More than 359 babies have died in Srinagar's GB Pant hospital in five months. 35 newborns died in the last fortnight alone. This is the city’s only paediatric facility. Mind you we ain’t backward. We have two world-class golf courses in Srinagar. The grass at Royal Springs is of different shades with a famous par-3 fifth, professional 18 hall, par 72 track, besides comfort stations and massage parlours, not to speak of the ultra modern underground sprinkler irrigation. There are only three ventilator machines for more than 1700 patients in the nearby GB Pant. Must we cry or clap.
Newspaper reports quote over-worked doctors saying that asphyxiation has been the cause in almost 98 percent of the deaths reported in the hospital. It is no rocket science. The facility needs more ventilators and staff. Instead it will get red-tape and bureaucracy. It will almost immediately get a thick minister visiting the wards, expressing his sympathies with the bereaved families and praying for eternal peace for the departed souls. Departed souls: What a text-book mortuary tribute!
What about the infants who died? Isn’t it grossly unfair that babies must die in a tourist brochure state, where indigenous civil servants and government ministers outdo each other to be propaganda babies? Why should Kashmir’s lone paediatric hospital be allocated an annual budget of Rs 13 crore only? Some of the homes of senior bureaucrats and ministers cost more than that. Why, even chopper sorties to ferry the CM around (on non-holidaymaking trips) cost much more.
Indeed blame-hammers aren’t helpful when babies are dying in our hospitals for the lack of better infrastructure. But questions haunt: Just why do we need more tulips in the city gardens when we have no ventilators in Srinagar hospitals? Why is there no outrage? Why should the union health minister, a son of soil, not apologize? Why should heads not roll?
Why are we forced to cheer a million tourists when we should be mourning our inefficiency?
© Sameer
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Thursday, May 17, 2012
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Noori and I
Kashmiri scientists recently cloned the world’s first Pashmina goat and named her ‘Noori’. Omar Abdullah, of local genus Shera (lion) – a very Kashmiri codification of our political creatures – visited the animal this morning. (Dropping by achievements has historically been classy. Next stop: traffic light at Lal Chowk) The CM got a few pictures taken with Noori in his lap and quickly shared the same on Twitter, captioned: Noori and Me. While puritans would say that ‘Noori and I’ would serve as the compound subject of a sentence and hence a better usage but there are no grammar-fags here. Let’s not get Omar’s goat.
A Bakra (goat) camp has also traditionally existed in Kashmir. The current head is the Mirwaiz in a short boxed beard. It appears that his flock is kicking at each other and not holding together. Apparently an ex Persian professor (who was fired as the Head of the Department of Persian at Baramulla College on charges of corruption in 1986) is bleating the loudest. The classified US embassy in India cables to the state department in the United States (made available by Wikileaks) thus describes the professor: Has little political following in the Valley and has been outside India only twice in his life, a visit to Kathmandu and Pakistan.
The professor, prone to wild gesticulation of hands when he speaks, is backed by Bilal Lone, whom the US embassy calls one of the "four musketeers”. Newspaper reports say that the Mirwaiz-Professor-Lone camp indulged in a verbal slang fest yesterday with Shabir Shah, who as per the confidential cables, regards many of the Hurriyat leaders as "Johnnie come latelies". The meeting to decide if UN is irrelevant or bedrock – to the K-issue, whether to truck with NC-PDP-Congress or go it alone, sadly ended in a lot of yelping and bleating.
Ex-RAW chief AS Dulat, who has loads of friends in Kashmir across the political spectrum and is seen as someone who makes very accurate predictions, like Michel de Nostradamus, recently soothsaid that Hurriyat will participate in the 2014 assembly elections in J&K. That is Hurriyat M (not G. The old man is worth a king's ransom and won’t budge). Omar added to the drama, yesterday by saying, well my dad is on record in the state assembly that if the Hurriyat leaders were ready to contest the elections, the assembly will be dissolved to facilitate their participation. The ping-pong never stops.
