Witnessing A Part Of Gruesome History

Wednesday isn’t a day when you would  like to  attend a party .It sits right in the middle of the week and for people like me ,more often than not passes off uneventfully .It almost never is a party day in Jaipur –a city which has a magnificent social and party circuit and I was a bit surprised when my dear friend Ashok phoned me and invited me and Sangeeta for dinner and drinks at one of Jaipurs most happening restaurants .It was a rooftop restaurant and very popular with the youngsters because it has a dance floor as well .

“Whats the occasion Ashok?” I asked

“Kuch nahin –just a “bahaanaa for having drinks and food” he laughed !

“But why on Wednesday?” I persisted .

“ Yaar ye  Principal wale questions mat poochoh” he said .Ashok was a senior bureaucrat and a very well known one at that .He and his lovely wife Aradhana had become very close friends over  the years .

To be very honest –I was reluctant to attend the party .I was on a comeback trail as far as my health was  concerned and was on a very disciplined and restricted  diet. I  had almost given up drinking .Only the previous year I had barely managed to survive after being  in the ICU for 15 days  .But I just did not have the heart to refuse .

Ashok is a great host and we landed at his party .The dress code very specifically had been spelt out by his wife  Aradhana . “Dress as you used to when you were in the University” she had said .I ignored the dress code and went to the party in a coat and a tie .

“Oh my God Kullu.Dont tell me you dressed so formally when you were in Delhi University” cooed the ever effervescent Jaishree  .Before I could respond my good friend Ajit  made a entry – with a “jholaah”(bag) ,a crumpled kurta ,Kolhapuri chappals ,Jeans and a cigarette dangling from his mouth –a la Marlon Brando in the movie “On the Waterfront”.!!He was a alumnus of the JNU !! It was about 9.30 pm and the drinks and the snacks had started to circulate quickly .Very soon the dance floor came to life with songs of the byegone era. “ Mai Chali mai chali dekho pyaar ki gali, Koi rokeh na mujhe ,mai chali mai chali”  and songs like that .

The cream of Jaipur was present .Very soon the DGP  walked in .And so did page 3 crowd  -everyone who is someone in Jaipur !! We soon realized it was Aradhanas Birthday !! The party was celebrating the day she came into the world .

I still remember the date .It was  26/11 .

In Mumbai ,while we partied ,Ajmal Kasab and his gang of 10 terrorists had slipped into India At about  9.30 pm ,two of them  had gone on a rampage at the Leopold Cafe ,killing 10 people and injuring several ,while Ajmal Kasab and Ismail went beserk at  Chattrapati Railway Station killing 52 and injuring 109 people .They were finally intercepted at Girgaum Chowpatty . 

At Girgaum Chowpatty one of the great sacrifices in contemporary history, was taking place .Policeman Tukaram  Omble was an ASI with the Mumbai Police. His team was under-equipped for the attack, but he  managed to kill one terrorist and arrest the only terrorist taken alive - Ajmal Kasab. Unarmed, Omble  with only a laathi as his weapon  rushed to hold onto the rifle butt of  Ajmal Kasab, enabling other officers to apprehend him.With the barrel of the gun held by his hand and against his stomach ,Omble must have known it was a one sided affair .  Ajmal  pulled the trigger and fired several shots,piercing his intestines , killing him .A brave son of India passed into history 

 The other cowardly  terrorists had entered the Taj Hotel and the Trident Hotel .

We were unaware of anything .I floated around and stopped to exchange pleasantries with the DGP –Mr Bains .He was a very kind and sage looking man and very modest .I moved on to the other guests .Very soon we were on the dance floor –trying to shake a leg or two .

Ashok was next to me .And so was Ajit .Someone came and tapped Ashok on his shoulders .He excused himself .I saw him make his way towards Mr Bains the DGP .They both appeared serious .Ashok was bent with his ear close to Mr Bains lips –the music was loud and apparently he was finding it difficult to hear what the DGP was saying .He then escorted him towards the door and disappeared .

