Quatrain XXV -- 'P'OUTLOOK

Their repeated sex surveys ‘excite India’s dormant hormonal notions’

Their Do-you-know-how-to-pierce-your-nipples… hot special editions

Their stories, certified bastards of lifestyle and doctored fare

And yet, sting reportage is journalism’s infamous corsair?

* Written after reading Outlook’s latest cover story (Feb 6 issue) “Have we become a nation of peeping toms?” The cover has a khadi clad gent with a Gandhi cap on a swivel chair, with a bare shouldered bimbo sprawled over him, her skirt fighting gravity…. Hey guys, don’t call me voyeuristic! It’s just that the editors at Outlook found the photograph newsworthy.

Quatrain XXIV – OF TAINT AND TEFLON

Did you know Shibu Soren’s back?

Sitting pretty on his coal stack

Strange… for he only spent months hungering in Lent

Poor Antulay took decades to swim out of sticky cement*

* Congressman A R Antulay had to step down as chief minister of Maharashtra in the early 80s, after The Indian Express exposed his role in a multi-crore cement scandal. Antulay is now a cabinet minister in the Manmohan Singh cabinet.

Quatrain XXIII -- A DOCTOR AND HIS PRICK*

Mickey, his nipple stretching clothes

Dotor, surgical in his I-know-it-all goads

In this duel between the doctor and the mouse

Neither has won, but both will grouse

*Readers not conversant Goan politics may not be able to decipher the context in this quatrain. Sorry about that.

Quatrain XXII -- NDTV'S latest blockbuster 'Roy aur Rani'*

Once upon a time, NDTV** did deal in news
That Roy-Dua*** duo, were an awe inspiring muse
Then rigour drowned in the cesspool of fame and money
Out went the acerbic Dua, and in came the shimmering Rani****

* - A poor spoof on the popular film title 'Bunty aur Babli'
** - New Delhi Television
*** - Dr Prannoy Roy and Vinod Dua (both TV journalists) Prannoy now heads NDTV
**** - Actress Rani Mukherjee

Note: Written after Rani Mukherjee was roped into participating in a debate on India and Pakistan on NDTV along with Dr Prannoy Roy. Earlier Rani has also posed as a news reader along with her co-star -- in Bunty and Babli -- Abhishek Bachchan. It is very easy to be bedazzled by Rani's oozing charm, but to his credit Dr Roy outdid her in that department.

Quatrain XXI -- 'HAWK'ING HATRED

Sometime back, the Hawk* broke his beak

And with calculated innocence, came the Jinnah speak

Now harmless, the mob stoned the Hawk till he wreathed in pain

He lives yet, but limps, totters and only pecks at scattered grain

* This quatrain is an obituary to the original hawk of Indian politics L K Advani, who lived his early years by the doctrine of viciousness. As age caught up, he switched to the art of guile. And how he failed. Will be forever known to us as the inventor of the term 'pseudo secularism'. In his latter days, he literally lived up to his invention.