Meanwhile scientists at the animal biotechnology center of the Sher-e-Kashmir University who brought Noori into the world say that it could be another six months before the region delivers another clone. Already we have so many clones, one daresay. Why make more? Goats are some of the most curious and independent minded animals, as scientists and ordinary folk would agree. However they have a special characteristic: that of escaping their cages and pens. Goats often test fences, to spot a weakness in it, and escape at the first opportunity.
The honorable CM should hold that goat tight.
© Sameer
A Bakra (goat) camp has also traditionally existed in Kashmir. The current head is the Mirwaiz in a short boxed beard. It appears that his flock is kicking at each other and not holding together. Apparently an ex Persian professor (who was fired as the Head of the Department of Persian at Baramulla College on charges of corruption in 1986) is bleating the loudest. The classified US embassy in India cables to the state department in the United States (made available by Wikileaks) thus describes the professor: Has little political following in the Valley and has been outside India only twice in his life, a visit to Kathmandu and Pakistan.
The professor, prone to wild gesticulation of hands when he speaks, is backed by Bilal Lone, whom the US embassy calls one of the "four musketeers”. Newspaper reports say that the Mirwaiz-Professor-Lone camp indulged in a verbal slang fest yesterday with Shabir Shah, who as per the confidential cables, regards many of the Hurriyat leaders as "Johnnie come latelies". The meeting to decide if UN is irrelevant or bedrock – to the K-issue, whether to truck with NC-PDP-Congress or go it alone, sadly ended in a lot of yelping and bleating.
Ex-RAW chief AS Dulat, who has loads of friends in Kashmir across the political spectrum and is seen as someone who makes very accurate predictions, like Michel de Nostradamus, recently soothsaid that Hurriyat will participate in the 2014 assembly elections in J&K. That is Hurriyat M (not G. The old man is worth a king's ransom and won’t budge). Omar added to the drama, yesterday by saying, well my dad is on record in the state assembly that if the Hurriyat leaders were ready to contest the elections, the assembly will be dissolved to facilitate their participation. The ping-pong never stops.
Meanwhile scientists at the animal biotechnology center of the Sher-e-Kashmir University who brought Noori into the world say that it could be another six months before the region delivers another clone. Already we have so many clones, one daresay. Why make more? Goats are some of the most curious and independent minded animals, as scientists and ordinary folk would agree. However they have a special characteristic: that of escaping their cages and pens. Goats often test fences, to spot a weakness in it, and escape at the first opportunity.
The honorable CM should hold that goat tight.
© Sameer
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Kashmir is gay
Before the knives come out, let us come clean. Gay used to be the same thing as happy and carefree before Englishmen sexualized the term in the early 20th century. Be as it may, many a commentators on Kashmir these days, in their bouts of journalgasm (happens by the Dal and also in Potato farms) think that there is some embargo on ‘being happy’ in the tiny little vale of ours. Pray, we never stopped lining up for mutton, even in times of daily gun-battles!
Now that the barrel of gun has fallen silent, weak sequels have begun. It is a very familiar curse. Basically Delhi based K-experts and journos from mainland India turn up in Kashmir like early summer mushrooms. They are NEVER sent back from the Srinagar airport. Well, to cut the crap, anyone eulogizing Bollywood and KFC is welcome these days. Kehwa will be served free along with a clutch of intelligence reports. Go, paint it rosy.
An evening stroll on the Boulevard, followed by a sugar-free latte in one of Srinagar’s new-age café’s, has its desired effects. The feeling is often happy high. Who needs liqueur? Suddenly Kashmir appears littered with yellow flowers, butterflies and all, someone playing Santoor in the backdrop (long silver hair blowing in mild breeze) and gentle natives sowing potatoes in a distance. The happy Kashmir of Yash Raj films.
Meadows full of yellow flowers sometimes hide mass graves in them. Besides the bustle of everyday life and hawkers selling their wares and kids going to schools in clean uniforms, there is a deep lament, not necessarily obvious to K-experts on early summer visits. And this loss is not physical alone – bodybags, graves, tortures, arbitrary imprisonments, orphans -- it is profoundly emotional. We have missed a step in the staircase of our memories. It is okay, perhaps, to want to look for it.
