What are you doing with Your Life?

Came across this one from Bud Cadell’s works on whatconsumesme and instantly grew to love this depiction. Simple, yet powerful way to organize everything I do, or can do, and it’ll immediately decide how much time / resources I should be spending on it.

Though the self-help books wouldn’t get you to start writing your goals on a piece of paper, this one seems an interesting thing to do. – list whatever I do, or can potentially do, into one of the categories :

What I want to do but neither am I good, nor will it pay. – Travel consultant?

What I can get paid for, but neither am I good with  nor I want to do it. – Bullshitting!

What I’m good with, but neither it pays, nor I really want to do it. –

What I want to do and can get paid for but am not too good at – Dealmaking

What I want to do and am good at, but won’t get paid for it. –

What I’m good with, can get paid for, but don’t want to do. –

What I’m good with, would love to do and CAN get paid for! – Conceptualizing Solutions

But well, at 25, in the process of experimenting with your career before you’re required to stabilize, not all these questions are answered properly. Though if the last one is answered well enough, all else is irrelevant.

The venn hasn’t told me what my Hooray! is, but it has told me the way to think, if I want to get there!

Also, it’s given me an interesting thing to play with, to make new venn diagrams that’ll give me new ways of looking at life and what I’m doing.

AND , a cool piece of gyan to draw on tissue papers at coffee shops, and give away to people – with due respect to Cadell!

Had been wanting to do this for a while now, so here I start with a list of things that happen to me all the time, and might seem weird, but then I believe (or rather hope) happen to others too!

The mind that works on its own..

- You’re eating something and using a newspaper below it to keep the space clean, and as you eat, you end up pausing, engrossed in reading the article in the paper, how much ever dated it might be.

- You’re in the middle of explaining an important argument to some important people, (prof, client et al), and all of a sudden, in a flash, you lose your chain of thought, and end up having to complete with some random gyan, trying to hide your embarrassment. And, mostly, your listeners still nod their head.. leaving you to wonder what they must be thinking about you!!!

- Ok, this one’s a cliche. The polyamorous feeling : I love her, but I love someone else too.. but I’m not a bad guy!!

- You hear the door bell, go out to open it, to not find anyone. You come back and ask people around you, if the bell had rung. It hadn’t.

- You take the phone out of the pocket, thinking it’s ringing, of course, it’s not!

- You walk out of your home on the 13th floor, decide to take the stairs coz the phone you’re talking on, will go conk in the elevator, go down a floor, check your pocket for the phone, and almost climb back a couple of stairs.. to go back home to get it. Then you realize that you’re TALKING on the phone!!

- You write long mails, pouring your heart out – with a piece of your mind to top it up, then give it one final read before you send it, and end up saving it in your drafts, to never send it. And then, later on, you thank your sensibility in not sending that mail. (at least 50 out of the 300 drafts I have must be like this. I post a lot of them to lil these days)

- The days I wake up early, are the days I am really late! I don’t know what I end up doing!

- You enjoy writing things down because they help you organize your thoughts and purge the clutter from your head.

Socially,

- Bumping into them out of the blue, you forget the names of people you’ve known for long(old classmates/colleagues), and are looking for ways to figure it out, without embarrassing yourself and them…

- At dinners or get togethers, for a few passing moments, you try to be a part of the groups that you don’t exactly belong to, but don’t get around to participating somehow, and just get out.

- You wonder why can’t people talk straight, and wonder if they’re just making casual conversation or dropping signals that you need to pick up and keep in mind!

- You feel jealous of that funny guy who gets all the attention, while your sense of humor takes a while to get rolling, and has limited laughter-quotient.

- You can happily talk away to glory when introduced to a new person, so much so that you can say you love meeting strangers – but find it rather difficult to walk up to someone to introduce yourself and start a conversation.

- Extension of the previous thing – You can talk away for hours to a new person you started talking to, onboard a flight, but you find it tough to have conversations with people who’ve been your classmates for years!

The shy/ withdrawn / self absorbed loner?

- In a variety of situations – you get a strong feeling that you don’t belong here. It has happens at home, at college, at my b school, in student body meetings, in parties, at pubs, in conferences.. just about every social situation you can be in. But you’re not so much of a loner either!! You just find it difficult to blend in.

- You’re sometimes overly withdrawn, because you don’t want to come across as desperate.

- Your shyness is sometimes (or maybe often) seen as snobbishness, and while you don’t know how to explain the difference, you pretend to ‘not care’ and let it pass!

- You wonder sometimes if people actually mean those kind words they tell you, or they’re just being polite!

- You get embarrassed at the overenthusiastic praising and complimenting by certain relatives / extended family.

- You don’t call up friends / ping them when you see them online, coz you feel you don’t have much to talk about, and they might be busy with their own lives – and you fall further short of conversation material after every such missed talk!

