedi's work on his blog. If one has some basic understanding of political cartoons or cartoon strips or comics in general; at first glance, one can understand that the his work is amateurish and merely stating what we all know. A good political cartoon evokes thought.  It shouldn't necessarily state things 'the way they are' - for that we have prose left to lesser mortals like us .

(Branching out to make another point, even R. K. Laxman's 'Common Man' is observational or 'merely stating what we all know'. However his cartoons have a sixty year legacy hence nobody ever talks about it openly, albeit it is done very tastefully)

Trivedi's cartoons seems like a work of an angry school kid who is venting out his anger/frustration against his repressive school system.  

Whatever little bit I have read about him in papers and journals, cartoonists, artists and writers unanimously have said - Aseem Trivedi is high on anger and low on talent. (unfortunately I do not have any link to support this but you would have to believe me)

Have you noticed that his cartoons are just expressing what we all speak in crude Hindi? 

In a newspaper, a cartoonist who didn't wish to be named said, Aseem Trivedi shouldn't have been jailed for sedition charges, he should have been jailed for bad art. 

Another confession. At least he did something which got the people talking and the world interested about the corruption in India. For that he needs to be saluted.

If I may offer an analogy to express Aseem's standing.

Aseem Trivedi : (Political) Cartoons :: :: Poonam Pandey : Twitter

We Don't Want Self Sacrifice, We Just Want You To Fuck Off

Japan was never alien to catastrophes, human or natural. The recent natural disaster has also spilled over to man-made disaster. Japan is now facing a nuclear crisis. 

The Tokyo Electrical Power Company (TEPCO) has deployed it's workers to its nuclear plant. What touched me was the report of the Japanese elderly. Here are some people who are in their last years and willing to offer help by sacrificing themselves by being exposed to lethal radiation. They are offering to go to the plant and do what is required. 

Their argument is that young people have a higher chance of cancer due to radiation. (Cancerous cells multiply very slowly in older human beings. It's approximately 50% slower) They are in their final years or maybe days. Besides it was during their youth that nuclear power was set up. So it is their responsibility to cover up their mess. Why should the current young generation pay for what they have done! WOW!

Read the short CNN report here. 

Now this got me thinking about "my country's elders". The elders who are leading our country. The elders who want to have everything till they die. Forget self-sacrifice, the elders who are willing to kill the youth if it is required. I wonder when will the elders move away and let new blood come in? 

God, Please Introduce Accountability to Indians!

As usual after waking up, I take the newspaper and browse through the front page. I hardly ever read the front page because it is filled with gross, nauseating and heart breaking negative news, which, if I read, will surely make my day worse!

But today a headline grabbed my attention.

Wrongfully arrested, diplomat's daughter sues NY for $1.5m

A certain Ms. Kritika Biswas, daughter of Debashish Biswas, vice counsel at the Indian consulate in New York, was arrested on false charges of sending obscene and threatening anti-Semitic hate mails to teachers of her school in December 2010.

For a change I read the whole story under the headline. You too can read it here. 

Now most of the people who would read this story would be enraged that how could the administration arrest an innocent 18 year old girl? How could ‘they’ mistreat one of ‘us’? I’m sure Indian media would take this story and play it for a while and will surely give a racial undertone to it. Everybody will make a hue and cry about mistreatment of Indians by the Americans, etc., etc.

After reading the whole story, I didn’t feel enraged or think there was racial discrimination. I felt good about Ms. Biswas! No I’m not a sadist!

Ms. Kritika Biswas is in a country where she can actually sue the administration of a city for being mistreated. And if she is innocent, then I’m sure she will receive compensation, not necessary the entire $ 1.5 million. This compensation is for mental and physical stress undergone due to the unfortunate incident.

Now, picture the same scene in our glorious motherland, India. You don’t even need to picture it in your mind; this is the story of thousands of people in this country. But it is not reported in the papers. There are no cases filed against the administration. Because we, the people know that nothing will happen. THERE IS NO ACCOUNTABILITY in our system.

Accountability: The Indian Style...

Ms. Biswas can appeal because she knows that she is in a land, where accountability is of the highest importance and where it is expected; it is something that we Indians can just dream of. A citizen there can sue the administration if he falls into an uncovered manhole and breaks his leg. But here, people have died and nothing has happened.

