Is YSR A Congress Leader Or Jagan’s Father Only?

revisiting lanes thru which one has been

The following is a year old. It was inspired by Jagan's craving to eat out of his father's soul. YSR, they say, had a soul. A decent soul.

One time on television when Tushar Gandhi was claiming royalty for some US corporate using Gandhi's name, one man in the audience said: If there is any royalty, it should go to everyone in India because he is the father of the nation. [I agree; Tushar, I don't think as your grandfather, he is worth even char-anna.]

In short, Gandhi can either be Tushar's grand-dad or the father of the nation; not both at one and the same time. In the same vain, if YSR had a decent soul and acquired the warmth of the people, the credit cannot all be 'inherited' by Jagan. At least, the Congress party would like a piece of the action. That is what happened over the past one year.

Now read on what I said a year ago:

First the big story: the Supreme Court decides to reopen the case against Union Carbide – the company responsible for the Bhopal massacre. The charges against the accused may be changed from criminal negligence to culpable homicide; just may… This is good news, but it seems that Warren Anderson is gonna go scot free. And Dow Chemicals will wash its hands off the episode – with scents from Arabia if necessary. Yes, the ‘itr’ from the middle east (and the oil) can wash any stain! Even Lady Macbeth's bloody hands....

When Tushar Gandhi Was Baffled

There was a show on one of the national channels some time ago (It was a discussion of aam janta with some big shots from media and politics and so on – with big-mouth Barkha Dutt moderating it). Among the experts, or stars, of the show was Tushar Gandhi – a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. The issue that was debated was the use of Mahatma Gandhi’s name by some U.S. company. There are a lot of ads in the U.S. (on bill boards) issued in public interest which say: Mahatma Gandhi – what did he have? Soul… Pass it on. That kind of stuff is ok, but commercial use of Mahatma Gandhi is not acceptable, to Tushar Gandhi. He said that the company should pay royalty to his kith and kin. One guy in the audience responded to it roundly: “Is Gandhi your grandfather or the father of the nation? If he is your grandfather alone, then he cannot be the father of the nation. If he is, on the other hand, the father of the nation, then the royalty should be shared by all Indians.” This baffled Tushar Gandhi and he retracted his claims.

My Father’s Son…

Mr Y S Jaganmohan Reddy is caught in a similar predicament. If the late lamented Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy is his father and his father alone, then he can claim his legacy. On the other hand if YSR is a Congress leader, the entire party has a claim to his legacy. This is precisely what the Congress high command wants him to be clear about right now. All this while, Jagan’s followers said that there is no clear directive from the high command: but 10 Janpath has responded to the poser Just In Time. It is now up to the dirty dozen who are behind Jagan to respond. Do they want to pay homage to YSR as a Congress leader, or as Jagan’s father? [Over the past year, the number swelled to 29; but I think that includes some MLCs too. -Ed.]

The AICC made it clear that on the occasion of YSR’s first death anniversary, district-wise meetings would be held, where the local MPs and MLAs participate – along with the district Congress presidents, and distribute Rs 100, 000/- to the next of kin of those who committed suicide after YSR’s untimely death. The amount is much higher than what Jagan has been doling out. At the same time, this is an ‘official’ ceremony which no Congressperson can miss. As the MP of Kadapa, Jagan himself is expected to take part in the meeting in Kadapa: that is the Lakshmana Rekha which he cannot cross. And if he does, he will be leaving the party of his own volition.

A brief history of what transpired in the past two months: Jagan meets the supremo with his mother; the boss tells him not to go on the odarpu yatra, that the party itself will conduct meetings. Jagan goes public with the dialog with Madame, and asserts his intent to go ahead with the yatra. “Soniaji said No, but I am going ahead with the yatra”, he told the press and media people.

YSR is a Congress leader to be cherished as such by all Congressmen and Congresswomen, such legacy as he had is not personal property. [But if Jagan insists on it, then the legacy will be proven to be dirty money, was the threat then. Now proven. -Ed]

Therein lies the rub: the Congress owns YSR and disowns his son who is defiant. And I always maintained that the supremo will not waste her breath talking about a nonentity called Jagan.