- Your busy status on messengers, is perpetual, and you don’t change it ever. It amuses you when that ppl use this as an excuse you to not talk to you for a long time.

- You don’t exactly love the ‘post on your wall’ or ’scrapbook’ b’day wishes, which only came coz the person saw your b’day on orkut / fb. And you don’t like wishing ppl that way either. Except, a few cases.

- Gathering courage, you initiate a conversation with someone, or drop a compliment, and are endlessly embarrassed into being silent when they respond rather coldly!

- You like disappearing into the woods sometimes, for extended periods. You like it if ppl ask after you, with concern, but are really pretty ok if nobody does. You’re ok being in your own world!

- You’re sometimes skeptical of the overt depictions of camaraderie between people, wondering if it’s real, or is it just one lonely person reaching out to another, wonder if you wanna be one of those!

- Someone new starts paying a lot of attention to you all of a sudden and you feel weird, but secretly like it, and then one fine morning, they suddenly decide to withdraw, without any explicit reason and you start to feel weird!!

- You HATE it, when people leave without saying a bye. Exit from your life, effectively. Perhaps having taken offence to something, or choosing to withdraw themselves, or for some reason – leaving you restless with an unanswered why!

- In the flash of a moment, you think about someone, wondering what they’re upto.. and are surprised how come you didn’t ask after them all these days!

Of virtues and Idealism

- You wonder sometimes why people make such a virtue out of sacrifice and giving up.

- You like it sometimes when some people take liberties with you. Makes you feel they hold you close.

- Find half the heroes as false – wonder why and how they got there!

- Sometimes looking at the face of poverty, deprivation and desolation – you feel the meaningless of all your pursuits, if they’re not going to change life for the deprived.

Of Judging,

- Find some people pointlessly argumentative and judgemental, and feel like giving the discussion up and letting them be in their own world, rather than brew up an intelligent discussion.

- You wonder if you’ve become too objective or numb, to feel almost heartless at times.

- Having gone too far with being non judgmental, you sometimes find it difficult to see anything wrong with anybody! Everyone’s doing what’s in their best interest, and have their own reasons for it. And you can’t hate anyone for anything they say or do! Quick concluders turn you off though!

- And, despite the continued obsession with being non judgmental… you suddenly begin to judge closely, uncomfortably closely…

Random crazy instincts!

- You feel really tempted to jump off the train, into the sea, when it’s crossing a bridge.

- You sometimes consider dying, just because you’re REALLY curious to know what happens next!

- Wake up at 5 AM, because you have a huge chain of thought in your head, which you must capture. You capture it and go to sleep again!

- Sometimes, your chivalrous instincts are blocked by your feminist ones! You’d offer your seat to an aunty or an elderly person, but not to a girl your age, or offer to lift her luggage for her.. she’s your ‘equal’ remember?

- You feel scared of opening your monthly credit card statements, or other bills, and put it off till the last possible date.

Now, here are things I thankfully don’t feel… but people around me do. Do you?

- I trip over something or the other everyday!

- If you tell me about a disease and its symptoms, I get scared believing that I have it!!

- At every possible opportunity where you can see your reflection – a car rear view mirror, a restaurant spoon, or anything similar – you feel an irresistible urge to check how you’re looking! in passing cars with reflective glass, a clean patch i na dirty bit of broken glass, the cell phone when its not lit up.

I’m sure I’ll soon have a LOT more to add to this post. This feeling crosses my mind more often than I eat chocolate these days!

Meanwhile, if you related with any of the above, or feel something I’ve not included.. do write in!

So much for the light musings.. and baring some thoughts!

Starts with a ride on the Mumbai local – standing at the gate – to soak in the amazing weather,  as I rode across the bridge to Vashi – offering a long view of the horizon.

Followed by – a drive on the expressway – up the hill in lonavala – long stares into the valley – a game of cards, a picnic lunch, hot pakode, mist in the face,  rain to soak, clouds to surround , chilly breeze, growing into a wind as you see, a hot bhutta, a phone call to tell someone they’re being missed, a text to lil, getting back into the car, for a slow drive down the hill coz you can’t see beyond 5 meters…. with open windows so you still feel the rain..

A descent from Heaven, amidst the clouds! Loads of curves- the view still blocked -a famous vada pao, an extra sweet coffee and a drive back to Vashi.

Followed by a drive on the palm beach road, a glimpse of a cute home and family and some sweet childhood pics, and next a short but lovely bike ride with the wind in my hair as the pillion, a quick spin on a sexy bike, a small walk, some small talk and a conversation amidst beautiful weather. Some growing up.

Then zip back to mama’s for another game of cards – with jeering and cheering on a high.. a lot of pulling,  a dinner of pizza.. and a glimpse of India crumbling against west indies in the match. A peaceful sleep.