Someone was serving prawns along with the drinks .I was enjoying them and the great whiskey .Ashok reappeared after 15 minutes or so .I asked him whether everything was fine .His words froze me 

“There has been a terrorist attack in Mumbai .And its not a ordinary one .All the states have been alerted .Mr Bains has gone to take stock of the situation in Jaipur and Rajasthan”.

By now everyones cell phones started to ring .My son Pratique rang up and said

“Dad –the terrorists have attacked Mumbai “

“How serious does it appear” I asked him .

“Very bad Dad .It looks it’s a big attack .And its taking place at different places .Its live on TV .My God ……… “ and his voice trailed off .

“What happened” I asked ?

“They say they are at the TAJ Hotel .”

It was then that I realized that it was a highly motivated and planned attack .By now we were all talking about it .The party hung up .We all rushed home .Pratique opened the door and we all rushed to the television set .The Taj was on fire and gunshots were being heard .!! And yelling with excitement and anger were the journalists who have become a part of our daily lives –Arnab ,Rajdeep ,Barkha and many more .It seemed we were at war .And it showed how 10 terrorists could hold a big country like ours to ransom .We were witnessing the making of history .!!

Kulbhushan Kain's Blog: Life -Its Not How Long -But How Good It Is .!!

Kulbhushan Kain's Blog: Life -Its Not How Long -But How Good It Is .!!: When I joined College I knew what I had to do to succeed .I knew what topics to study and what   were  the marking schemes in each subject...

Life -Its Not How Long -But How Good It Is .!!

When I joined College I knew what I had to do to succeed .I knew what topics to study and what   were  the marking schemes in each subject  .So all I had to do was to get  down into the “formula “ of cracking the exam .And in my second year ,I even managed to “top” my college !! But  I soon realized that life is not a formula .The unfortunate thing and in the very essence of it ,is like a Agatha Christie movie .!! You don’t know till the end who the murderer is inspite of having clues that point overwhelmingly in a particular direction !! In life there is no core curriculum .The entire curriculum is elective.

 The paths are infinite and the results uncertain.This uncertainity is the cause of great anxiety ,because we have always been taught in school and college about formulas which guarantee achievement and results  .But remember that College ,School,University is something you complete and achieve in tangible terms –marks sheets and those horrible looking Degrees which I think is the most democratic idea of the world (apart from death ),-the idea that all men and women are equal .Its like a fool telling another person “ See both of us have got degrees and hence both of us are equal !! We are on the same page !!

But life is not a college degree which you achieve and complete .Life is something you experience  .You learn from experience to live with a amputated leg or a tumor inside your stomach ,brain or lungs .You learn from experience how to live after a tempestuous one night stand with someone else –only to realize  that you have not let down  your partner  –but yourself because he/she thinks you are loyal to him /her.You learn to live with the fact  that your colleague who sprinkles  sugar and honey on you in private ,goes  and deviously tattles  to dumb bosses who think that “psychophacy” is art and one should have it .And then think you are inferior !!You learn to live with lots of money and then reflect that there is something called wastage and  that something is horribly wrong somewhere that makes you  “diet”, when  millions are dying of hunger .

You also learn to live with failures .You realize that you failed in the IAS exams because you were never good at taking those kind of  exams –but took them because others expected you to take them .You realized that you failed because as a fish your strength was swimming –but you were trying to climb a tree !! You realize that failure was a friend because it kept telling you “don’t go there –you wont like it ,go there –the other way”!!

More importantly life teaches you what the great Roman philosopher said

“As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”

Kulbhushan Kain

Good Bye Sadashiv Amarapukar

“Marun ya maarun ,maara jaoon ya jaan se maar du ,

Iska faisla kabhie na ho paayega ,

Soya hua aadmi jab ,

Neend se uth kar chalna shuroo kartaa hai ,

Tab sapnon ka sansaar use doobara dikh hi naa payegaa ,

Use roshni  mein jo nirnay ki roshni hai

Sab kuch smaan hoga kya ?

