Chandigarh united against polluting filmstars

Lovers of Chandigarh have united to announce tough measures to tackle the growing threat of those Bollywood actors in the City Beautiful. After nipping in the bud the plans to build a film city in Chandigarh, they are working overtime to ensure film stars and film units do not pose a threat to the beauty of the city, especially its air exclusively reserved for diesel fumes. There is a nationwide ban on cigarette smoking since October 2, 2008 but Chandigarh has been the leader by being the first smoke-free city. Though like it is nationwide, there is no ban or even the talk of a ban on selling and buying cigarettes. You are allowed to buy poison, but you can’t poison yourself in public. Not in Chandigarh, please. If you happen to be a filmstar, expect the law to come down upon you like it was Armageddon.

“People like Salman Khan and Ajay Devgan are not welcome here. They smoke at public places. We do not like it. It’s a smoke-free city which means no body is free to smoke,” Mr Sameer Agnihotri, the president of Churning Brain, an NGO dedicated to douse every flaming cancer stick told reporters at a crowded and smoke-free press conference yesterday.

The administration has fined Salman and Ajay for every cigarette they smoked since landing in Chandigarh. Salman and Ajay are understood to have paid after initial resistance, because the Rs 200 challan is loose change for their secretaries.

“They were not smoking in public places. When they smoked at the Kurali Railway Station, the public place wasn’t really public because we had rented it for shooting,” said a friend of Salman Khan, the actor who is so dirty he smokes at public places.

At the airport, Ajay was caught with an unlit cigarette between his lips. He was outside the terminal building. “You cannot smoke inside the building. You cannot smoke outside the building. So do you take a flight back to Mumbai just for a puff? In here, we fine you for just holding a stick,” asked a friend of Ajay, the other scoundrel out to pollute the City Beautiful, where only two-stroke autorickshaws are allowed to exhale toxic fumes.

Speaking about the nixing of the plan to have a Film City, a member of the NGO Hum Sab Log Beautiful said, “If only two actors could wreak such havoc, imagine an industry of such people. That will be more polluting than the chemical industries on the outskirts.”

“Snort cocaine. If that poor Fardeen Khan can afford it, why can’t the bigger, better-paid Khan,” asked another activist, “Film stars must stop smoking,” she said. Normal people can continue to smoke but anybody photographed smoking will be challanned. The problem with film stars is not that they smoke but that they get photographed doing so. But when you can drink yourself to death legally, why violate our rules to kill yourself so slowly.

“Smoking kills others too passively. In stead one should drink and actively kill others. Chandigarh has taverns in every sector. Drink and die. Chandigarh also has the highest density of cars in the country. That’s why we crash against the roundabouts and ride on the pavements. Of course you can't fault a drunk person for missing pedestrians. But pretty often they don’t miss someone walking by the side. Like that police officer recently. He killed three people in one go. He survived. But there’s always a next time,” said Ms Pammi Nikomson taking a swig of rum in warm water still warm in her imported steel flask as she turned on the ignition. Her SUV has a large SMOKING KILLS sticker in the back but one could hardly read because the engine roared and left a trail of white hydrocarbon smoke.

You talkin’ to me?

क़यामत हो के होवे मुद्दई का हमसफ़र ग़ालिब
वो काफ़िर जो खुदा को भी ना सौंपा जाए है मुझसे

Take action, says India. Nothing doing, says Pakistan. Then Uncle Sam tells New Delhi to take a step back and Islamabad to take a step forward. One step back and one forward means you walk, but don’t really move. This is the sum of all that has happened since what happened in Mumbai on November 26. Don’t you have a feeling that this game of overt posturing and covert pleading will end in a big nothing, that the not-so-merry merry-go-round is doomed to get lost in a maze of mockery? Amazing, how predictable the twins of August 1947 have become in dealings with each other! Primarily because the two have never really dealt with each other. India has dealt with either puppets with no real authority to make a deal or dictators with no moral authority to make a deal. Pakistan itself has been a puppet to Washington all its life and most of India's life was spent in snubbing Washington. Only that our recent tango with Capitol makes us expect more from the US. And some from Pakistan.

