if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.

if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.

if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.

if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.

if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.

if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.

if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.

unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

Why are they striking? What are their demands? – These are basic questions that a curious mind would have, unless red ink is missing. I spoke to a good number of my friends in India, and then to a good number of people who shared ‘death to bandh’ and ‘youth against hartal’ posts on Facebook. No one knew. Not even the twitter handle against hartal, my M.P. Shashi Tharoor retweeted. Then ‘Tharoor retweeting’ is a popular joke in the parlance of our times.

Now in present day India, you say God created the world in six days, rested on the seventh, but did not give us 8-hour work day on the eighth, you will be hurting sentiments of one or the other religious group or business house, and police will ask you to take down your blog. Yet the fact remains that almost every right that employees and workers have today, ranging from pensions to maternity leave to provident funds to workplace safety were delivered by workers who went before us who paid in blood and starvation, and with very less divine intervention. And strike remains the most potent tool and most sought after right for workers everywhere. Some workers are denied the right to organize and strike, like erstwhile slaves in the Americas, Bangladeshi immigrant workers in India, and employees of Infosys, TCS, Cognizant and Wipro (all IT consulting firms). Why is May 1st celebrated as Labor day?

Figuring out why one of the biggest strikes is happening in our country is not easy. Except for a small infographic in the ‘The Hindu’, I did not see the demands of the strikers, the 10 point agenda or the larger demands of public sector employees mentioned anywhere in the media. One front page read the nation will be losing 20,000 crore rupees in two days. While the figures were mostly pulled out of the editors hind side, a mention of why the workers are striking would have given a semblance of legitimacy to the whorehouses they run in fourth estate street. That didn’t happen. There were even mentions on what the monkey with the garland in Bengal said about defeating the workers strike. No mention of the workers demands. Twitter trends in India as the strike starts.

So here they are. This is what a million men and women are asking for. One of the strikers was crushed to death today morning, so it’s worth a read -

• Ensuring universal Public Distribution System to ensure food security and price control of essential commodities

Now their minimum ask is, please do not screw up the PDS. It is the last remaining supply chain that’s preventing starvation in this country. When over half the country is surviving on less than two dollars a day, it is a good idea to keep market speculation out of daily meals.

• Statutory minimum wage of not less than Rs 10000

A simple napkin calculation says an average household needs to make Rs.1.4 lakh a month to be in middle class in India by global standards of consumption. So if you make less than a lakh a month, you are struggling by global standards. Shouldn’t everybody make at least Rs.10,000 a month?

• Pension for all, removal of all ceiling on eligibility for bonus, provident fund etc and raising minimum pension to Rs. 3,000

Rs.3,000 rupees in pension. If workers are demanding this, it may be because there are pensioners surviving in lot less than Rs.3000 a month. That must be tough.

• Compulsory registration of the trade unions within a time frame of 45 day

Who should have right to organize and demand all the above and below. How about every worker. Including IT workers.

• End to the highly exploitative contract systems and Equal wage for equal work

Less said here, the better. How about starting to pay contract workers some semblance of real wages.

• Effective implementation of all labor laws and stringent punishment to those who flout them

This should include special economic zones, and to nit-pick those vegetarian hotels where ten employees share one bedroom.

• Universal social security for all un-organised workers

There are 370 million unorganized workers in India with no provident fund, no savings, and no security. Exploited day in and out. Some of them migrant labor, living like refugees in so called their own country. The bengalis and biharis that are scoffed at in railway stations and long money order queues in post offices. They deserve better. For that matter, all of us deserve better.

 All of us deserve better, and we are better than our collective attention disorder, its just that we are missing the red ink.

In Solidarity!

There was a time when there were two types of hindi movies, and both were horrible. Those times have changed. Nowadays it is tough to say “a very good hindi movie in a long time“, when Gangs of Wasseypur, Matru ki Bijili ka Mandola, and to some (arguable) effect Barfi and Shanghai release in a year’s time. “Special Chabbis” is the best hindi movie I have watched in the past month, and Neeraj Pandey almost exceeds expectations with his second movie. When his first movie, “A Wednesday” released, I remember saying ”a very good hindi movie in a long time“; times have changed.