In tennis, a game can be won in four serves – 15; 30; 40; game. This time around when the high command serves (say, a show-cause to Jagan), that will be game, set, and match for Mrs Gandhi.[[Actually, Jagan capitulated even before the show-cause was served. -Ed.]

May God grant Madame Sonia good health and long life.

==

on a personal note

The less science we have all round, the better off we will be. I think Gandhiji said something of that sort. In fact the fewer humans we have on earth, the better for the planet: that is what the Voluntary Human Extinction Society tries to propagate. I am not a card-carrying member of that society, but there is something in what they say: check out www.vhem.org.

Tailpiece: Where do ants go in summer? Ant-arctica.

biologically, why doesn't the coconut fall on you?

As god willed it, the coconuts are supposed to grow within 6 km off the seashore. That is about all. You should not plant them in Hyderabad (or you should worry what happens if a coconut falls on your head). I don't know if the coconut's curse, aforementioned (http://sankarar.blogspot.com/2011/08/coconuts-curse.html) applies to trees (and fruit thereof) which took root in Hyderabad.



This is what happens ecobiologically. The whole idea of breaking apart env and bio is disgusting: so here is the example.

The coconut grows and yields fruit. Month after month, you have a person coming by and shaking up the loose ones, with one hand. You collect them and sell them: if you mix it with white rum, you get wonderful coconut white rum. In America and the west, they make it with the brand malibu. Booh hoo. I wanna make Masula Masala. About masula, a little down this blog.

Then what happens is only the dry ones remain, after the fruity ones are shaken away. The dry are swept away in a wind. Even the shakiest of them would not budge unless there is a strong appeal from the sea. The old and the bold.

They would never fall all over other people. They lived high up the top of the palm head. Heady?
Headstrong, maybe. But never hit your head.

Even in Hyderabad, I have seen an old coconut falling right in front of my eyes and I did not bat an eyelid. I picked it up, and kept it aside, because it is a good seed.

That is how we had a supply of coconut back in the agrahaaram.

Watch this space for Jayakanthan's "The cat in the agrahaaram".

Masula, as the Greeks Knew it

An excerpt from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masulipatam

The town has existed since the 3rd century BCE (Satavahana period) when, according to Ptolemy, it was known as Maisolos. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea calls it Masalia in the 1st century CE.^[2] The port is located on the southeastern, or Coromandel Coast, of India. Situated in the mouth of the River Krishna on the Bay of Bengal, the Masula port saw flourishing sea trade. It was a 17th-century port for French, British and Dutch trade. The port has a medium-size fishing harbour which can accommodate 350 fishing vessels and an active carpet-weaving industry. The other products from the town include rice, oilseeds and scientific instruments. This town is a railway terminus and an important educational centre.

==

the coconut's curse

back in the agrahaaram, in Machilipatnam, where I grew up, we always had many coconut trees in the backyard. Later we tried to plant some in the front and some by the side; of the four, only two survived. One died early, the other had to be butchered because it bent onto the terrace (or so my brother said: as far as I looked, it was way off the plinth.

what if a coconut falls down on one of us?

I used to sit in the backyard (the front was west-facing and obnoxious) among all the adults, and wonder if a coconut falls anytime! Another thing I was scared of was pralayam; they made it sound like it was irrational. Before Layam, pralayam has to happen. I don't worry about that much now.

back to the coconut grove

It almost looked liked that to me because on all four sides, for as long as I could remember, there were these overarching coconuts in the backyard and me wondering if one loose coconut would fall - on anyone of us... that would be enough pain for a life time. Later two lightenings hit us and we lost count; let us keep this biological and not make it a soppy boiblog.

The question is, what if a or the coconut falls? Who do I ask? Amma...
mother do you think the coconut will fall? If no, why no?
[mother do you think they'll try to break my soul...]

Mom told me that the coconut had a curse

I heard it first and the only time from my ma; I am not sure if this curse is a blessing, really; my biological explanation will follow, either in this piece (later on) or tomorrow (or later on).

