REBECCA DEVIN OR RABRINDER KAUR?

Lalu may rename wife to puncture Nitish’s Patna-to-Patliputra move!
Shakespeare not available for comment

Patna or Patliputra, Feb. 22: Railway Minister Lalu Prasad has decided to rename his wife and Bihar Opposition leader Rabri Devi. However, no decision has been taken on which of the three proposed names will be chosen: Rebecca Devin, Rubiina Begum or Rabrinder Kaur.

According to political analysts, Mr Prasad would take the wind out of Nitish Kumar’s move to rename Bihar capital Patna as Patliputra, the original name of the city. Though during Mr Prasad’s regime the city’s infrastructure did go back to the ancient times, historians are livid at the comparision.

“The roads in the ancient Patliputra were much better than what they are today. The only thing common is the cow on the road,” eminent historian Ramcharitra Rehman said.Lalu Prasad wants the Nitish government to change Patna’s name to Azeemabad, not Patliputra. This is seen as a move to cement his Muslim vote bank. The city was known as Azeemabad for a brief period during the Mughal rule.

“This is why we want Rabriji to become Rubiina Begum. This will show he can take radical decisions. He is rail minister and he changes a train’s name from Patna-Surat Express to Azeemabad-Surat Express. Bihar is in Nitish hands, so he can’t do anything. But Rabriji, he can convince, nahin? It will be the final proof that if he could he would rename things to make benefit the Muslim community,” said Anil Akela of the RJD, who is in favour of what he calls “furthering strengthening” the minority image of the party.

But Mukesh Madhur, Akela’s rival for the general-secretary post in Kankarbagh Koloni, prefers Rebecca. “See, we already enjoy Muslim support. We need a Christian name for Rabriji so that the other minority community does not feel alienated. Then we can think of Jewish, Sikh, Jain and Buddhist names for their children. His brother-in-law is Sadhu, and sadhus are Hindu anyway,” he told reporters at his office on Circular Road, renamed Janpath by Laluji’s brother-in-law Sadhu Yadav.

“By the way, how is Ming Wa Chung for a name? I am thinking I should also do it, there are six votes in a Chinese dentist family in our koloni,” he said.

But in the end, Patna Sahib (originally known as Patna City) may turn it all in favour of Rabrinder Kaur. “Patna City is Guru Gobind Singh’s birthplace and an important pilgrimage for Sikhs. And since Laluji is looking at Prime Ministership, he will get a good foothold in the north if he goes for a Sikh name. He already has Muslims in one pocket and khaini in the other. He just needs the Sikhs,” Sardar Jatinder Singh, the only first generation Sikh secretary in the party said. Earlier known as Jeetendra, he changed his name to Jatinder while working in the fields of Punjab.

But there is a catch: Rabriji’s is apparently not happy being treated like a train. To convince her, Laluji told her: “What is in a name, Sekspeerwa said once and I am telling you twice.” She rebuffed the move saying “Ghar mein bachche hain, aap thoda dheere bola karo yeh sab.” “Arre hum wo waala nahin, poet waala sekspeerwa bol rahe hain,” Laluji explained. He’s yet to get her nod, but Patna will soon become Patliputra because the ruling coalitions do what they please. Remember cities called Madras, Calcutta, Bangalore, Pondicherry, Bombay?

What if the terrorists made a mistake?

The investigation into the Samjhauta Express inferno may not conclude any time soon. And till it's done, which takes a long time in our country, you will see reports about thousands of 'leads'. Investigators will drop names of all terrorist outfits and their cousins. At the time of writing this, suspects include Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Inter-Services Intelligence agency of Pakistan, some Kashmiri outfits and their offshoots. Detentions, arrests and declaration of proclaimed offenders follow. There's a pattern in our investigations that is as disturbing as the pattern in acts of terror. Keep the mind boggled with names till it's occupied by other bothers or a bigger terror strike. We still do not know who were behind the 2005 Diwali bombings in Delhi. No definite clue about the Varanasi blasts. The Mumbai train blasts.

Is Mein Kasuri Ka Kya Kasoor
So what's wrong? "You know we live in South Asia, we know what our police and security agencies (are), you know the moment the leaders start saying something, you are supposed to produce results in consonance with what the leaders are saying," Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri told Times Now's Arnab Goswami in an interview. Pretty much admitting that investigations get coloured in his country. It's true for some of our own investigations. Take Godhra. The conclusions of the state police, under a BJP government, were entirely different from the conclusions of Justice U.C. Banerjee, appointed by Railway Minister Lalu Prasad. The truth lies charred somewhere in between.