Aah! I want this for my city. But this wonderful city of Mumbai is nothing but a whore for the pimp-politicians who come every year, do some business through it and leave it bleeding for some other mother fucker to do business with it. And we Mumbaikars are its kids who helplessly watch this whore who provides for us. I think it is true for the entire country, not just Mumbai!

All of us are fed up potholes. The potholes are of all shapes and sizes, all depths, at all locations. They are so prominent that you can find them even on flyovers and highways. I even wrote a satirical post about it here. 

What I’m going to enlighten you will blow your minds off. Do you know that a UK citizen can claim for damages if his car has suffered mechanical failures due to potholes? Do you know that UK pays out more than £ 50 million as compensation claims due to poor roads? Don’t believe me, check it out here.  

It feels so great to read and know that these countries are accountable! As an Indian citizen, I do not want a lot from the government. I just want accountability. Simple! But the people of this country were enslaved for over 3 centuries and went scot-free on 15^th August 1947. For over 3 centuries there was somebody else who was accountable to us. We went to ‘them’ with our problems. We forgot what it means to be accountable. We still do what we did in those three enslaving centuries, we blame each other and want somebody else to come and clear the mess.

The majorities of people choose to stay mute and try to make a living and do not pay heed to things like potholes even though it is the cause of their botched up cars, injured backs, stress, high blood pressure and rage. This majority stays silent because it is busy trying to make a living.

Amongst the miniscule minority who pays heed and are aware, who tries to change and does something to change, are unfortunately defeated by the system. They end up feeling sorry for their standard of life and sorry for their country and insulate themselves.

And then there are the smart ones who do not want to compromise! These people in search of nothing but good standard of life move out of this country to some place where they do not have to worry about petty issues. The media calls it brain drain. I call it ‘Accountability’s Gain’.

I feel, I do not know what to do. If there is someone who knows how to bring accountability in our system let me know. Maybe we can start something which can be a spark a revolution which will lead to this country’s latent metamorphosis.

Like any other of the few ordinary educated, informed and well read citizens, it pains me because I know that the grass indeed is greener on the other side.

Political Parties - A Joke

Off late a dear friend, Mihir, is getting a bit perturbed about my constant rants on a political party called Shiv Sena (SS). Let me clarify that I don’t intent to hurt anyone’s sentiments.

So, this is for all of the readers. I don’t hate the SS in particular. I don’t hate any political party. It would be really tough for anyone to believe it, but I usually don’t hate people or anything. There’s only one person that I have managed to ‘hate’ and that is ‘myself’, for acting moronic regularly and screwing around other people’s happiness quite regularly, mistakenly off course!

It’s just that with my new found perspective, I find all the political parties jocular. It’s better to laugh about stuff than to be angry.

The SS has been hogging the media limelight in the past few weeks regularly and has taken the ‘top of mind’ position in the grey matter inside my cranial cavity. So it got obvious that most of my chatter was about this one party. I’ll ensure that if any of my upcoming posts features a political party, I gave due respect to all and babble on equally, not just any one party. (But somehow the SS has become the pet peeve of Mumbaikars, so maybe I gave them the extra coverage)

The Congress has proved itself as a gaffe prone party courtesy the Delhi CWG 2010 whereas I try to find gaffes for other parties and try to look at them in a jovial light.

Hope you like what you read, if not share my enthusiasm.

The Verdict

Finally the Babri Masjid - Ram Janm Bhoomi verdict will be out sometime in the first week of October.

It doesn't concern me at all as I usually keep myself insulated from political issues, but this one is an exception for me. Why? I just fear that whatever the judgment maybe, it should not affect the common man. To put in vivid words, I have a feeling that some political party with the usual vested agenda might instigate the common (illiterate & emotional) people.

I was just a boy, when the riots took place over the frivolous issue, but nonetheless, the images captured by the media lenses being played over the years at the "demolition anniversary" is very fresh in my mind which haunts me; not because it affected me anyway, but due to the loss of lives of innocent people. I just pray that it MUST NOT BE REPEATED!

A lot has changed since the "event". We have better security and the people today are informed. There are mohalla committees which are maintaining peace in underprivileged neighbourhoods and ghettos. The people are doing their job, fortunately. But I don't trust the system. I have no faith in the judiciary of India. I have no faith in the security of India.

I just pray that everything turns out smooth tomorrow. The common man CANNOT rely on the system. This is not the democracy we voted for!

This is not pessimism, just a view on the reality.