5:45 AM – the local again, again a pretty morning, to bring me back, to home, to my desk, to work!

Despite such a weekend, i’m saved the monday blues by my kinda work, my kinda workplace, my desk and the view from here!

Just about a year ago, I’d signed the lease for the flat I’m living in right now. The past few days have been in sharp reflection of the time I’ve spent in Mumbai, not as a student this time. The thoughts when I’d come here, the evolution, the hundreds of meetings with dozens of people, a few million thoughts, and endless dreams. Life’s moved, slowly sometimes, and breathtakingly fast, at others. But it’s moved, and it’s been quite a journey this far.

Anyway, this isn’t so much about me, but the city I’m told I belong to. And not without reason. I’ve absorbed the pace of the place, so much so, that something less just tests my patience. I’ve made peace with traveling in all modes of transport, including the peak hour local trains, leaving me sweaty and grimy – but not quite tired.

I’ve enjoyed quietly sitting at the marine drive looking at the horizon. I’ve folded my pants and taken a stroll at juhu beach, slurrping off a butter scotch and kala khatta gola, and with the same folded pants, walked in to prithvi theatre to get last moment tickets, owing to cancellations, and seen Hamlet sitting next to film personalities.

I’ve had the two rupee cutting chai at the railway station, before I boarded the second class train, on my way for a million dollar discussions, sitting in the lobby of the Taj, onwards to a 150 rupee Tea.

I’ve seen the sun set and felt the breeze in my hair, as I said sipping my chocolate, sitting at the carter road coffee shop, and I’ve strolled on the promenade in the middle of the nights, pondering over and feeling amused at the little joys of life.

I’ve had dates that started with pani puri and a walk at the beach and ended with a fine meal at an Italian Restaurant.

I’ve had a long conversation with a Venture Investor and with a taxi driver on the same day, and am not sure which one I enjoyed more.

I’ve danced all night at a disc, and yet been fresh and happy for a lunch meeting the following day.

I’ve hosted parties that lasted all night, and concluded in the morning with a buffet breakfast.

I’ve seen friends become estranged and heard almost-strangers pour their heart out to me.

I’ve spent days without meeting anyone except my flatmates, or not returned home for nights.

I’ve had breakfast at the Maratha and lunched on a a vada pao.

I’ve depended on the kindness of strangers! and been one, sometimes.

With all its contrasts and paradoxes, I’ve lived and felt the city in my veins.

It’s been a while since I blogged last and well, a lot has happened since then. Pretty much on all fronts.

For those who sought pleasure in sarcastically congratulating me for the election results, you still made me smile, so thanks for that. And I wasn’t hiding away somewhere, unable to face the election aftermath. Just a bunch of professional engagements keeping me rather occupied.

So well, I won’t try and follow the world in advising what the BJP should be doing next.  My mentor had an interesting take on it. It answered a lot of things for me.

A whole lot of intellectual talk came his way after the election – ” You should be introspecting, undergoing catharsis, give up on Hindutva and all of that…”. His response was simple, ” All these ideas and talk is great, but the change that you talk about, what’s going to be YOUR contribution in it? What role are YOU going to play?”

Most people, love advising and solving problems for others – non accountable types – have a lot of gyan to give, but not enough time or enthusiasm to actually contribute something of value. In politics, if you want to be heard, being a pure intellectual won’t suffice. You gotta be a doer – help execute, at least partly, the ideas that you speak about. Or find other ways of contributing – fund them maybe.

With all these thoughts, I’m not going to delve into advising what the the party leadership should be doing with their ideology and political strategy.  I prefer to leave those at coffee tables conversations just like college gossip.

And while I’m rather hopeful with the current way of things, I haven’t forgotten that the same papers, who wrote ‘All Talk No Vote‘ after the election day, screamed aloud that India had voted for secularism,  ‘mandate’ for congress and all of that.  There’s no disputing that congress won the political game, and I respect them for that. But to say that the people of India have awakened to make wiser choices, and that the days of extremism are over – would still be a utopian thought.

Just for instance, in Mumbai North-east, out of 15 lakh eligible voters, about 6 lakh voted. 2.5 lakh each to bjp and ncp and 1 lakh to MNS. BJP lost by a mere 3000 votes. Same’s the case with 5 out of the 6 seats in bombay. I’ll not get into accusing Thackrey junior for sabotaging it for BJP-SS, but just point out that the extreme still got more votes than the congress/NCP as far as Mumbai is concerned.I have collated the nos. from the election commission site, so if you have doubts, feel free to leave me a note and I’ll share with you.

So while feeling holier than me, don’t be too naive and believe all that you see / hear.