STORY: “Special 26″ is a heist thriller, and a period film based on a 1987 robbery in Bombay’s diamond market. (period is a tad suspect since some time travel is involved. One character says, “R.Venkitaraman” has taken over as President which will be late 80′s and then a Tamil character quotes from the movie “Baasha” which released only in 1995). The story portrays how a team of six seemingly normal crooks steal from the corrupt. There is no mention of what this group does with the money since all of them seem to lead lower middle class lives even with all the cash and gold they steal. None of the affected parties lodge a complaint since the money involved is “off the books” or “black”. Then comes Manoj Bajpayee as an honest CBI officer thrust into the case, and the protagonists meet their match.

Treatment and nostalgia: The movie is pretty clever. In that you will guess some parts of where the story is heading, but Special 26 will still have a curve ball for you which is sure gonna make you smile. This is a great way of doing suspenseful movies. Heist movies could go overboard with the slightest mistake, like an overdone bgm score. Neeraj Pandey walks the thin line and delivers an edge of the seat, funny, at times sarcastic thriller (the CBI officer played by Manoj Bajpayee asks his boss for a pay rise and promotion, threatens ‘rishwat lena shuru karu kya‘). The late 1980′s atmosphere is recreated with some elan, and even the romantic scenes between Akshay is Kumar and Kajal Agarwal play a part in defining and maintaining the 80′s verve. (like when was the last time you saw someone drop a love letter in a movie)

Character selection and acting: is above par. Akshay Kumar gives one of his better performances, nothing to write home about, just better. Anupam Kher continues to amaze, so does Rajesh Sharma (who played the investigating officer in No one killed Jessica).  Now all this amazement and performances last only about thirty minutes into the movie. Then Manoj Bajpayee enters the scene as officer Wasim Khan, and the rest of the cast just struggles to keep up. Bajpayee proves it again that he is one of the best actors finding work in this country.

Since it is doing very well in the box office, there definitely will be a second part. The film may not be as cleverly made as ‘Matru ki  Bijili’ but overall a good watch, nicely done.  For great cinema you should checkout one of these films.

In my country there is a mountain.
In my country there is a river.

Come with me.

Night climbs up to the mountain.
Hunger goes down to the river.

Come with me.

Who are those who suffer?
I do not know, but they are my people.

Come with me.

I do not know, but they call to me
and they say to me: “We suffer.”

Come with me.

And they say to me: “Your people,
your luckless people,
between the mountain and the river,
with hunger and grief,
they do not want to struggle alone,
they are waiting for you, friend.”

Oh you, the one I love,
little one, red grain
of wheat,

the struggle will be hard,
life will be hard,
but you will come with me.

- Pablo Neruda  (more selections from Neruda)

Michael Palmer writes “Our time is a between time; best to stay out of it.”, yes totally.

Yes, I was born on the street known as Glass—as Paper, Scissors or Rock.

Several of my ancestors had no hands.

Several of my ancestors used their pens

in odd ways.

A child of seven I prayed for breath.

Each day I passed through the mirrored X

into droplets of rain congealed around dust.

I never regretted this situation.

Though patient as an alchemist I failed to learn English.

Twenty years later I burned all my furniture.

Likewise the beams of my house

to fuel the furnace.

Once I bought an old boat.

I abandoned the tyrannical book of my dreams

and wrote about dresses, jewels, furniture and menus

eight or ten times in a book of dreams.

It sets me to dreaming when I dust it off.

Our time is a between time; best to stay out of it.

Send an occasional visiting card to eternity or a few stanzas to the living

so they won’t suspect we know they don’t exist.

Sign them Sincerely Yours, Warmest Regards, Thinking of You or
Deepest Regrets.

Brown river outside my window, an old boat riding the current.

What I like most is to stay in my apartment.

So that is my life, pared of anecdotes.

I go out occasionally to look at a dance.

Otherwise the usual joys, worries and inner mourning.

Occasionally in an old boat I navigate the river

when I find the time.

Water swallows the days.

I think maybe that’s all

I have to say

except that an irregular heart sometimes speaks to me.

It says, A candle is consuming a children’s alphabet.

It says, Attend to each detail of the future-past.

Last night the moon was divided precisely in half.

Today a terrifying wind.

Pretty good week for Bombay huh! as Tunku Varadarajan aptly said “India hangs man responsible for killing hundreds of Mumbaikars days after it lauds man responsible for killing thousands”. Going by my friends’ gleeful reaction on Facebook, we should have public hangings in India every week. It is as if hanging Kasab was the albatross hanging around their ‘Bharat Rakshak’ souls, and his last few seconds, writhing on the hangman’s rope just made my patriotic friends collectively cum. The two idols of my ‘Bharat Rakshak’ friends, have chipped in almost on the same lines, the Ram-Lakhan’s of our middle-compartmentalized-class consciousness.