Surprisingly you have a horde of extraordinary gentlemen from the plains talking down to you in a patronizing manner. Like Andersen’s The Princess and the Pea, most of them terribly uncomfortable with the thought of an indigenous Kashmiri expression, young men and women, who grew up in the conflict, telling their own stories to the world. So suddenly having a memory is like dropping a condom in front of your dad.
Truth be told there is nothing wrong in ‘Moving on with their lives’ kind of pontification. End of it all -- the last credit in the cell phone used, the final group of tourists ferried to their Houseboat, some concluding quote from an IAS-walla, the closing coffee downed at Coffea Arabica with the same creatures you met at café Robusta, the question lurks. Does KFC preclude the desire for the right to self determination?
© Sameer
Now that the barrel of gun has fallen silent, weak sequels have begun. It is a very familiar curse. Basically Delhi based K-experts and journos from mainland India turn up in Kashmir like early summer mushrooms. They are NEVER sent back from the Srinagar airport. Well, to cut the crap, anyone eulogizing Bollywood and KFC is welcome these days. Kehwa will be served free along with a clutch of intelligence reports. Go, paint it rosy.
An evening stroll on the Boulevard, followed by a sugar-free latte in one of Srinagar’s new-age café’s, has its desired effects. The feeling is often happy high. Who needs liqueur? Suddenly Kashmir appears littered with yellow flowers, butterflies and all, someone playing Santoor in the backdrop (long silver hair blowing in mild breeze) and gentle natives sowing potatoes in a distance. The happy Kashmir of Yash Raj films.
Meadows full of yellow flowers sometimes hide mass graves in them. Besides the bustle of everyday life and hawkers selling their wares and kids going to schools in clean uniforms, there is a deep lament, not necessarily obvious to K-experts on early summer visits. And this loss is not physical alone – bodybags, graves, tortures, arbitrary imprisonments, orphans -- it is profoundly emotional. We have missed a step in the staircase of our memories. It is okay, perhaps, to want to look for it.
Surprisingly you have a horde of extraordinary gentlemen from the plains talking down to you in a patronizing manner. Like Andersen’s The Princess and the Pea, most of them terribly uncomfortable with the thought of an indigenous Kashmiri expression, young men and women, who grew up in the conflict, telling their own stories to the world. So suddenly having a memory is like dropping a condom in front of your dad.
Truth be told there is nothing wrong in ‘Moving on with their lives’ kind of pontification. End of it all -- the last credit in the cell phone used, the final group of tourists ferried to their Houseboat, some concluding quote from an IAS-walla, the closing coffee downed at Coffea Arabica with the same creatures you met at café Robusta, the question lurks. Does KFC preclude the desire for the right to self determination?
© Sameer
Sunday, April 08, 2012
Look who is here
Zardari is a hard and nailed man with a slightly off-color outlook. Apart from leading a local polo team known as the Zardari Four and owning a cinema called Bambino in Karachi, his only claim to fame has been his marriage with the daughter of the east. That graceful Ms Bhutto, who was sadly assassinated by some loser many years back. Over the years Zardari has made institutional corruption a byword in the Pakistan political lexicon. Not that others are saints in the land of the pure but with a president as smug as him, everything else dwarfs. And now Zardari is visiting Ajmer.
How this latest religious urge emanated in Zardari cannot be deduced. In any case there is little religious about these mausoleum trips. They are at best a cultural affair. Something that is more traditional than theological. Although it is difficult to winkle truth out of Zardari, one would like to hazard a guess. The TV chaps in India are going to go on an overdrive over the next 24 hours: There you go, as you can see only four buttons in Zardari’s Gala-band are visible. One hole, a gaping crevice, is buttonless. Is that a hidden message to Manmohan Singh? That kind of poppycock.
On my way to office this morning, I browsed through the Times of India App. The first news, expectedly, was the carte du jour for Zardari. The spread includes, India’s best newspaper informed, jaitooni murg seekh, kareli dal gosht, tori bhujia, sarson ke phool, makai palak, paneer jalfrezi, avail, vegetarian shami, murg kofta makhni and sikandari khusk raan. Desserts will comprise gur ka sandesh, phirni and blueberry mousse. And we thought Zardari recently got a heart attack.