So that’s about the state of my mind. Next , what am I looking to do, really. I don’t know how much I will be able to do really. Being a professional with elite education to back me, I want to use these to listen to the voice of people and give them a chance to participate in policy making and execution.

Accordingly, I want to :

- Work with a bunch of IITians / IIM students on some e-governance projects – pick up global case studies, analyse their feasibility in India at a basic level and develop concept papers that can be proposed to the state.

- Interface with  tax payers / professionals of various sorts – understand their greivances and issues (those that are not entirely obvious) and see if there’s anything that state’s intervention can help in.

- Crowdsource issues for the governance / leadership to answer – identify the ones that are most crucial to each group of audience and try to draw attention to them.

- Work on interfacing political leaderhip with industry leaderhip effectively – to enable transferring of ideas at the right level.

- Hold events that involve complete civilans into thinking about governance related issues and contibute with their ideas.

- Use online media to identify, spread and raise the issues that are important to the people and take them to the right places.

A few months into the system I’m still in the early exploratory phase and there’s a lot that may not be within my reach to impact yet, but well, the process is on and the lessons too.

Cheers!

Knowing me as an NDA supporter, people have directed a bunch of reactions at me after the results came out yesterday.  Included mockery, ‘i told you so’, consolations, and some others as disappointed, trying to find the way forward from here.

While the election results surprised me, like anyone else (pretty much?), the political irrelevance of my work, in writing blogs or talking to people had become clear to me, just the next day of elections. I had really sit down to understand what was happening at the booths really and how things on ground were really done and decided – the real politics, the real decisions – taken by people who do it as a transaction, not so much as the ‘jagruk yuva’ of the country.

Now theorists are talking about votes having been bought, EVMs being rigged and all that, but an electoral victory is an electoral victory and one can’t take away the credit from the winners for that.

So here’s congratulating the UPA leadership for having pulled it off rather well. I admire the discipline and the unquestioned hierarchy and leadership that seems to come across, so what if I don’t approve of the leaders themselves.

Was on a UTVi show, shot yesterday, (actually to bail out the host friend, who needed some talkers) to discuss the happiness or otherwise with the UPA and the expectations with this new government. While I’d have serious doubts about their capability as well as intentions in making a real difference, like I’m being told by Rahul’s fans, lets give him a chance. Chance it is, to prove his mettle in the parliament, when he’s got unquestioned power in his hands, and this time, the left is reduced to irrelevance too, so no more excuses on that count.

So what’s now the role of the urban, educated youth now, beyond voting. Firstly, I don’t agree that people who didn’t vote don’t have the right to ask questions or to complain now. They (or their parents) have been paying taxes to the government and that gives them every right to expect certain things in return. The first among them, is transparency and accountability on where the tax revenues are being spent.

To take the role seriously would mean that we don’t wait for another five years to evaluate the report card of the current government, but make intermittent checks that keep them under pressure to perform well over the next five years and if nothing is done, prove their hollowness. Rahul did all the youth-friendly college trips and held slum kids in his hands in poll time. It remains to be seen how far the interfacing with the youth continues, now that he’s in power.

Once you mention a political affiliation, people tend to forget about your essential bigger objective, which is to contribute to the society and nation in a positive manner. I continue to stand by the BJP and against the Congress. (Yet to ascertain which feeling is stronger). Congress is in power, fair enough, but to keep tabs on it, would need a principled and powerful opposition, an unbiased media and a demanding customer base of voters who wouldn’t be satisfied till their questions are answered and demands are met.

Trying to not let their past goofups bias me, I’ll try to keep track of what this sarkaar does and be an honest critic.

I hope that they’ll have an interface for people to reach to them – beyond Milind Deora and Priya Dutt’s facebook accounts.

I hope the PMO doesn’t now issue ’secular’ statements giving the first right to the country’s resources to a particular religious community – but looks at India as India, not a sum of vote banks.

I hope Rahul Gandhi starts a blog and has someone update it frequently enough – not to tell us about his columbian girlfriend, but his political vision and what he’s doing to take the country forward.

I hope fundamentalist leaders from any religion don’t command our central policies and Rahul doesn’t feel the need to bend to anyone’s demands this time around.

Much like Amir Khan talked about the pro-voting campaigns for ADR, I urge people to become more demanding as customers. We lose patience at the omissions of our service providers, lets be a lot more demanding of those who govern us.

Lets take protests beyond the domain of the NGOs and do our own jobs beyond candle light vigils.

Lets ’stay awake’ , beyond a one day ‘jaago re’.

Lets organize ourselves as ‘youth’, as ‘taxpayers’, as ‘citizens’, as ‘IT professionals’, a phone/internet users, flyers, retail buyers -  and make demands, instead of the caste and religion based identities to make demands.

For those who supported the UPA, the task is far from over, and those who were with the NDA, the challenge is even bigger now.