Once upon a time, many people died of coconuts falling on their heads, and they suffered a lot. Palm trees did not cause trouble because they were tended to daily. But coconuts were a wild lot. And so the people who lived in the vicinity of coconuts prayed together; god appeared and asked what is the problem. They said here it is - in your creation are trees which grow wild and bear fruit which make no sense, and on top of it, they keep falling on our heads and it is a pain inded, me Lord.

The good lord thought for a bit and said, "Hereby
I curse the fruit of coconut not to fall on heads
human or cattle; they are free to fall when no one is watching
I ordain that they grow old and fall when there is a big wind to carry them farth
My diktat to the trees is not to bear such fruit as would fall on any passing-by head."

Thereby, said amma, there is no fear
The coconut will never fall no matter what be

There is no historic evidence of coconuts causing damage
Whereas palm-wine did much noise in the past and now

==

Jagan will eat chippa koodu

I think perceptive readers would remember the title (as above or something similar) some time ago in Bottomline. It was printed and published.

There is, alas, no search button in blogspot; I have to fit in some metadata myself, I guess.

What is common between Vive Kananda and Ramanujan?

They both vanished early. That is what they did, at different points of time. Osho put a stone on his grave saying he visited earth briefly (for all of 80 years)? And the whole of sex-crazed America is still looking for God and ecstasy.

Subash Babus is said to be alive, and May He Well Be Alive, in Viet Nam or someplace. His mission, whatever it was, is still unfinished. That is why you have Bharateeyudu even now.

But what did Vivekananda do? He came, he saw the parched earth, and he said: even god dare not appear before a hungry man except in the form of bread (roti). Gandhi then gave off his upper cloth to a woman whose child was hungry.

All of it, he did in 40 years and flew off. If you know what you wanna do and have a plan how to do it (a mission, as they say in the corporate world), you will do it in a quarter of the time it takes other people to mess around with others' lives and achieve nothing and vanish into thin air.

Vive, the bird, flew into outer space; and onto other planets. Holier than ours, maybe? More wretched than this earth? Maybe...

But before he left, he planted some earthquakes here: watch this space for late-breaking news and popular tsunami videos. When people realize God in the form of food security, remember it was He who awakened mother earth, and her children, to yield. More...

So did Ramanujan

In school we were told that Srinivasa Ramanujan planted a lot of landmines in math. This is what http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan#In_popular_culture is perceived as:
==

* An international feature film on Ramanujan's life was announced in 2006 as due to begin shooting in 2007. It was to be shot in Tamil Nadu state and Cambridge and be produced by an Indo-British collaboration and co-directed by Stephen Fry and Dev Benegal. A play, First Class Man by Alter Ego Productions, was based on David Freeman's First Class Man. The play is centered around Ramanujan and his complex and dysfunctional relationship with Hardy.
* Another film, based on the book The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan by Robert Kanigel, is being made by Edward Pressman and Matthew Brown.
* In the film Good Will Hunting, the eponymous character is compared to Ramanujan.
* "Gomez", a short story by Cyril Kornbluth, describes the conflicted life of an untutored mathematical genius, clearly based on Ramanujan.
* A Disappearing Number is a recent British stage production by the company Complicite that explores the relationship between Hardy and Ramanujan.
* The character Amita Ramanujan on the television show Numb3rs is named after Ramanujan.
* The novel The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt explores in fiction the events following Ramanujan's letter to Hardy.
* An episode of Ancient Aliens produced by The History Channel mentions how Hardy met Ramanujan. It goes on to mention that Ramanujan's work has application today in String Theory and might contain insights into future applications in science including multiple dimensions, wormholes, levitation and more.
* On March 22, 1988, the PBS Series Nova aired a documentary about Ramanujan, "The Man Who Loved Numbers" (Season 15, Episode 9).

Dushman na kare dost ne woh kaam kiya hain...

zindagi aur bataa tera iraada kya hain?

