Team India goes down, Team Anna rises

If you think it is the razor-sharp English bowling and their hurricane batting helped them dethrone India from No.1 Test ranking, I have a different opinion. I am sure the meek surrender of Team India should be looked at in a different perspective. It was Team India’s way of declaring solidarity with Team Anna’s efforts for a strong Lokpal Bill. Through their defeat, they tell Indians that they will not win a single match until Jan Lokpal Bill is passed in the Parliament.

Hard to believe! The grapevine is that senior Cabinet ministers (Led by Sharad Pawarji) huddled inside Manmohan’s room to find a way out to arrest further degradation of Team India’s name. (Oops! There is nothing more to erode now.) It is learned that Sharad Pawar has asked Singhvi (the legal, constitutional, bombastic, diplomatic, aristocratic, methodological, phenomenal-these are some of the words often used by this leader on TV shows) parliamentary standing committee panel chief to speed up the process before the ODI series begin.

Cricket experts may find many technical flaws for the lackluster performance of Team India in England. Poor chaps! They don’t have even have an iota of idea about Team India’s patriotic credentials. How could they perform to their fullest potential when back home, thousands of their countrymen fight for a genuine cause? Take a look at Sachin’s feat. Do you think Bresnan could trap him LBW when he was at 91, closer to his 100th century? I think Sachin deliberately got himself trapped because he knows his countrymen are not in a mood to celebrate his colossal feat under the prevailing circumstances. Or did he feel his century would distract people’s attention from Jank Lokpal bill stir? Then, how could Dravid remain unaffected among the debris? Come on, he thinks the Lokayukta had already claimed one victim (a powerful victim, of course) in his home state. So, he was not as perturbed as his other countrymen.

Guys, they should thank Team Anna for one thing. Now, the nation is engrossed in Lokpal stir. Or, our countrymen wouldn’t have minded our cricketers were World champions a few months before. An entire brigade of our army could not have protected their properties or guarantee their safety when they come home after their English Waterloo.
Hope our champions would join Anna Hazare when they come back home. For them, that is the only way out!

AN unending Indian political satire

Home Minister Chidambaram says it is government’s duty to protect the life of Gandhian Anna Hazare! True? (Comment on Hazare’s proposed fast in Delhi against the government version of Lokpal Bill) Mr. HM, don’t you think it is your duty to respect his ideology?

Mr. Chandy, Kerala Chief Minister, gives up vigilance portfolio. A vigilance court has directed a probe against Chandy to bring out his alleged involvement in the Kerala palmolein scam. Good, he assigns the vigilance portfolio to one of his cabinet ministers! Why couldn’t he ask the court to supervise the probe as in the case of the SC-supervised probe into the 2G scam? Also, another matter that disturbs my commonsense is how could the finance minister be absolved even when the then CM Karunakaran and the finance secretary PJ Thomas were named in the probe report? Do you want me to believe the secretary bypassed the finance minister when the decision to import palmolein was taken?

Then, one of the Kerala minister says he or his team of ministers are not cowards to resign. Cowards to resign? I don’t understand this phrase. One needs to be courageous and statesman-like to resign in the face of an indictment, Mr. Minister!

One scion of a political party says he is ashamed to be an Indian. (In the backdrop of the alleged police brutality against peasants during protests against land acquisition) Interestingly, a leading TV channel says 43% of the Indians prefer him to be the next prime minister! Alas! Where are we heading to?

Attention! If our government response to the Anna Hazare's agitationto cleanse our stinking political and social system is illogical and bullying, how could the Maoists respond to government's call to join mainstream politics? They might be laughing and asking us, "See, what is happening to a Gandhian? Don't you see the same fate happening to us if we join the mainstream and raise our voice against our system?"

What happened to our leaders?

I was laughing silently when I read the following in the newspapers. See how you felt about them.

Chidambaram countering BJP allegations
I believe our home minister is a capable person. I also believe he is capable of delivering as home minister. However, his statement countering BJP's allegations of his involvement in the 2G scam (in his capacity as former finance minister) looked childish and silly.
He said he is being targeted (he had bracketed himself with the prime minister of course) by the saffron brigade because he had initative probe into suspected 'saffron' terror links. I felt this statement very silly. It reminded me of my childhood when I used to tell my furious parents that I kicked my younger brother because he, who is many years younger to me, pinched me.

Congress asking Hazare to contest against Kapil Sibal
What a funny and childish statement from a grand old partyI Anyone in the country knows Anna cannot win an election against Sibal (or against any politicians) from anywhere in the country. Our old poor Gandhian does not understand the permutations and combinations of our politicians' strategic calculations. (or he knows them better!) Why Hazare! Even our real Gandhi (I mean Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) cannot win an election now even if he is fielded against R Raja. (You have to see the caste factor)

Yeddyurappa's Karnataka comedy!
I know this man cries for everything. Poor chap, he is very sentimental. The BJP should have considered this before asking him to quit as CM. I read he cried that loudly in a meeting after his return from Delhi. Interestingly, all his men cried with him. Alas! I missed that great comic scene. (Yeddy had reportedly asked his MLAs to switch off the mobile phone before his action.)

The comedy I missed
I was expecting another comedy last month. Sadly, that was not the right time to expect a comedy. It was during the Mumbai bomb blasts! I was expecting a statement from senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh accusing saffron brigade for the terror attack. He came very close, though. Wonder he did not say that he received a call from one of the victims (most probably a diamond vendor from Zaveri Bazar) that he was under saffron threat.