Anna Hazare: “Its taken too long to hang Kasab. He should have been hanged in public. A public hanging of Kasab would have been a lesson for anybody who causes loss of life in our country.”

Narendra Modi: “What about Afzal Guru, who attacked Parliament, our temple of democracy, in 2001? That offence predates Kasab’s heinous act by many years.”

Anna Hazare was acting like a crusader three months back, now he is acting like a joke. An ignoble joke. While Narendra Modi just wants to kill more Muslims, terrorists or otherwise. Thousands of Indians killed by Narendra Modi have been asking from their graves ‘what about Narendra Modi?’ for 10 years now. This man wants to be Prime Minister.

Ajmal Kasab who is dead now, was given due process, and legal help by the Indian state. That’s definitely something Maharashtra and Union governments can be proud of. We are not Somalia or Afghanistan or Gujarat. And we did much better than USA on prosecuting terror related cases.  The Indian state can some more credit for the fact that they never gave up on due process in Afzal Guru’s or Kasab’s case despite the cacophony of ‘Bharat Rakshak’s on social and anti-social media, and blood stained Machiavellis like Narendra Modi asking for more blood.

If the collective conscience of a nation becomes satisfied when one of us gets hanged without a chance to defend himself , it speaks a lot about ourselves. The instant justice ‘Bharat Rakshak’ crowd believes the state should not hold a higher moral, the state should chop off arms and if possible arrange mass stoning of corrupt politicians, that the state should be crude, just like the Indian mob psyche that swallows nation, religion, and military without chewing or tasting. Everything must be extreme – like stupidity in our movies, like spice in our food, like ugliness in our cities. Our state should be ugly, always playing to the lowest common denominator.

Now one may ask what should be done to a terrorist? Before that, does any one in their sane mind think that the threat of hanging till death will deter these sons of bitches who come here to suicide fuck us? For the uninitiated suicide squads are composed of people who are willing to die. And they are willing to give up their life because they think there is a clear moral case against India.

How about bursting that bubble of a moral case against the Indian Republic. How about forgiving Ajmal Kasab? Just letting him go. Like we know you committed a grievous act against us, but we forgive you. How would Pakistani Taliban and Lashkar spin that one? Would that pin prick their bubble? Maybe not, maybe. Here is a story -

Six years back, 32 year old Charles Carl Roberts put 20 bullets in the fragile frame of a seven year old, Naomi Rose Ebersol. He went on to kill four more kids in the Amish school massacre.

Well, the real story began after the shooting.

Today, two days after the school shooting and the deaths, one particular thing that surprises me is the forgiveness of the rustic Amish community. Not a single person from that small community appeared angry despite their grief – they are unwilling to accept that the killer who took those innocent lives was evil. Many of them were on the networks saying they forgive the killer, especially moving was the account of Naomi’s grand-dad at the side of her body – with her wounds clearly visible – talking about the importance of forgiving the man.

Today they had a small prayer meeting where a slain child’s mother prayed with the killer’s mother – maybe they talked to god about those small things only mothers talk about. The clippings on the networks were heart rendering as a small village prepares to bury their little ones. They have forgiven the man who did it all and his family is receiving the forgiveness. It is easier to forgive than to receive it with all the humility and grace – and Carl Robert’s mother is doing exactly the same.

But we cannot do that. We are not people of guilt and redemption, but of shame and revenge. And our state should not have a moral higher than ours. The republic should just be as knee jerk as our movies,  as loud as our foof, and as ugly as our cities. Goodnight and Good luck!

It’s been two weeks since I hit the IMAX experience of Commander James Bond’s golden jubilee circus, but the dark, deep impact of Skyfall has not worn thin. Now I have a Sam Mendes movie which I genuinely like. With Bond23, the franchise takes a turn for the intense and the dark, and perhaps reinvents James Bond. One could argue that the franchise did that with Casino Royale, after the soulless years of Pierce Brosnan flicks. When Daniel Craig turned to the bartender who asked him whether he liked his martini shaken or stirred, and said “…do I look  like I give a damn”, the re-discovery had begun. The franchise faltered with the immensely forgettable “Quantum of Solace”, but is back in the game, vitalized and pumping with Skyfall. Bond23 is arguably the best James Bond movie I’ve seen, and Adele’s opening song is a classic!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HKoqNJtMTQ

Story: In a world where computer networks control everything, everything can be controlled by controlling computer networks. Raoul Silva is an ex-MI6 agent, hacker, terrorist, and a paid mercenary. But deep down he is a deeply hurt man, burned physically by hydrogen cyanide, and emotionally by M’s betrayal, and is now in his own words “survived” to avenge his betrayal. Silva will kill M. But not under the watch of James Bond. There are parallel themes of United Kingdom’s decay, the need for espionage, and in spite of computer networks the occasional need for pulling a trigger. But the central theme of the movie is revenge, love, and the story of three  people put there by chance. There is no Bond girl in the movie, as Guardian rightly put it, because M is the Bond girl this time.