There are other necessary tidbits likely to submerge the subcontinent over the next day or so. Jawaharlal Nehru’s great grandson, a certain prince charming waiting to be India’s prime minister (sometime soon) shall meet Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s grandson, currently being groomed at Oxford to be Pakistan’s prime minister (when he comes of age). Comparisons will be drawn. Rajiv and Benazir. Indira Gandhi and ZA Bhutto et al. The fine pedigrees. Firang girl friends. Caviar with pals, in foreign lands, away from the toiling masses. High office. The dynasty curse shall continue.
Some right noises about Kashmir made in a hurry and a threat or two to Sharif brothers invoked, Zardari, aleck smart and hair gelled back for hours, lands in New Delhi. To break bread with the gentle sardar, who hasn’t slept for a week now after some newspaper spooked him with a nightmare report about a Pakistan style coup in 7 RCR, since rubbished by everyone and their uncle.
Zardari, as supreme commander of his country's armed forces, should have been in Siachen where more than a hundred of Pakistan's soldiers lie buried in ice, due to the screwed up policies of leaders, tucking into blueberry mousse, a thousand leagues away.
Pity.
© Sameer
How this latest religious urge emanated in Zardari cannot be deduced. In any case there is little religious about these mausoleum trips. They are at best a cultural affair. Something that is more traditional than theological. Although it is difficult to winkle truth out of Zardari, one would like to hazard a guess. The TV chaps in India are going to go on an overdrive over the next 24 hours: There you go, as you can see only four buttons in Zardari’s Gala-band are visible. One hole, a gaping crevice, is buttonless. Is that a hidden message to Manmohan Singh? That kind of poppycock.
On my way to office this morning, I browsed through the Times of India App. The first news, expectedly, was the carte du jour for Zardari. The spread includes, India’s best newspaper informed, jaitooni murg seekh, kareli dal gosht, tori bhujia, sarson ke phool, makai palak, paneer jalfrezi, avail, vegetarian shami, murg kofta makhni and sikandari khusk raan. Desserts will comprise gur ka sandesh, phirni and blueberry mousse. And we thought Zardari recently got a heart attack.
There are other necessary tidbits likely to submerge the subcontinent over the next day or so. Jawaharlal Nehru’s great grandson, a certain prince charming waiting to be India’s prime minister (sometime soon) shall meet Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s grandson, currently being groomed at Oxford to be Pakistan’s prime minister (when he comes of age). Comparisons will be drawn. Rajiv and Benazir. Indira Gandhi and ZA Bhutto et al. The fine pedigrees. Firang girl friends. Caviar with pals, in foreign lands, away from the toiling masses. High office. The dynasty curse shall continue.
Some right noises about Kashmir made in a hurry and a threat or two to Sharif brothers invoked, Zardari, aleck smart and hair gelled back for hours, lands in New Delhi. To break bread with the gentle sardar, who hasn’t slept for a week now after some newspaper spooked him with a nightmare report about a Pakistan style coup in 7 RCR, since rubbished by everyone and their uncle.
Zardari, as supreme commander of his country's armed forces, should have been in Siachen where more than a hundred of Pakistan's soldiers lie buried in ice, due to the screwed up policies of leaders, tucking into blueberry mousse, a thousand leagues away.
Pity.
© Sameer
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Geelani's Karakuli
Ladies and gentlemen, the season of screwballs is officially here. All retards are competing. Yes it includes TV anchors and college drop-outs with nothing but nuisance value and gawky paunches on them. And they are outdoing each other to decide on the biggest loony of them all. The winner of round one is a sick little joker, who does not frankly dignify a mention, and whose only claim to fame is lunging awkwardly at elderly people.
Since they think that everyone outside their groupings – with abbreviated names such as BSKS and all – is a traitor, this league of extraordinary idiots is forever busy deciding upon the next gate-crash for their moment of glory. Over an endless diet of cheap Samosas, they have pledged to salvage Kashmir for India. Once the act is performed, some doucebag is send rushing to Bittu’s net café to upload the day’s exploits. Democracy’s trolls.