I don't suppose I can rest before I get this out of my system: Shabana said that people were 'interrogating' her rather than interviewing her.

The applicant sitting across the table is not a sinner or a criminal, or a woman of loose morals. And definitely not my girl friend.

I lost my job at Tumbleweed because they shut shop in India; I was put on PIP at Cisco for not being able to do excel sheets. Is that a crime?

aap ka kya hoga, janaabe ali?

I feel let down not because my judgment about Shabz - apparently - is wrong; but because I thought she would get a decent trial.

I was told during my inquisition that I am not good technically, to be a writer. Now I feel insecure!

That is several years after http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B11454_01/11.5.9/acrobat/igs115api.pdf

An excerpt: Oracle Student System Open Interfaces User’s Guide, Release 11i
Part No. B10522-02
Copyright © 2003, 2000 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
Primary Author: Sankara Rajanala
==
One of the contributors, Carl Vadnais, is now VP or above.

sweetness and light

There is too much tamas in this world; it is not darkness, as many think: tamas is materialism. Whether it is of the capitalist (consumerist variety) or the marxist type (long live the shackles of the proles).

Tamasoma jyotirgamaya: from materialism towards light. Wow. From 'being' material to eternal life, eternal light. Because light is the ultimate constant.

Because light is energy. Because light is the life force.

We will discuss sattva and rajas another time; suffice it to say now that rajas works out to something like 'work' sans energy. Routine, compromise, adjustments, squabbles, confrontations, skirmishes, and wars. And ruins...

Satva: the sublime; the formless, the light, the caring and the big deal!
I am not qualified to say anything more now.

==
oh black-eyed girl, what kind of a boy do you want?
I will set up the exact match tomorrow morn
when you wake up he will bring in tea to your dressing table
would you like it black and chini kam? with ginger? maybe chinese herbal...

songs of innocence
raj kapoor can be forgiven for killing directly or indirectly many women; notably, Dimple Kapadia. You would think it was Rajesh Khanna who did it but it was Raj K.

But he also sang (on screen): I learnt everything but to be clever. Hoshiari.
It is true, folk of the world, that I am unclever and choose to remain so.

songs of experience

I have anguish; angst.
I suffer pain in my worldview.
weltshmertz. Hunger
I suffer agony and ecstasy

==
end game

the moon shone on mrs potter and her daughter
who drink vodka with soda water
--
and beware his flashing eyes and floating hair
for he on honeydew hath fed and laid in his lair

for long. and now is out
to kill a mocking bird

who is paromita?

or, remembering paromita

What was she like? She was healthy and dark. She smiled adequately
Paromita cooked some veg things and all, and did dishes

Paromita Dev ruled the precincts she inhabited
Paramita? I never thought there was a negation of aparimita

Limited; is it a good thing?
Perhaps, in a limited way.

oh well, wasn't this supposed to be about 69 and woodstock?
or is this gonna be about maya chiburdanitze

believe me, I will talk only chestnuts now
no more interlectual coins and doubloons

it rained in the after noon

and the brother offered us an umbrella to get into the dining hall
that was after a look at the skyview palace from ground zero
sipping tea.
with me...

shabz liked it and said so but i am not sure
after we met harry at eflu which was after a trip to

The arts college;

beete hue lamhon

don't say good bye now friends
never no when we meet again

the kasak of yesteryears will remain
maybe in dreams we meet again?

-
father, oh daddy
show up once in a reverie
-

==
my youtube halts every minute; and it works fine for me
my translation and typing speeds are just enough to catch up
==

And so we stood on the platform from which krish shrikanth addressed us;
and one guy in the crowd says: ek cigarette de re (krish had a packet of wills in his transparent shirt pocket).
Around there and about then I listened to gaddar
And perhaps then the sarfaroshi and all that?

==

==

it is a long way and there will be a night
and so we went to the arts college station

the days of friendship and bonding we had during these colorful years
these faces and books and looks and the youth and the wings [winds -ed]

wherever we go the mehek will remain
and haunt us again and again

then before that was the chandelier, there was that argument about the blurb
and a possible bet; a threat. Babe if you lose, how can I win?