Good:

 1. Pierce Brosnan once said he used wince while delivering some of Bond’s lines. That’s a shame. But then Brosnan acted in stupid Bond  movies. The franchise decided to get some of the best script writers, and one of the best living directors to make Bond23. When you handle a franchise like 007, it is as much about what you keep, as what you decide to discontinue. There are no exploding pens, and invisible cars, in that Bond23 does not insult the viewer. The movie pretty well speaks in silences, and in words. A well thought out entertainer. Not cerebral, but well thought out.

Raoul Silva: Do you like my island? My grandmother had an island. We could circle the whole place in an hour. Then one day, we went back to the island to see it infested with rats. They came from a sunken ship and fed on coconut. But my grandmother came up with a solution. She buried oil drums and filled them with coconut bait, luring them down the drums. In about three months, all the rats were trapped. So what do you do? Do you drown them? Burn them? You leave them alone. As soon as they run out of coconut, they begin to eat each other.When there are two left, you let them go toward the coconut trees. But they will not eat coconut anymore. They will only eat rat. You have changed their nature.

2. Judi Dench, Daniel Craig, and Javier Bardem – three of the finest actors of our time deliver very nuanced performances. Skyfall presents a somewhat complex relationships between its main characters, and it’s totally worth one’s time to see them pull it off. In one scene, Javier Bardem’s Silva, while exuding a constant calm, explodes in agony, when he realizes that M does not see his pain.  Another interesting scene is when Silva pushes the envelope a little further in the constant “homoerotic undertow” between Bond and his villains. The right lines, and the correct actors were in place to deliver one of the more intense scenes in 007 history.

Bad: I did make fun of Pierce Brosnan movies. But the fact is, I go to see James Bond movies for the gadgets, the girls, the stupid idiosyncrasies, the one-liners, the impossible action sequences, missiles and solar shields that destroy the earth, exploding brassieres, and the overall ‘this so stupid, I am so stress free’ feel. For fucks sake! it’s James Bond. If I want darkness I will watch Nolan.

Verdict:  Undoubtedly on track to be the first billion dollar movie in the franchise. James Bond survives.

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are…
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

_________________________________________________________________

Brahma –

I’m about to go speak to the crowd here in Chicago, but I wanted to thank you first.

I want you to know that this wasn’t fate, and it wasn’t an accident. You made this happen.

You organized yourselves block by block. You took ownership of this campaign five and ten dollars at a time. And when it wasn’t easy, you pressed forward.

I will spend the rest of my presidency honoring your support, and doing what I can to finish what we started.

But I want you to take real pride, as I do, in how we got the chance in the first place.

Today is the clearest proof yet that, against the odds, ordinary Americans can overcome powerful interests.

There’s a lot more work to do.

But for right now: Thank you.

Barack

_________________________________________________________________

What were you doing 4 years back. This day.

_________________________________________________________________

Funnest night on twitter. and the largest, most tweeted political event in history. Tonight I crossed 3000 tweets in my “campaign to re-elect Barack Obama”. Check out the timeline in case you missed the fun.

_________________________________________________________________

Obama starting to speak in Chicago. FORWARD!

***********************************

Electoral college Vs Popular Vote confusion. Guess which US Prez won just 39.8% of popular vote.

“He was the luckiest man to run for president: He won with only 39.8 percent of the popular votes cast — the smallest percentage ever recorded. He had no help from his running mate: he only met his vice president Hannibal Hamlin on Election Day. How did Abra­ham Lincoln manage to win?

“The remaining 60.2 percent was split among three other candidates: Stephen A. Douglas (29 percent), John C. Breckenridge (18 percent), and John Bell (13 per­cent) . Had it not been for the presence of two ‘third-party’ candidates — Breckenridge and Bell — Lincoln might not have been elected. (In that year there were four candidates because each of the two parties had nominated an upstart South­ern candidate as well as an official North­ern one.) Says the historian Jay Winik: Lincoln’s victory ‘was in many ways a fluke and nothing more.’