Ek palde me napunsakta ,ek palde mein  parush

Aur theek tarazu ke kante par –AARD SATYA .”

 I have never forgotten these lines  since I first heard them in the film Ardh Satya .It is one of the finest films  and  was made in 1984 by Govind Nihalini. The screenplay was  by Vijay Tendulkar .It starred the great Sadshiv Amrapukarl ,Smita Patel ,Shafi Inanmadar ,Om Puri among others .I was at that time just getting to grips with  dealing with the world on my own and felt like a infant who had been  separarted  in a mela  from  the hands and fingers that held  him.The movie raised the existentialist debate in my mind .The brave cop –Om Puri ,is hounded because of his honesty by a goon (Sadashiv Amrapukar) and criminals who work for him .The nexus between the politicians ,criminals and police is brilliantly brought out and somewhere in the middle of the movie Smita Patil (playing Om Puri girlfriend )asks him to read the above lines .Its one of the most poignant scenes in cinema and gave me goosebums (it will give you as well if you see it in the setting of the movie ).

Ardh Satya taught me more about Indias politics than any class /classes I ever attended those days  –till now .The brightest of the teachers of that film Sadashiv Amrapukar  is no more .Words are no substitute for anguish  -so I wont write something which I cant express .Many of his co stars are no more –Smita Patil ,Shafi Inamdaar ,Vijay Tendulkar .But this tribute is to the ultimate actor who played a villain with great panache –but in real life was a man with a heart of gold and gave up glory to pursue social service.Contradictions of life !! .A man signifying the the idea of. Ardh Satya –raising a question once again –are there absolutes in life ? Or are there only AARDH SATYAS? . Thank you for raising the question so brilliantly. 

 !!R.I.P.Salute .

Why Modi Must Be Protected At All Costs .

 Mahatma Gandhi was silenced by a bullet .So was Mrs Gandhi and her son Rajive(both Prime Ministers )  .The after effects  are well known –it led to  brutal killings as a retaliation .India seemed to be on the edge of a bloody civil war on each occasion .We limped back to normalcy because it was taken as a “internal matter” .However it  exposed how casually we take the security of our leaders. .That is what worries  common citizens  like me because any drift into lawlessness affects the common man the most .Law and order in India is very fragile .Anything (like the assassination of the PM) can upset the apple cart and create a situation akin to the “law of the jungle” .Is our present PM absolutely secure  ?

 Even if you hate Narendra Modi  ,we cant afford to lose him  to a bullet of a mad assassin . The stakes are too high .Why ? Lets  have a brief look at the comparision between South Asia (of which India and Pakistan are parts) and the state of Europe  prior to the First World War in 1914. .For many of you who are  uninitiated into History, a brief background of .Europe in 1914 is important .It was the year in which the First World War broke out .Europe at that time  was dominated by Empires –the Austro –Hungarian Empire ,the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire .It  was not a continent having independent nations (nation states ) as of now ,and it was ruled by monarchies .As the Ottoman Empire weakened(it was called the “sick man of Europe”) –states started getting independent .One of them was Serbia which became independent of the Ottomans in 1878.Serbia saw itself as the leader of the Slavs many of whom were under the Austro Hungarian Empire . ( Slavic people are classified into West Slavic (chiefly Poles, Czechs and Slovaks), East Slavic (chiefly Russians,Belarusians, and Ukrainians), and South Slavic (chiefly Bosnians, Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Montenegrins, and Slovenes) They had very little in common with the Austro Hungarian Empire which was basically a German speaking Empire .