--
keep it like flowers in your heart
keep the fire of memories burning

it is gonna be a long distance
and there will be night [said before - ed.]

--
The time we spent together is the wealth
wealth of feeling and thoughts together
wherever we go - the mehek and kasak
will remain forever and ever again


and

Of Rakhi Brothers and Cousin Sisters…

In north India, it is common for girls to tie the Rakhi on a boy of her age for whom she has a sisterly affection, and call him a Rakhi brother. In the south too, this happens these days but not to the extent to which it happens in the north.

It is said jokingly

... that some boys avoid meeting girls on Raksha Bandhan day (the full moon day in the month of Sawan or Sravana - this year, the 13th, about last week: I was planning to go to Vizag, to get looted. My sis is reasonable, but her daughter is very demanding - and dr lalli, the sis, says, ok, sankanna, whatever your darling niece wants; and the niece is into big-time fleecing!).

There are a lot of jokes about boys with romantic designs on a girl being thwarted by the girl by tying a Rakhi on him. Interestingly, the convention of Rakhi cuts across religions: I have a friend who is born and brought up as a Hindu, but took to Christianity after marriage (to another friend of mine). One Rakhi day five years or so ago, I met her and her husband, with their children, and she naturally tied the Rakhi on my hand. It is much more meaningful than the friendship bands which are in vogue these days. It is much more expensive too - when someone ties the Rakhi on you, you have to give money, however less or more.

I have said recently, and I repeat, tie a friendship bond before the girl ties a rakhi on you: keep the relationship clean, but open.


This year, another girl I have known for years sent me an SMS saying 'I think of you as an elder brother'on Rakhi day. She could not tie the Rakhi since we were in two different cities. She is a muslim and Rakhi is not a part of their culture. Therein lies the greatness of India: that people across communities follow common conventions. It is sad that these common conventions tend to be the Hindu customs, but there are exceptions.

Years ago when I was in Singapore, I had a close friend who was a muslim: I kept the fasting (roza) during the holy month of Ramadan, just to keep him company - although I did not follow it to the T. I used to have coffee and tea during the day.

Talking of inter-communal harmony, I must mention this episode: Years ago, my good friend Salahuddin Tak was playing with color on Holi quite vigorously and one person on whom he was going to put color said don't do that - I am a muslim. Tak saab went ahead and put color, and said: "So am I." I can never forget the enthusiasm with which he used to celebrate diwali. He had a thing against New Year, however: he said it had nothing to do with India. May his tribe grow!

Cousin brothers

In south India, it is a common thing for cross cousins to get married to each other: cross cousins are your maternal uncle's son or daughter, or your paternal aunt's son or daughter. However, it is sacrilege to marry a parallel cousin (your paternal uncle's son or daughter or your maternal aunt's son or daughter). So much so that you address the parallel cousins as cousin brother or cousin sister. In the north of course, all cousins are considered brothers or sisters and marriage with any of them is anathema.
It is quite common in India to ask people when they say My brother works in Bangalore, Is it your own brother or cousin brother?


In Telugu, there is no word for 'bhanja' (a brother's son) or 'banji' (a brother's daughter): your brother's children are your children; they are your sons and daughters - not bhanjas nor bhanjis. So, when I propose to marry off my daughter next year (yes I am old enough) don't think it is my "own" daughter; it could be one I inherit from a brother.

Stop reading, if you don't have a stake in Andhra and pardesh...

Tanguturi Prakasam

It is not the case that I forgot to write about Shri Tanguturi Prakasam; it is just that I don't know much about that great man, except that there is a district in Andhra Pradesh named after him, and that he was the first Chief Minister of the composite Andhra Pradesh state. There is also an apocryphal story, which is likely very true.

He was a great trial court lawyer and on one occasion he was in the midst of an argument when he received a telegram. He is said to have looked at the contents of it and put it in his pocket and continued with his case. People came to know later that the telegram contained news of his wife's death. He was a man of steel and the Sardar Patel of the south.