Waiting… while a fellow journalist seriously considers castration

You are seated in a small square waiting room. So square, you think the guy who designed this room, didn’t want to take a chance.
You are not surprised.
This here is the head quarters of a news agency. The biggest in the country. Nobody ever takes a chance here. Merit in this place, you have heard is in being solemnly rounded. No stories with jagged edges. The perfect story here is like non-sweetened pudding.
You continue waiting for a friend, who’s stepped inside the editorial section for an interview. He wants to be the agency’s bureau chief in Goa.
You imagine him roaming the streets of Goa like one of those bloated, huge castrated dogs -- the way agency journalists normally strut around. Big, but with no balls left to charge.
In a nutshell, you think he is willing to undergo a journalistic castration.
You have seen this over the years. Journalists working for news agencies are often prone to this perennial swelling in their heads, caused by chronic inflation of their ego. Even retirement is not said to cure this.
You have seen only one exception yet. That quick-witted Joseph John with those red-rimmed eyes from UNI (United News of India), who must be cracking some wise ones somewhere in Chhattisgarh, where he has been transferred.
There’s nothing much to do here. There are two benches. There is a flowerpot. There is a stale tabloid. You have finished the crossword. No, you haven’t finished it. You are finished with it.
Suddenly, there is relief. Relief, that comes in form of a pair. A pair of men. No they aren’t a couple. They wear staid trousers, staid shirts. And you haven’t even seen their faces yet. Their faces are hidden behind a pile of gifts. Just strikes you, that its nearabouts Diwali.
As they talk amongst themselves, you figure that these guys are public relations executives.
You curse softly.
You have heard before, that robots are going to take over the earth soon. These guys you think, are a manifestation of a similar phenomenon. They represent a profession – PR, that you feel will take over journalism sooner or later. The dividing lines have already begun to blur, you muse.
They sit next to you. They converse. You overhear. One of them fishes out a cell-phone from his pocket and whispers into it.
Voice I: “Come out. Come out. We are outside.”
You assume they are speaking to somebody inside the news agency’s business news section. There are two reasons why you draw the inference. One, because you have seen that several business stories that appear in newspapers are written by PR executives themselves. Two, because that’s what their conversation indicates.
Soon, the person on the other end of the call, steps into the room. He looks important. Must must be a journalist, you think.
Journalist: “Hey what’s this? Since when have you started giving this?”
You think the room is rather cramped now. Four men, three grins and half a dozen gifts takes up a lot of room.
You are pretty sure now, that this guy is a journalist. You notice, he is curious. You have been taught before, that being curious is being halfway there as a journalist. The other half is being able to look important.
Voice I: He he he
Journalist: “Bahut bhari hai (It’s very heavy),” you hear him say, as he feels the cylindrical gift, wrapped in glitzy pink wrap. “Daru hai (Is it liquor)?”
Voice I: He he he
Voice II: Take this for him also
Journalist: I know. He does not drink. Which one is this?
Voice I: Blender’s pride.
Journalist: Yeh kabse (Since when did you start distributing these)?
Voice I: Daru hi mast hai. Kya mithai khate ho (Liquor’s best. How can you relish sweetmeats)?
Voice II: The other guy is from Manipur. I have dates for him. He doesn’t drink.
Journalist: Go give it to him.
Voice I: Ek lafda hai (There is a problem.).
Journalist: Koi hai kya (Is someone around)?
You see them peeping out of the room in unison. Voice I points the guard out to the journalist. The journalist understands. He assures them, that he will send the other journalist across to them.
They settle down to wait. They still have one bottle of liquor and couple of other gifts left. They are patient, you notice. This is the race set to take over journalism. With such qualities they might just, you rue.
My friend steps into the room. They have agreed to castrate him. He is thrilled.

Quatrain XX -- QURBANI QURBANI QURBANI

Republic Day… aah it’s that time of the year again

When India reminds you of sacrifice, heroic and pain

Most times, the Delhi police also adds to the kitty of patriotic odds

By ‘encountering’* a dreaded ‘militant’; probably some poor over-dressed sod

* Encounter is slang for a shoot-out executed by a police outfit. The last decade has seen a host of fake encounters, where police officers gunned down innocents to boost their kill-tally or to inject a false sense of security. ‘Encountering’ is a word hastily put together for the phrase ‘kill in an encounter’.

Quatrain XIX -- SOLICITING GENERALS*

In India, if there exists a rule of law

Then its underbelly is surely ridden with flaw

And if we presume, that law itself is an ass gallant

Then perhaps we encroach on the Solicitor General's professional talents

* Written after Solicitor General Milon Banerjee and Additional Solicitor General B Datta came under cloud for mishandling of the Bofor's arms scandal case and allowing one of the main accused Ottarvio Quattrocchi to withdraw $ 4.75 million from his frozen bank accounts.

Quatrain XVIII -- THE BANIAS GO BACK TO PEOPLE*

The gloss is long gone

‘India Shining’, was BJP’s greatest con

Once doggy-bag bearers to the Ambanis and peer

Rajnath now returns to the ‘poor’, lost beneath the slick veneer

* Mr. Singh spelt out four priorities; keeping the party's image clean, expanding its base, strengthening the National Democratic Alliance and "struggling" on the streets to expose the "anti-people policies of the United Progressive Alliance." He wanted the party "to always honour Mother India, the people, the farmers who give us our daily food and the ordinary party worker who helps to take the party forward." (THE HINDU)

Quatrian XVII -- BITCH-DOCTOR*

That old doctor in a hurry

Usually never gets anywhere.

And now that push has come to shove

Like always, he will sit and crow

*Readers not looped into Goan politics will not be able to decipher the context in this quatrain. Sorry about that.

Quatrain XVI -- NOOSEPAPER

Can these newspapers be believed

Where news is long bereaved

Where marketing, PR, advertising is media

And Rakhee Sawant... Mother India

Quatrain XV -- A CONVENIENT REBELLION*

In the recent past, the humble farmer sowed duds

To him, Bangalore’s software tzar was one giant spud

Only yesterday, Gowda struck a fertile political patch

He can feel power now; both through the door, and up the hatch

* Former prime minister and Karnataka’s chocolate-headed rabble-rouser, H D Gowda sits pretty, after son H D Kumarswamy conveniently ‘rebelled’ from his party (a coalition govt partner) and staked claim for power, supported by the BJP. Things had not been cosy between Gowda and the Congress of late.