So now lets see what the youth can do for the country.

What is word of mouth marketing after all?

“Giving people a reason to talk about your service and making it easier for that conversation to happen”

Simple and yet powerful. I like this definition.

Picked up from a presentation on slideshare by Maya Elhalal

While some would say that the recession is a bad time for everyone in the advertising industry, given the reduced budgets, there’s something interesting for advertisers to look at, and for digital marketing guys to exploit.

Was just going through the report by the same title, at Ogilvy on Recession, and thought of taking some quick notes. What it suggests advertisers do is, not entirely beyond obvious, but rather precisely put together. Obviously, since it’s a free report, every idea ends with ‘ it needs a clear strategy’ , for which you’ll need to go to them!

Summarizing just the ideas :

- Create Virals

- Sponsor smaller properties on the internet that are cheaper, but target your audience

- Use Performance Media – pay only when desired action is performed.

- Sales tactics : Well timed coupons on email and mobile.

- Using  internet microstars smartly would help you get a mega reach and impact

- Create Widgets for blogs and soc nets – they’re cheap, distribute easily and can ‘connect’ the consumer to your brand.

- Get a strategy in place for video distribution on Youtube, it’s free and reaches wide.

- Use Heat Mapping to identify most noticed sections on your promotional e-mails, to optimize them accordingly.

-Get digital distribution rights for all your TVC and print material.

Also, while you’re in the studio for the shoot, you might be able to capture other video pieces – such as behind-the-scenes footage, video greetings from star endorsers, short video teaser shots, etc. – that can later be deployed on  your website, mobile site or on video distribution sites.

- Work with non competitive partners to piggyback on what they’re doing.

-Optimize your digital assets – ( I guess they mean on usability/navigation/information discoverability etc.)

- Avoid duplicate keywords on SEO and SEM. (doesn’t help to  be the first sponsored link for something you’re anyway the second organic link for)

- Elicit consumer ideas and inputs on your website, beyond plain complaints.

- Measure and track your digital activity, returns!

- Monitor Competitor activity

- Optimize media spend with clear focus your business aims.

Worded a little better, this is pretty much what the report says, with an example or two here and there. Can’t ask for a lot in a free report, but well, this would probably be obvious to someone who’s been in the new media space for some time.

However, the  report ends with a good set of action points and I’d recommend a quick read to anyone interested in digital marketing right now.

First job, in simple words, I whole-heartedly admit that the heart rending stories of the riots, make me shiver and send a chill down my spine. I wouldn’t justify the killings and everything associated with it on any count.

Lest you start making judgments about my fundamentalist credentials, I must mention that I’m on an exploratory mission, trying to understand the different sides of the story and what happened thereafter, and where it leaves me today. Hoping to make an informed opinion, and try to inform the several others, who at this point are happy believing the sensations and villianhood bequeathed upon Modi by the media.

While IBN consistently maintained its stand about Godhra being a neglected sore corner in Modi’s government, a pieces of news mainstream media chose to completely ignore, is about Modi visiting Godhra’s muslim populated areas and receiving a warm welcome on Republic day in 2009. Perhaps a lot changed from the 2007 IBN report to 2009 January. And well, hardly any mainstream media houses were keen to cover this change, as a google search on the same reflects. The act of Modi’s visit, couldn’t possibly a concoction of the right wing, it’s utter absence from mainstream media, does point to something though.

Anyway, going back to the main story, I was trying to unearth from the archives of 2002 Feb, what the TOI had reported right after the train was burnt down in Godhra, killing some 57 people including women and kids. While there are statements from Modi, VHP’s protests and ABVP’s stance, there’s no first news report in the archives.

Would be keen to take a look at the hard copy of the cover page of TOI on Feb 28, 2002. I wonder if there’s a reason to the missing stories!

The way things started in Godhra – the burning of the train carrying the Karsevaks returning from ayodhya, and intermittently chanting/shouting slogans as they usually do. What followed, was the largest riot in my present memory. Hundreds were killed, looted, raped, mutilated, burnt alive – brutality inflicted upon humanity in every possible way. The state was alleged to have helped the rioters hunt down the muslims. Modi was labelled “mass murderer”, BJP leaders were called ” Maut Ke Saudagar ” , and villianized endlessly.

7 years hence, the story has been repeatedly enlivened, only to evoke very emotional, charged up responses from the young educated indians, who feel embarrassed to have any connection with a pogrom as that.