Who’s the boss?
When India asks Pakistan to act, who exactly does it intend to address? On the face of it, the question is directed at the head of the Pakistani state. Unfortunately, for both India and Pakistan, the democratically elected heads of state in Pakistan have had little authority. The writ of President Asaf Ali Zardari doesn’t run beyond his office. There is nothing unofficial about that now. His hand-picked National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani has just been sacked by his hand-picked Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani. Zardari’s left hand is wondering what his right is up to. Ask Sherry Rahman about what Gilani’s left hand has been up to or just check Youtube (do not if you are easily offended). His right hand has now slipped into the Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s left, as the Punjabi elite of the Army tries to show the Sindhi elite in Zardari its place in Pakistani power structure. Tribal Pashtuns, Waziris and Baluchis fight it out with Kalashnikovs, intrigue is the favourite weapon in the Punjab-Sindh war in Islamabad. This war within may cost Gilani his job, but Zardari is going to get weaker as days pass, making it more difficult for India to do business with Islamabad.

Kayani’s hand-picked ISI chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha told German magazine Der Spiegel that he was ready to visit India post-Mumbai attacks, as sought by Manmohan Singh and approved by Asif Ali Zardari. The next day, Pasha was found to be too senior to be sent to India. Everybody knows how that turnaround came. The Army tightened the screw on the zealous Zardari. No wonder, Gilani wants to be closer to the real power centre, instead of the fake one. He has the option. India has to deal with Zardari, who is increasingly helpless and profoundly clueless in Islamabad. Benazir’s death propelled Zardari to the top but just being the Mohtarma’s widower can’t ensure he stays there. The day is not far away when he hurtles down Margalla Hills kicking and screaming with nobody interested in his cries. Ask Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.

What are the options?
India has had the option to deal with the real power centre in Islamabad. After initial hesitation, it has done so most recently during Parvez Musharraf’s presidency. The villain of Kargil was welcomed, greeted and feted in India. The two countries made a lot of progress, the peace train moved and ties improved significantly. Then ennui set in this side of the border, while the other side became increasingly volatile as Pakistanis fought Pakistanis in America’s war. The country went into a spin; the dictator had overstayed his welcome in Islamabad; he handpicked Kayani and handed over the uniform, Nawaz Sharif came home and was promptly deported, Benazir came home and was promptly slaughtered. The drama ended with changed lead actors.

A democratic India sang paeans to the comeback of democracy and hailed Zardari who reciprocated by saying India lives in a corner of every Pakistani heart! Both forgot that democracy in Pakistan is an aberration; it visits the land of the pure in fits and starts. The latest fit has started to return to normality. This means blow-hot-blow-cold diplomatic ties with a neighbour you not only cannot choose but also cannot change, in either sense of the term change.

That’s no option
So is Islamabad’s return to dictatorship India’s best option? Well, you cannot dictate that. The second-best option is to let the Americans dictate all that. Make it clear to the world that we may not go to war but peace won’t get a chance until Pakistan turns off the terror tap. No free hugs and pointless talks. No cricket in Pakistan. Some Indian thinkers want the high commissioner recalled, a valid option, however harsh that may sound. All this has to essentially be the voice of New Delhi, not routed through a third party. India seeks a third party, in this case the US, to crack down on Pakistan while keeping its bilateral ties intact. Washington may be a newfound friend of India, but it’s the longest-time ally of Pakistan. Things aren’t any hunky dory to Islamabad’s west, so the West still has to keep Pakistan happy with dollars and other dangles. Do not expect London or Washington to do your dirty job. India must stop pleading to the US and posturing to Pakistan. It has to start doing. Action doesn’t always need to be military. We are at war in any case. Mumbai was an act of war but without the direct involvement of the Pakistani military. Hence, India needs to keep military out of its reaction. The country needs to be punished economically and isolated diplomatically. Stop doing business and be miser on sharing river water. About the guarantee of safety to Indian cities, remember the good old Indian Railways signage: Yaatri apne saaman ki suraksha swayam karein.