Conspiracy Theories: I too have one
When truth is charred, we hang on to theories. Today's most popular theory is that the Samjhauta terrorists wanted to destroy the peace process between India and Pakistan. Since human life is cheap in the subcontinent, we need to attach some 'larger than life' purpose to even mindless terrorist acts, as if killing innocents was not heinous enough. What if Samjhauta wasn't the target? What if the terrorists wanted to incinerate Gujarati businessmen travelling by Ahmedabad Mail? The suspects argued with railway police and said they wanted to go to Ahmedabad. The railway police and a TTE (presumed dead) were telling the suspects they had boarded the wrong train. They told the two suspects to get off when the train slowed down. "The eyewitness ... saw the suspects having a heated argument with RPF personnel. They were arguing about the destination of the train. The men were carrying suspicious luggage," Rohtak Range IG Sharad Kumar is on record saying this. "The argument went on for 20-25 minutes. Finally the RPF told them they could get off the train when it slowed. The two suspects got off around 11.30 pm, 15 minutes before the blasts. On the basis of this eyewitness account we have made sketches of the suspects." What if they wanted to repeat Godhra and trigger another Gujarat? After all in the 7/7 blasts of Mumbai, Gujarati businessmen were the primary targets, according to one theory. Ahmedabad Mail leaves Old Delhi railway station at the same time (10:50) as Samjhauta Express. The two trains wait at the platform next to each other. If one misses the entry gate opposite Novelty cinema (the gate specially meant for Platform no. 18), he or she will end up on Platform no. 15/16, where Ahmedabad Mail waits. It's easy to make mistakes, when you have suitcases full of explosive material. Besides, the carriers were not seasoned terrorists. Else all five timers would have gone off. The explosives were not really meant to blow up the train. They were meant to just ignite the petrol, which would then explode and spread the fire. And finally, why would ISI or other so-called Pakistan-backed Islamic Terror Modules target Pakistani Muslims, even if they wanted to derail the peace process? Another Gujarat would be more effective to derail the peace process. The blasts united the two countries, at least in grief. It made them make statements of strengthening the dialogue, just not what the terror masters ordered. Just a caveat: this is just a theory, like the theories that police and government have dished out since after the train fire. It could be wrong. What if...?

Riding the Tiger
Great expectations breed great disappointments. Disappointments fuel anger. Tragedies like the Samjhauta fire also create a facade of India-Pakistan bonhomie. But behind the scenes, the bickering gets bitter. India expects Pakistan to take on the terror network. Can Islamabad do it? No, not in its lifetime. Terror is the tiger the generals have been riding for decades now. If you can imagine someone riding a tiger, you know the rein is an illusion. Islamabad can do nothing, if it gets off the tiger, the tiger will maul it or even finish it off. Can any leadership, military or otherwise, risk getting off that tiger? It's easy to go say things like people on both sides love each other; if given a chance, they would hold each other in an endless embrace. But people don't dictate the embraces or even the handshakes. Governments do. One of them is the government of Pakistan.

I and My Women

Mr Treehorn treats objects like women, man.
—The Dude, The Big Lebowsky


Men love women. Men love speakers. Women have PMS. Speakers have RMS. Popular size for the first is 40-24-38. The recommended size for the second is a minimum 500 watts route mean square (RMS). Measuring them in PMPO is considered blasphemy among people suffering from Human Gadgetophilia Syndrome, popularly known as Gadgetitis. I am a chronic case and it gets acute at least once a month, immediately after the salary reflects in the bank account.

Friends blame my lad status on that disease. But then they also can't see the huge difference between my last receiver and the latest upgrade. I do not ask them to visit the ENT and get their ears checked, because their wax isn't top on my priority list.

The next DVD player is. The remote controller with my latest Denon receiver came with buttons for a DVD player that works only with a DVD player of the same make. Now to fully utilise the remote, a Denon 1930 has been ordered. But that leads the existing DVD players (one for upscaling DVD and one that could handle DVD-A) to go down the same road as the last receiver. But my DVD players know they will be treated with respect. They will go back to the box they came in, wrapped with care, love and respect. They know they will not be handed over to a greedy kabadi (junk dealer). That's why my objects like me. And the feeling is mutual.

The moment I enter my house, I switch on the mains to give them enough warm-up time while I mix my drinks. My objects of affection enjoy my undivided attention, and I shiver at the thought of somebody actually landing between us, speaking in monoaural: "talk to me." Here's the most feared piece of conversation:

W: Talk to me, no?
M: What?
W: Anything.
M: Well, ask me something!
W: Anything. These days, you don't speak only.

During this conversation, M is fingering the Setup button cluster on his Universal Remote… wondering if he could change W's voice a little; bring down the highs by about 10 dB and mids by about 4. Tweak the bass a little. W thinks they have fidelity issues. M thinks he has hi-fidelity issues. Because the existing CD player can't match the soundstage Meridian 808 CD player, he has been fantasising about since the last AV expo.
(First published in Maxim, January 2007)