May we have more districts in his name, since we cannot obviously have more of his tribe.

How about Dr J Geeta Reddy?

This is an open letter to Mrs gandhi jr. (gandhi and jr used deliberately to contrast with the Senior Mrs Gandhi)

apropos: appointment of Dr J Geeta Reddy as chief minister of andhra pradesh

But before we get to that, a re-look at an old post (on Bakr-id). Now it is Ramzan, but this one (blog) seems to be one I can carry into my corpus oeuvre.

Bakrid Greetings from Bobby George Abraham

Bobby George Abraham is a friend in the technical writing fraternity - based in Trivandrum, Kerala. He is a god-loving (not god-fearing) Christian. As always, as it happens with Bottomline, the Bakrid issue went out without greetings (without the feature itself, in fact). This morning, however, I received Bakrid greetings from Bobby George Abraham. It did not matter that he was a Malayalee Christian and I was a Telugu Hindu. The festival stands for sacrifice, sharing, and charity.

Eid al-Adha (in Arabic) or Bakr Id (in India) is the "Festival of Sacrifice" which is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham (Ibrahim) to sacrifice his son Ishmael (Isma'il) as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a ram to sacrifice instead. [Remember Tukaram, who was so engrossed in his praise of the lord as he was stomping on the mud for making pots that he did not see his little son getting into the melee and getting crushed? Remember how God returns all that he lost because of his unflinching faith in God? "Vithala, Vithala, Panduranga Vithala! Sarvam (all) neevani (you are) thalachiti (I thought). Karun-inchavemayya (why don't you pity me)?"]

Back to Bakr Id: the meat (of the ram) is divided into three parts: the fambly [I love that word more than family] retains one third of the share; one third is given to relatives, friends and neighbors; and the other third is given to the poor and needy. Or, the needful.

Holy Ramzan, Bobby George Ibrahim.

The piece on Tukaram above is added today; that is what happens when you revisit your oeuvre before it becomes work.

Has the time come for a change of guard in AP?

[At the time of writing the following, Kiran Kumar Reddy was not 'decided' as the cm of ap. In Bottomline, the column I wrote for about 6 months for Trust News, I recommended Dr J Geeta Reddy as the appropriate candidate. The idea then did not catch on: I think it is time for everyone to relook at that suggestion. I have not changed anything from the earlier blog, just to retain the 'topicality' of it. Read on...]

Speculation is rife that someone from Delhi will take over as the Chief Minister at the end of this week. In the Indian National Congress (INC), it is unusual for a minister or a Member of Parliament to be sent to the home state as CM. But we just had a deviation from that good tradition in Maharashtra. So also, people say that Mr S Jaipal Reddy can be deputed as CM of AP. I beg to differ: Mr Jaipal Reddy is not a true-blue Congressman: he dallied with the Janata party and then the Janata Dal for quite some time. Mrs D Purandhareswari is required in Delhi.

It is going to be a local, very likely a Telangana woman. If Dr J Geetha Reddy is nominated, remember that you have read it first in Bottomline – Trust News.

[This prediction did not come true, of course. I don't really care: it was not a prediction; it was (and is) a suggestion.]

work life integration; friendship day

First, friendship day

Guys, if you don't wanna end up with a rakhi on your on 13, from a special someone, now is the time to act: put a friendship band on the girl you are interested in. Later it can turn to love and such fun stuff.

But first off, a friendship band would warn the girl that you would not like a rakhi.

Limited offer on virtual friendship bands (until stocks last). Act now.

work-life integration

management gurus talk about work - life balance. That is a load of scum.

The real thing is: work-life integration. What is work? It is action. And life? I tend to think that life is what you know of this world. Karma yoga (work-life integration) is the situation when all your action proceeds from your life (understanding of the world).

Then there is no question of prioritizing your tasks: every task is a part of your life, your work: all of it has to be done.

What that leaves you with is a bit of help in time management: I don't suppose god almighty intended to pack more than 24 hours into a human day.

Give or take 5 seconds.