Anyway, in a quick review of the two reports – Justice Nanawati Commission(set up right after the riots in 2002)  and Justice UC Bannerjee commission(set up by Lalu, right after he was elected, in late 2004) , both said to be people of high stature with their backgrounds as senior judicial post holder:

Textual summary of reports sourced from IBN Live

Banerjee Commission report

• Fire accidental

• No outsiders involved

• Death due to toxicity & suffocation

• No crowd, just onlookers at railway station

• Coaches were not locked

Nanavati Commission report

• Fire deliberately set

• Outsiders ignited fire

• Death due to burning

• Mob at railway station

• Coaches locked from outside

The Nanawati commission is said to have more authority since it was set up right after the riots, (albeit by the state government), while the Bannerjee commission was set up by Lalu, the railway minister 2 years later,  in political hindsight, with the backdop of Bihar elections.

Clearly, there are several direct contradictions in the reports presented by the two commissions. The UC Bannerjee commision says it was an accident.

That the attack on the train was performed by a mob of over 2000 people was said by the cops on 28th Feb, as reported by the TOI .

Subsequent reporting by BBC, while it censures the state government of inaction, does assume as a fact that the train was really burnt by a mob.

“Riots were sparked off across Gujarat early this month after a Muslim mob attacked and killed a group of Hindu activists travelling by train in the town of Godhra.”

If it was an accident, and there was no mob, then logically :

- The story (that there was a mob) was planted with the policemen in advance, that they need to tell the media about the mob being responsible for the fire.

- Which would mean, the accident was planned/expected by the people wanting to push this story.

If it was indeed an accident, the train’s body must be highly flammable so that the fire engulfed the bogie fast enough to not allow any people to escape, and of course, whatever happened of the Fire Brigade, which couldn’t reach in time, unless wilfully/forcibly stopped enroute by the same miscreants who started the fire.

While I’d not entirely agree to what Nanawati Commission reported, I find the UC Bannerjee commission equally biased and untrue in its assertions. It’s disappointing how the reports of even ex Supreme Court Judges are biased and selective in their presentation of facts, and can be made to parrot the lines of their masters.

Oh, and incidentally, in October 2006, the Gujarat High Court ruled that the Bannerjee  panel was set up illegally, in violation of the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952 which prohibits the setting up of separate commissions by state and central governments to probe a matter of public importance.

And then, I landed upon something new, apparently a new dimension to the story, that of the train carnage being a planned act, at the behest of the Pakistani Government, to spur communal riots in the country and divert attention from the Borders that were heating up after the Dec 13 ‘01 attack on the Parliament of India. New theory, but seems logical in it’s flow.

Plausible? To me it seemed the most logical/neutral piece across all that I’ve read.

The little known, or little publicized report from the Justice D.S. Newatia’s team, it’s been conducted a field study at the relief camps, talking to victims freely. While the report accuses the BJP of politicizing the issue, it states a few other things, which don’t exactly point to a genocide, or a pogrom of sorts. While you can look at the entire report on the link above, the Times of India did report the conclusions of the study.

Godhra carnage was an act of pakistan-sponsored terrorism and was executed in connivance with the jehadi forces based in the town,

:

The study team has specifically indicted two congress members of godhra municipality – Abdul Rehman Dhatia and Haji Bilal – for their alleged role in the ghastly incident.

:

“Given the dismal economic profile of godhra muslims, it was intriguing to find a large number of muslim youth mostly unemployed, with mobile phones,” said justice D.S. Tewatia, former Chief Justice of the Calcutta high court, one of the members of the team while referring to the unscruplous foreign funds pouring into the region.

To substantiate its allegations of a ‘pakistani hand’ in the godhra episode, the team claimed that there was a very high traffic of telephone calls from godhra to karachi before february 27.

Concluding the post-godhra violence to be partly planned and partly spontaneous, the fact-finding team said that backlash to godhra did not spread to entire gujarat but remained largely confined to those areas where the charred bodies of the godhra victims went.

Charging the local administration with laxity and poor riot-management and control, the team found that the police was outnumbered by the rioting mobs, who also happened to possess better weaponry.

“Socio-psychological understanding of the communal divide is lacking amongst the officials and they have no formal training in tackling communal tensions,” the team said. commenting on the state of relief and rehabilitation camps, the fact-finding mission said that though conditions were not “satisfactory”, it was largely so in the “unscheduled camps”.

Besides Tewatia, the other members of the team were senior advocate J C Batra, academician Krishan Singh, Jouranalist Jawaharlal Kaul and a professor of guru Jambeshwar university, Hisar B.K.Kuthiala.

The commission, while it points to several mistakes by the state/administration and machinery, it also presents some other points. (Feel free to read up the entire report on the link)

20. Adverse media reports about role of officials affected their performance and de-motivated them. Several officers were reluctant to take firm action.

21.Gujarati language media was factual and objective. Yet its propensity to highlight the gory incidents in great details heightened communal tension.

22.English language media, particularly the Delhi Press, is perceived by the Gujaratis to be biased. The information disseminated by it was neither balanced nor impartial.