 The Austro-Hungarian Empire and Serbia were neighbours, much as India and Pakistan are neighbours. There was no comparison between the military power, the economic strength and the political clout of the two neighbours: Austro-Hungary, like India vis-a-vis Pakistan, was undoubtedly superior. Nevertheless, tension between the two neighbours was rife, as in the case of India and Pakistan. Serbia-based non-State actors were secretly readying for a major terrorist strike against the Empire, backed by powerful forces within Serbia but out of government control, much as Pakistan-based non-State terrorists are constantly preparing for terror strikes against key Indian targets, backed by powerful forces within Pakistan, but outside government control. The Serbs were wanting to incorporate parts of Austro German Empire (Bosnia and Hergegovina ) into what they called “Greater Serbia “ Much like what Pakistan wants to do with our Kashmir(they already in illegal possession of a part of it which they call "Azad Kashmir"!!!!)  .

When a young band of Serbian terrorists slipped into Bosnia to kill Archduke Franz Ferdinand,(the son of Franz Josep the Emperor of A-H and nowhere as popular as Narendra Modi)  the Government of Serbia did not know, even as it is entirely likely that the Government of Pakistan did not know that Ajmal Kasab and his gang had slipped into Mumbai to target the iconic Taj Hotel. But, as in India, so in Austria, the suspicion was so strong that there were rogue elements in the Serbian establishment that were backing the terrorists, no proof was needed: suspicion amounted to conviction. Therefore, when the Serbian terrorists struck, assassinating the heir-apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne, the Empire needed no conclusive proof that the Serbian government was behind the assassination. It knew, as India "knew", that 26/11 was master-minded by the Government of Pakistan. And even as the Pakistan government denied any involvement in such cross-border terrorism and undertook to set in train an investigation into the dastardly terrorist attack, so also, a hundred years earlier, did Serbia condemn the assassination and offer to investigate and bring to justice those responsible. 

But Austria –Hungary  would not be appeased.The war started due to a unreasonable set of demands and the coming into play of the alliance system .It made sure that a war between Austria -Hungary and Serbia would not remain confined to just the two of them .

Modi is a very popular leader .Call him anything ,but one thing is certain –it will become impossible to prevent a war with Pakistan incase “non state” actors from across the border attempt and get him .The repercussions are scary if that were to happen .Listening to a debate on TV a couple of days back ,I was shocked to hear a very senior ex  Pakistani official say that all they need to do is to drop a nuclear bomb on Delhi and how people will shit (sic) in their dhotis .A nuclear exchange is very possible considering the inflamed public opinion and their love for Modi and the hate for Pakistan if something were to happen to him which is from across the border .

That is why –we must protect our Prime Minister at all costs .God forbid a Pakistani terrorist gets him ,there will be mayhem .There wont be a Third World War .We will bilaterally  bomb each other out of existence .

Kulbhushan Kain

 

Oh God -What A Mess !!

Our educational system is in a mess .We seem to be totally confused because we don’t know what to do .Do what about, you may ask ?The problem is in the times we are living in .The other day we went to a restaurant and one look around made me aware of the times we live in .There was  near deathly silence –everyone was interacting either with their smart phones or ipads .Even while gorging into the biryani at Gazebo ,people were eating food all the while talking over their cell phones .The name of the locality in which Gazebo is situated –Dubai Internet City !! Well that’s the world we live in .But the problem with education is more serious .The biggest problem in using technology is that if you use technology to improve the learning outcomes with the present curriculum and the present education system, then there’s a conflict. A huge conflict .The technology, information technology, is essentially a nonlinear tool. You can go to the Internet and search  just about any content .You can skip from one field to another by just typing in the address .However  the education system as it exists   is a very linear one.Its a throwback of the Industrial Revolution and is out of sync with the Technological /Digital /Computer /Space age !!

Education over the years has been fashioned like an assembly line. Children get placed on a conveyor belt that carries them from grade level to grade level.As if they all learn at the same speed . At each stop on the way they are receive the same knowledge as everyone else. Rather than become  problem-solvers, students are expected to simply absorb the facts provided to them.And the schools do that by charting a syllabus on a week to week basis and with old fashioned systems of assessments which fetches you a “zero” if you answer differently because it is not part of the “marking scheme” or if the answer is not from the standard explanation of the chapter .!! How dare you say that Indians ate beef during the Vedic and other ages !!Its not part of the social history Mr Kain taught you in your 11^th Grade !!