Lollipop Nation Wants Limited Offensive

जियें तो अपने बग़ीचे में गुलमोहर के तले
मरें तो ग़ैर की गलियों में गुलमोहर के लिये

It's remarkable that we have not forgotten Mumbai. The notoriously short public memory apparently isn't that short. But do not be too confident. This too shall pass. Mumbai 26/11 will eventually slip out of the front page and newspapers will mark its anniversary for the customary couple of years. Am I being too pessimistic? Well, if our past is any inkling of the future, this seems inevitable. We did forget Mumbai train blasts, Delhi blasts, Ahmedabad blasts and got back to our lives, each time, after a round of furious blame-game. Hindu hardliners blamed Islamic terror, Muslim hardliners blamed Hindu terror, conservatives blamed liberals, liberals blamed pinko-liberals, Arundhati Roy blamed India and India blamed Pakistan. Thank you very much, can we move on with our lives now?

So what has changed that we aren't moving on this time and insist on 'some action'? Some say that this is the first time terror came too close for the upper crust's comfort: Bombings in local trains were outrageous but South Bombay remained the heaven of fun. The rich could shift to five-star hotels if things got too hot in the suburbs. Now five-stars were not safe either. Hence, this outrage! This is too simplistic. The truer part is that Mumbai has shaken each one of us, irrespective of where we live. That is why this cry for action refuses to subside.

Nobody loves a war though everybody wants to teach Pakistan a lesson. Some people want it just to kill boredom. Some others say don't go for a full-scale war but go for a 'limited offensive', the latest entrant to our lexicon after the other side contributed 'non-state actors'. What if the 'limited' crosses the limit and turns into an all-out war? Few have answers to that because even God wouldn't want the so-called limited offensive to turn into the world's first nuclear war between two third world countries still struggling to feed over a billion hungry stomachs.

So it is better the limited stays limited. There is a chance of that happening. Take this scenario: India strikes at a few terrorist camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Those Lashkar loonies aren't that mad, they have left those camps by now. Some civilians and their goats are killed. Pakistan screams murder. We scream revenge. No harm done. Angry Indians are happy that something was done. The worried world pleads us to go back to the talks table. There is bonhomie of cricket matches and emotional speeches about how people of these two countries love each other and how politics is playing them against each other. Jhappis, pappis and candlelight vigils at the Wagah Border follow. So sugary sweet.

It doesn't last, however. Another series of blasts rips through the bonhomie. Another Mumbai, in another city. I do not believe the pop theory that Pakistani citizenry loves Indians and vice versa. I am equally wary of accepting that they want to kill and maim Indians and bleed us by a thousand cuts. The common man on both sides has no love lost for the one across the border. But he doesn't hate the 'enemy' common man either. The common man is busy building a better future for his family. It is the uncommon man, the military elite in Pakistan that has made hating us their business, the easy route to claim authority and share the booty in increased defence budgets and American billions. They also hold a grudge against us because they have had a bloody nose at least three times in the past. The ISI, part of the Army, hates us from the bottom of its gut, Kashmir-centric terror groups like Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen have been at war with us and the Osama-inspired jehad factory would love to see us writhing in pain.

Zardari's non-state actors write the script in blood and stage it in Afghanistan and India and even inside Pakistan, while the Pakistani political class watches the dance of death from the gallery. In the event of a limited offensive from this side of the Radcliffe line, the real India-haters will not be harmed. The state actors will get hurt while non-state actors will get new excuses to fool the common Pakistani into justifying their war against India. A jobless and desperate young man like Ajmal Kasab will even take up arms on their behalf and come to die in India. Since Kasab has lived to sing, the next Kasab will come with explosives strapped to his body to make sure he dies before he kills. We will blame Pakistan and Pakistan will promptly deny. And we will go back to where we began.

Some Indians love the Bush strategy: There has been no terrorist attack in America since 9/11. It's true that the US took the war to the enemy's territory to keep its homeland safe. The phrase 'Bush Strategy' is part oxymoronic and the strategy plain moronic. The result of the strategy is that more Americans have died avenging 9/11 than those killed on 9/11. Americans continue to die in Iraq and Afghanistan almost every day.

Does it mean we will never be safe in our own country? Not at all. It is time we gave our internal security apparatus a thorough overhaul. The Prime Minister has just met state leaders to overhaul the security infrastructure. Some policies, including a new law, have been announced. The National Investigation Agency has begun taking shape. But we have had laws and investigating agencies before this. The key is implementation on the ground, strict and unbiased. It's simpler than limited offensive but needs unlimited political will and constant vigil. Are we up to it?