23.By converting half-baked news stories into major headlines, print as well as electronic media widened the psychological hiatus between Muslims and Hindus.

24.By disseminating half-truths and lies, the media played no mean role in distorting country’s image in the World.

After this, I read about the Tehelka sting, which was perfectly timed to explode the the sensation just before the Gujrat Elections of 2007. Speculations abound whether it helped Modi or it didn’t. It did however, do its job to bring alive the goriness of the whole thing that happened in 2002, causing revulsion and swearing in my entire generation, caused by the spine chilling narrations.

The investigative journalist, recorded his interactions with said leaders of bjp/rss/vhp/bajrang dal, pretending to be a researcher studying the rise of Hindutva. Perhaps hoping to be idolized in the history of resurgent Hindutva, some of the men made some big claims.

Of the Tehelka Videos, I could find on Youtube titled The Truth of 2002 :

Babu Bajrangi’s statement that the FIR against him says he ripped a stomach apart….. and eventually that Modi helped him out by transferring three judges.

Then there’s Haresh bhatt, who was assured that he wouldn’t be quoted or named anywhere, when he said this. He apparently has a factory of firearms, preparing rocket launchers, and had ‘imported’ arson from other states including Punjab…and he’s also the originator of the ‘Three Day free for All‘ given by Modi.

The third one, Arvind Pandya, made a remark about the corruptness in the Nanawati-Shah comission and that he had nothing to fear of them.

While I might take some part of the story as truth, some of it seems more of bragging than truth. (Almost like b school essays of people – stories for a particular two-people-audience that nobody can/will verify). A story privately shared with a nobody could do no harm in self glorification – and no one’s gonna come back to verify it or censure me for it. So harmless extrapolations, like the drawing room stories of the great hunters or warriors – Just that these were caught on a sting.

And well, if all of Tehelka’s research is admissible in court, it would certainly clear out the case for quite a few people.These guys for sure would be well taken care of by the law. I’d be surprised they haven’t been, yet. Whether Modi is clearly implicated or not, remains to be seen.

Though with the indefinite examples of manipulation of evidence and people, I’m increasingly cynical/skeptical about the whole judicial/enquiry process. The ease with which witnesses seem to be bought, claims from non entities are used to attribute quotes to leaders – it just leaves you confused, disturbed and lost about the truth of the times.

The Congress Government at the center, refused to release the letters written by President Narayanan, using presidential priviledge, saying that it may not be in the best interests of the country. I wonder why this sense of responsibility did not come up when the gory details of godhra and post godhra, played out on the TV screens again and again, despite having the potential of spreading the disturbance to so far undisturbed areas.

So am I to believe the Tehelka Sting? Despite its not so honorable past, and despite the several holes poked in its theory? Much to shock/dismay, it was  sensationally and freely aired by our responsible media, even without cross examination of the points being made. Each spicy piece, magnified to whatever extents possible, to seem spicier

A bunch of Modi fans have put together a dissection of the Tehelka Sting, none of whose points I would take at face value. However, there’s some supportive evidence, including actual news clippings that validate some of the claims made. I can’t possibly validate all of them. So I’ll believe only what I find validated. If your opinion against Modi is really strong, I suggest you should go through that link, might just challenge your conviction, or maybe firm it even further.

In that pursuit, a first hand attempt to go through some archives, March 1, 2002, The Hindu reported,

“The Army units, frantically called by the Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, as the situation seemed to slip out of hand, started arriving in Ahmedabad and are likely to be deployed in the city on Friday.”

The riots started on Feb 28, and this is a newspaper reporting on the next day, Friday, March 1. The 3 day theory brought by Tehelka doesn’t quite match.

There are a bunch of articles from the Indian Express, one of which report the parading of the then Defence Minister, George Fernandes in the streets of Ahmedabad on the 1st morning, after he reached there at 1 AM at night. The archives of IE for these times, are surprisingly missing from it’s otherwise well maintained records.

The headlines in The Hindu on March 2,

Shoot orders in many Gujarat towns, toll over 200

AHMEDABAD, MARCH 1. The Army began flag marches in the worst-affected areas of Ahmedabad, Baroda, Rajkot and Godhra cities and the `shoot at sight’ order was extended to all 34 curfew-bound cities and towns in Gujarat as the orgy of violence in the aftermath of the Godhra train carnage continued unabated for the second day today.

So perhaps, the CM was making one statement to the press, and under cover, passing another set of orders to his subordinates. Wonder why, these pieces of press information, have been consciously kept out of public discussion… and not many in the media bring this up – allowing the myth to float around that Modi intentionally delayed calling the army etc.

And of course, aside of all this, there’s an allegation that the videos were actually shot under the pretext of shooting a TV serial and the select portion edited out.