But  technology enables a new, nonlinear curriculum, one that emphasizes problem-solving over memorization. But such improvements are impossible under the traditional educational system:

When you take technology and place it in the learning environment, if you make it subservient to the current linear system, then the power of the technology is constrained and then, to that extent, it is not affected. Then its effect is only as much as the school system’s effect.

Giving children access to technology is important, but doing so will only have an effect if we make fundamental adjustments to our education system. If innovation is going to shape the way the world runs in the next 50-100 years, it only makes sense to shift how we prepare students to face that future:

So the important thing is to learn the skills of learning, to learn cooperatively. The old system says you are going to learn and you are going to appear for the exam.And in the exam room you are sitting like a living dead with fierce looking invigilators .You are sitting trying to cover every millimeter of your answer script and will be lucky if you can lift your head up for fear of being told you are cheating . The new world  is saying you can work in groups and learn and crack the problem. So I think we need to fundamentally change the way we’re learning, the way that we are being assessed and certified as well.

You may well ask as to what the hell am I doing to change all that after being in the field throughout my life .Well as long as CBSE and other Examining Boards change the way they look at the childs achievements –we can do very little .The brilliant students are always going to be the ones who can cram the syllabus written in books by the NCERT !! And sit in classes packed in a orderly way like sardines !! Good luck .

Kulbhushan Kain

The Sacchin Tendulkar Of Politics -Modi !!

I need not add to the adjectives that have been used to describe the speech of our Prime Minister .No words are enough .So lets get beyond that and move to what was the more substantitive part of what it did to all of us –at least to me .1. As a non resident Indian –it made me feel very very proud .When people phoned me up and told me that “your” Prime Minister rocks –it swelled my heart and chest .It is no secret that every non resident Indian is very emotional about his country .Never ,never has the National Anthem not given me goose bumps  like it did yesterday –even though Kavita Krisnamoorty sang it not too well .2. All od a sudden I realized what we as Indians had been missing for decades  –energy and optimism .Throughout Mr Modis speech ,I was imagining how Manmohan Singh would have looked like on that stage at the MSG .I could imagine a old scholar rambling with no strength in his arms and hands to wave and no timbre in his voice to make an impact .Would anyone have blown all those kisses to him ?3.The PM  outlined the vision in very very simple terms .While the rest of the world would be old by 2030 ,India would be young –we have 70 percent population below the age of 35 !! So the world is for our taking .We have huge markets that create demand .And boy I love the line when he said “Hum mouse ko bhagaate hain”!!.And of course when he said that in every state of America you will find every nationality of the world ,but you will find a Indian in every part of the world .4 .I loved the way how he accepted his background .” Mein chai peelaatein peelatein yahan tak pahunch gaya .Chotaa aadmi hun ,isleye chotti chotti cheezein ke baein meih soochtaa hun”!! So basic ,so grounded .There were many other highpoints of his speech –and he floored everyone .

One question remains –can he deliver ? He is a star .No two ways about that and if you don’t admit it –you are not seeing the obvious .But to get things in India moving requires more than a good ,brilliant speech .Amitabh Bacchan and Dilip Kumar are better speakers .And I would rate Atalji as a class apart as far as public speaking was concerned .Speeches are forgotten .At the end of the day work can be done only if it is first conceptualized  .Franklin Roosevelt wrote once

To reach a port we must set sail –
Sail,  not tie at anchor
Sail,  not drift.”

Many before Modi have have set sail .Many before him have remained tied to the harbor .Many have sailed –but drifted .Modi seems to have set sail and is not drifting !! As a Indian –I wish him good luck .He seems to be our Sacchin Tendulkar of politics .

Kulbhushan Kain