Read more

***********************************

Interesting stuff on campaign contributions, California contributes most to both campaigns. 41% of all Obama funds, and 28% of all Romney funds. Obama trails the money game in Florida, and Romney fails in Illinois.

Top Obama contributors are University of California, Microsoft, & Google. Top Romney contributors are Goldman Sachs, B of America,  & Morgan Stanley.

Source: Fox News 

***********************************

Less than 24 hours to go. Watching Obama attend the last campaign stop in Iowa this hour. Bruce Springsteen on stage.Iowa is where it all started for Obama, and he is ending the last campaign of his political career in Iowa.“they said this day would never come…..”

***********************************

Race is as close as ever, but the other race is pretty interesting as well. If monolithic black vote (approx. 95% vote Obama) is a given, the trend in white votes may spring a surprise tomorrow -

“A POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Tracking Poll has Romney ahead of President Barack Obama among white voters by 18 points, 57 percent to 39 percent. Gallup showed Romney ahead among whites by 20-plus points this month.”

In case you plan to follow the election, here is all you need -

New York Times Election Center, Electoral Map,  and Swing State center,

Politico Swing State analysis,

Truthdig elections if you are far left,

Huffington Post Electoral Map,

Fox News Election Center,

Washington Post election center,

Yahoo’s Ticket.

New York Times Election Center, Electoral Map,  and Swing State center,

Politico Swing State analysis,

Truthdig elections if you are far left,

Huffington Post Electoral Map,

Fox News Election Center,

Washington Post election center,

Yahoo’s Ticket.

———————————————————————

Interspersed below are links to some of the best long form articles on US presidential elections 2012. 4 more days!, 4 more years?

It’s the end game in American politics. What started 14 months ago with a straw poll in Iowa will end in under 100 hours, when America elects it’s next president, and not many elections have come so close as this one. Over a year long primaries are done, debates are over, national grandstanding is done, and  now its down to the ground game. The ground game will pit Mitt Romney’s well funded, mammoth Republican machine, against one of the best political machines of all time – the campaign to re-elect President Barack Obama.

Barack Obama prevented a depression, ended one of the bloodiest wars in the world, set an end date for another, moved the world closer to multi-polar decision making, killed Osama Bin Laden, passed one of the most comprehensive social security legislation in four decades, legislated for equal pay for women and men, came out in support of gay marriage, saved Detroit, reached out to Islamic countries of the middle east, and “renewed the honor of American presidency” after eight years of Dubya.

Almost all the time, American right was disappointed in his record, American left was disappointed once in a while (like the cartoon below) because Obama wasn’t listening enough to Occupy, and then there are the undecided millions who think he is not focusing on real issues.

That said, there were embarrassing times for Obama, when unemployment soared and never came down below 8% till last month, when he won a so-so Nobel Prize, failed to move on immigration reform, and almost froze on Global climate change. Read NewYorker endorsement here.

In electing Bambi, Americans will be electing a man they know very well. They know his good, and his bad, and expectations are not messianic from Obama this time over. That’s why it’s said, Obama will never win a landslide. Because people know him already, and have a well developed opinion on what Obama is capable of and on whether they like him or not. And that is Mitt Romney’s primary problem.

Mitt Romney has been a success story in corporate America, and in politics. Son of a former Michigan governor, Romney has an impressive resume – presiding over one of the world’s biggest consulting firms, salvaging an Olympics, legislating for universal health care, and improving education standards. Despite this Mitt Romney faces a trust issue even as the vote is just a few days away. Nobody knows what Mitt really believes in, what his values are, and what he would eventually do as President. This shaky personality, and reputation as a flip-flop politician who changes his stated opinions every other day, makes even seasoned Republicans with their unfettered hate for Bambi, think twice before they press the button for Romney. Nobody knows Mitt Romney. Not even neo-liberal magazine Economist, which endorsed Barack Obama today.

At this point, US election is down to one state out of the fifty. Whoever wins Ohio ( that damn state down south) will win the US presidency. In case you plan to follow the election, here is all you need -

New York Times Election Center, Electoral Map,  and Swing State center,

Politico Swing State analysis,

Truthdig elections if you are far left,

Huffington Post Electoral Map,

Fox News Election Center,

Washington Post election center,

Yahoo’s Ticket.