Epilogue

The numbers presented in Union Home Ministry’s Annual Report 2002-03 said in Gujrat Riots, one hindu died for every three muslims. The total figure being 972 or so, with ~230 more peopled added after 7 years of being missing. It also said that, at one stage, 40,000 Hindus were in riot relief camps, compared to 100,000 muslims.

I wonder if the UPA government would’ve left a chance quote the REAL numbers, which, as many editorials claimed, were above 2000.

Surely these don’t look like signs of an ethnic cleansing by the state.

Apart from the 58 charred bodies in the train, there were several badly mutilated bodies of hindus found too, which the secularist media did not speak about. The police did shoot down over a 100 hindus in the first two days, again something which would be hidden away, since it doesn’t suit the state connivance or pogrom theory.

Riots happen, people lose all sense of morality, become brutal beyond imagination. There have been 400+ riots in Gujarat, small and big, from 1970 to 2002. To be noted, that Gujaratis have found better things to do after 2002, than riot. Perhaps, the minority’s too afraid to step out now. Whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know.

Ok, maybe, all this doesn’t complete or even convince enough. This may not lead me to a final answer. Perhaps I was looking for a clear situation where I could make a simple judgment. I couldn’t find it. It’s not as clear as it might have seemed, from the two polarized sides who don’t accept any truths but go on falsifying and blaming each other.

If you were reading through, expecting that I’ll create some theory to exonerate Modi entirely from the responsibility, I’m not going to do that. Blood shed, is blood shed, whether of a Hindu or that of a Muslim. If he’s guilty of intentionally not doing something that he could’ve, I believe, the UPA at the center, baying for his blood, (he’s the biggest threat to their continued power), would have left no stone unturned to get him out of the way. Perhaps, he’s smart enough to leave no real traces behind.

And till then, lets accept the ways of the Law, Modi’’s innocent until proven guilty. Let not the media judgments bias our minds all that much, that we feel embarrassed about it, or start hating him, without completely knowing the facts. (which I’m afraid, we never will)

The point to remember, for the average educated young man, irrespective of religion, is to not take everything told by the media at face value. Try being a little inquisitive, reason out, ask questions. DEMAND Truth. Don’t be fooled too easily.

–

Gosh I knew so little about the whole issue till I started writing this one. Now, I am not sure if I’ve found all my answers, but I do believe, I’ve found some truth, and a LOT of understanding of the situation at hand.

I do acknowledge that I have a right bent of mind, and that might have given more weight to the evidence for the right, than against it. To cover the same, I’ve linked to all my sources, and would welcome if someone can point out biases in the way I’ve quoted things, or drawn conclusions.

Republished from a Right source,  sure deserves attention

Excerpts from Varun Feroze Gandhi’s letter to election commission:

In utter disregard of the principles of natural justice, the EC has in haste and unusually censorious language, passed an opinion without:
a. Providing me a personal hearing (to which I am entitled even as per the principles of natural justice).
b. Providing me a copy of the report dated 17.3.09 and any materials on which that report is based.
c. Showing me or even seeking out for itself the original recording (if at all it exists).
d. Examining the authenticity or source of the tape that was sent to it which on a cursory glance shows that there has been splicing, repetition and interpolation during the so calledediting process as evident from the media logo seen in the footage. The short jumpy sequences also establish that the tape has been edited.
e. Independently applying its mind and conducting a thorough examination of the material (for it cannot be called

More than what Varun said or didn’t say, it’s the hurt and bewilderment of a loss of a Gandhi to the saffron that has made the media and anti-Hindutva politicos shout with such a venom and acid. He was not heard, not given a chance to present his case,neither the forensic experts examined  the so-called proof in the form of the CD. Yet the ‘Badshah’ declared his judgement. Some justice in our age is this.

Yet, Varun has suddenly dwarfed  the high-media supported Rahul. Phew!

—

And incidentally, while Varun is all over the media Mr. Imran Kidwai, who’s the Chief of Minority Cell of the Congress, has been given a notice by the EC too, for making inflammatory speeches as Varun, but that doesn’t seem to interest mainstream media to highlight as much, because they don’t get to villainize the BJP with that.

Of course, the SECULAR congress doesn’t demand votes on the basis of Hindutva, but on the basis of Islam!

Indian Express does mention what Mr. Kidwai said, but well, that still seems acceptable to our secular mindset.

“Main mufti nahin hoon iska mujhe afsos hai kyunki mufti log hamare yahan fatawa de sakte hain. Aur agar main mufti hota to sirf ek fatwa deta ki musalmaan ka BJP ke sath jana kufr ke barabar hai. (I regret not being a cleric. Only clerics can issue a fatwa. If I were a cleric, the only fatwa I would issue would be that to vote for BJP is like committing a sin).”

Wish people stopped being fooled by the Congress’s fake secularism.