Quatrain XIV -- GANDHI'S GUN

Truth is still on the line

The Bofors probe was never fine

Vin Chadha died with a secret in his womb

And Rajiv Gandhi... we built him a martyr's tomb

Quatrain XIII -- 'I WILL MAKE HIM AN OFFER HE CANNOT REFUSE' *

Even as the Delhi winter thaws

And the UPA hems and haws

Quattrocchi flicks the cash, jumps the ford

And the Congress evokes the Omerta code

*Don Corleone in "The Godfather"

Quatrain XII -- LET THERE BE NIGHT*

That’s what a newspaper is reduced to

When news itself loses its reverence

To drum up a Hindustan Times Leadership summit

And then a Hindustan Times Luxury conference

* The title is inspired by HT's brand positioning phrase "LET THERE BE LIGHT".

Quatrain XI -- MEN OVERBOARD

Willy, Mathany, Sardinha,

Parrikar, Mickky, Agnelo

Aren’t they the anchors, which

Have weighed down the River Princess?*

* Grounded a few hundred mts off the Candolim (Goa) coast in the 2001 monsoons, four successive state governments have failed to tow/salvage MV River Princess (owned by a local mine owner) despite imminent threat to the fragile coastal environment. The distinguished gentlemen whose names have been mentioned above, are elected politicians who are responsible for the lethargy. And the probable cause behind lethargy is a miner, with mountains of RICH ore.

Quatrain X -- ALL IN THE FAMILY

Seems like Hindustan Times just made a clean sweep

With sprawling columns for Bhaskar Ghose, Sagarika and Rajdeep*

While the newspaper continues to hallow the Gandhi kin

Looks like the Ghose dynasty has also moved in

* It is certainly very unusual for a father (Bhaskar Ghose), daughter (Sagarika Ghose) and son-in-law (Rajdeep Sardesai) to author a column in one newspaper within a fortnight i.e. on December 24, 2005, December 23, 2005 and January 6, 2006 (info sourced from the HT website). A media-dynasty in the making?
Also, certainly not a part of the Family, but TV journalist Barkha Dutt too penned a column on the Hindustan Times on December 25, 2005. Some fortnight this!

Quatrain IX -- N'U'TWAR SINGH

Natwar claims, he’s an open book

But in UN's book, he’s a shady crook

Powerless once, eloquence was his foil

As a minister, he relished crude oil

Quatrain VIII -- AMAR STING

First Amar hollers, its Sonia’s curse
Then says Khursheed and Ambika are the slurs
None of these, parrots Dr K K Paul
A lone bloody sting operator… he did it all.

Quatrain VII -- WHY TEHELKA IS DEAD

Two masks, both alike

One old, haggard, the other bearded, stoic

Vajpayee’s fell amidst sniggers and scoff

Hey Tarun look, it’s slipping off.

Quatrain VI -- ADVANI, ON HIS ERRANT MPs*

Surely, they aren't criminals
Our MPs merely erred
The fools should have learned from Ranjan
Ranjan... Vajpayee's prodigious heir

* ...during the debate Advani termed the act of the MPs as "stupidity" and maintained that the punishment was "disproportionate" to the crime. (OUTLOOK)

Quatrain V -- WHEN BUSH COMES TO SHOVE

When God had a toothache

And hit 12 above par

On that very day, he told Bush

"Man... You must go to war"

Quatrain IV -- ON MISGOVERNANCE*

First they felt her up

Now they’ll drag her behind that stack of hay

Goa’s rape ritual is now politically scripted

The NGPDA will mount first and then the SGPDA

* Written after the Goa govt introduced a controversial bill aimed at enabling the notoriously corrupt planning and development authorities (NGPDA, SGPDA) to convert land holdings from agricultural to commercial purposes. If the much-criticised bill becomes a law, it could easily whittle down Goa's cherished green cover.

Quatrain III -- SWAYAMWAR

Manmohan, a sapless saint

Vajpayee, all mask and paint

Gowdas and Gujrals also ran

Will India, ever get her man?

Quatrain II -- BLOW HOT, BLOW COLD

Last year, if the IFFI*

Was done in a jiffy

This year, what was in store?

A tirelss, obliging whore?


*International Film Festival of India

Quatrain I -- ON EDITORS

These self-professed custodians of isms

Corrupt head priests of journalism.

For them, a groomed buttock is realism

And their unflinching right... plagiarism