Geelani Sahib is an old man. He sure does make extraneous noises from time to time. Ofcourse we won’t throw our expensive phones into river Jhelum, neither shall we asunder our classrooms into male and female units. However that takes nothing away from our respect for him, for while he may perhaps not be the prophet who delivers us onto the promised realm of Azadi, only he has the gall to tell the emperor that he has no clothes. Upfront.
It does not take much to attack an individual. After all a weak old man, aged 83, surviving on one kidney, with a history of cardiac ailment, a non-functioning liver and bronchitis, stands little chance in front of a dozen thugs screaming like chimps on fire. With no idea or context of the history or narrative of Kashmir, leave alone its resistance struggle, they charge at Geelani, making a hash of his lamp-cap, besides kicking him.
A Karakuli signifies honor in our culture. It is not a religious symbol like a Sikh’s turban. It means a certain eminence that is part of our daily lives. Knocking it off an elderly person and stepping on it is no pride. I just don’t see how some street urchins from the bylanes of Delhi can attempt to rescue India’s policy on Kashmir through this hatred. The juice of their deeds is communal.
It also begs a larger question. Is this just a gang of louts behaving in isolation or is it part of some larger effort at hurling indignity where appeasement does not work? No matter how many tourists mistake horses for mules and not withstanding attempts of black-out by the free media in the world's largest democracy, aspirations cannot be abolished.
The Karakuli bows to none.
© Sameer
Since they think that everyone outside their groupings – with abbreviated names such as BSKS and all – is a traitor, this league of extraordinary idiots is forever busy deciding upon the next gate-crash for their moment of glory. Over an endless diet of cheap Samosas, they have pledged to salvage Kashmir for India. Once the act is performed, some doucebag is send rushing to Bittu’s net café to upload the day’s exploits. Democracy’s trolls.
Geelani Sahib is an old man. He sure does make extraneous noises from time to time. Ofcourse we won’t throw our expensive phones into river Jhelum, neither shall we asunder our classrooms into male and female units. However that takes nothing away from our respect for him, for while he may perhaps not be the prophet who delivers us onto the promised realm of Azadi, only he has the gall to tell the emperor that he has no clothes. Upfront.
It does not take much to attack an individual. After all a weak old man, aged 83, surviving on one kidney, with a history of cardiac ailment, a non-functioning liver and bronchitis, stands little chance in front of a dozen thugs screaming like chimps on fire. With no idea or context of the history or narrative of Kashmir, leave alone its resistance struggle, they charge at Geelani, making a hash of his lamp-cap, besides kicking him.
A Karakuli signifies honor in our culture. It is not a religious symbol like a Sikh’s turban. It means a certain eminence that is part of our daily lives. Knocking it off an elderly person and stepping on it is no pride. I just don’t see how some street urchins from the bylanes of Delhi can attempt to rescue India’s policy on Kashmir through this hatred. The juice of their deeds is communal.
It also begs a larger question. Is this just a gang of louts behaving in isolation or is it part of some larger effort at hurling indignity where appeasement does not work? No matter how many tourists mistake horses for mules and not withstanding attempts of black-out by the free media in the world's largest democracy, aspirations cannot be abolished.
The Karakuli bows to none.
© Sameer
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Akbar’s court
All hail the Emperor. He is wrathful and angry and his fingers slither. There is no particular reason for his state of annoyance. He gets angry for no reason and he drowns you in the choicest of abuse in chaste Kashmiri. There must have been a nursery of compulsory curses the Emperor attended. He is a complete natural.
Talking of fingers, it is to his credit that showing middle finger is again fashionable in august gatherings. Not that there are no females around but you see when the going gets tough, they say, the tough get going. Mastoorat due to sheer dint of the fact that they made themselves available in the court have no choice but to crane their necks and look at the ground beneath their feet.
You may be a Molvi or a miscreant, the Emperor’s vituperation is abounded. He sees no class or creed. He asks his men-at-arms to bundle you up like good old school ata-savaair (piggyback) days, regardless of your age. So the next time you wish to stand up on your feet and question him about the poor quality of his hair-dye, remember he can run roughshod over you and your observations.
And my poor scribes (the ones who sit in the court taking down notes, which I frankly reckon is a boring proposition) don’t think you are immune. Be careful with your quills and inkpots. Hell hath no fury like a bespectacled Emperor scorned. We know that you are just doing your job but bear in mind that the Emperor controls everything. Including you.
© Sameer
Talking of fingers, it is to his credit that showing middle finger is again fashionable in august gatherings. Not that there are no females around but you see when the going gets tough, they say, the tough get going. Mastoorat due to sheer dint of the fact that they made themselves available in the court have no choice but to crane their necks and look at the ground beneath their feet.
You may be a Molvi or a miscreant, the Emperor’s vituperation is abounded. He sees no class or creed. He asks his men-at-arms to bundle you up like good old school ata-savaair (piggyback) days, regardless of your age. So the next time you wish to stand up on your feet and question him about the poor quality of his hair-dye, remember he can run roughshod over you and your observations.
And my poor scribes (the ones who sit in the court taking down notes, which I frankly reckon is a boring proposition) don’t think you are immune. Be careful with your quills and inkpots. Hell hath no fury like a bespectacled Emperor scorned. We know that you are just doing your job but bear in mind that the Emperor controls everything. Including you.
© Sameer
Monday, February 20, 2012
Kierkegaard in my plane
On a plane recently, flying somewhere over the Persian sea, I buried myself in Kierkegaard, a gift by an erudite friend, whom I have come to like. The Danish existentialist whose work was hugely inflected by overtly theological colors (he attacked the Church but believed in faith and creator), claims that the praise of erotic love and friendship belong to paganism. In Kierkegaard’s other book Works of Love, perhaps, he contrasts natural loves to love for God, I recall. Thinkers!
From the corner of my eye I detected a bright orange glow had lit the wingspan up. Looking out of the airplane window at the unending, irregular clouds, I felt an urgent twinge in my heart. The big maroon sun had just set and the sky appeared like wounded twilight. Sometimes the beauty of nature brings poetry to mind, by itself.
I visualized stepping out of the plane, walking on the half-orange bits of clouds, singing Emily Brontë:
Love is like the wild-rose briar
Friendship is like the holly-tree
The holly is dark when the rose briar blooms
But which will bloom most constantly?
Ofcourse I didn’t get a chance to take the head-trip. Modern airplanes are very fast and they land smoothly even in cross-winds, even when the golden sand is flung hard and fast by a seriously riled God. Soon enough I was back in the opulent town, to the grind, with the predictability of everyday life.
In life there are situations, however, when you wish things you love to stay with you, by some magic. Some alchemy. It is hard to let go off some connections but the meaning of life is that you have to learn to unfetter. It is the invisible threads, that remain the strongest ties, Nietzsche the madman, once quipped.
I guess, I’d agree.
© Sameer
From the corner of my eye I detected a bright orange glow had lit the wingspan up. Looking out of the airplane window at the unending, irregular clouds, I felt an urgent twinge in my heart. The big maroon sun had just set and the sky appeared like wounded twilight. Sometimes the beauty of nature brings poetry to mind, by itself.
I visualized stepping out of the plane, walking on the half-orange bits of clouds, singing Emily Brontë:
Love is like the wild-rose briar
Friendship is like the holly-tree
The holly is dark when the rose briar blooms
But which will bloom most constantly?
Ofcourse I didn’t get a chance to take the head-trip. Modern airplanes are very fast and they land smoothly even in cross-winds, even when the golden sand is flung hard and fast by a seriously riled God. Soon enough I was back in the opulent town, to the grind, with the predictability of everyday life.
In life there are situations, however, when you wish things you love to stay with you, by some magic. Some alchemy. It is hard to let go off some connections but the meaning of life is that you have to learn to unfetter. It is the invisible threads, that remain the strongest ties, Nietzsche the madman, once quipped.
I guess, I’d agree.
© Sameer
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