 No body complains about a fast buck. But when the bears spook the markets truckloads of tears flood the markets and media.
This is akin to the theory of exclusion which Bal Thackeray propounds by demanding 50 percent accommodation for Marathi speaking population in residential apartments coming up in Mumbai.
Thackeray’s call is to builders working on new residential projects. So what makes the Sena leader talk such nonsense.
He could have been overwhelmed by the occasion – his birthday.
But that does not grant any right to any one to proclaim such ‘fatwas’. Now try telling us that Fatwas are for Muslims alone and that all Muslims are blah blah BLASTTTTTTT Sheep in the secular wolves’ clothing.
Now, a volte-face scenario. Thackeray reigns over Marathis and lords over Mumbai. His diktat is the law.
That is the constitution of the sovereign republic of Marathi manoosh, written, enacted and watched solely by the Thackeray clan and their cohorts.
So where would the builders find enough buyers. In a residential complex which has 400 flats, 50%, or 200 flats, should be allotted to Marathis.
Now, return to the age of reason. Almost 60 percent of Mumbai’s population is non-Maharashtrian, some estimates say.
And only less than half of that would be the percentage of Maharashtrians in the basket of immigrants flocking to the city in search of a better livelihood.
That is every day. That is despite the city’s sinking stature.
So if you think that leaves the builder lobby at odds with the presiding deity of amchi Mumbai, you are dead wrong.
These are political noises emanating ahead of a poll. Last time Sena lost seven-odd seats than it had the previous time it lost, albeit in the whole of Maharashtra.
But that is only one part of diatribe.The untold story here is that Maharashtrians still make a major chunk of voters. And many migrants to the megapolis do not havetheir names on the voters list.
It is not about illegal migrants of the Bangladeshi kind alone. But affluent people who have most of the papers and still do not bother to get into the voters’ list.
When that happens, the Bal Thackerays , Ranes and Deshmukhs, of this crumbling city would adorn history books.
Or may be even chucked out of them.
premub@gmail.com
 Mighty resolutions and uneasy hang overs ushered in 2008, the year of the rat as per the Chinese calendar. It is another matter that as per the Western calendar it starts its countdown only from February 7. The hard-working rat peruses its agenda with missionary zeal, it seems.
So what is up for grabs in the year that commemorates the rat. Four state polls in India and the rat race for the top post in the White House will dole out comic relief to television audiences in 2008.
The Indian cricket team got a battering Down Under, but seems to be riding on a wave of moral high-ground to bounce back from the Boxing Day debacle. At Perth, they are fighting back.The rat’s year will see a new US president. The race for the Democratic and Republican nominations is on with the former unleashing all the drama in the contest between a woman and a Black.
On Nov 4, America’s 200 million eligible voters can exercise the option to vote either of them, or a Republican candidate once again, to the White House. Either way, all elements of a humdinger soap are assured.Cheers for those chasing eyeballs – yours and mine.The idiot box then will have plush drama in the form of warring cricket leagues IPL and ICL. Do not faint thinking about the $1 billion pouring in to the swollen coffers of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. Its a win all situation. More people in India would watch IPL’s Bonzai format than Olympics across the Great Wall.Â
Last heard, the willow is catching up in communist China, whether Hu and his fellow comrades like it or not. Hopefully, they may not crack the whip on the willow.Then the cute little demon that Ratan Tata unleashed may flood desi streets. While that would be a dream come true for the aam admi, the flip side is that it would definitely be a disaster vis-à -vis the country’s creaky infrastructure.Take a bet, there’s no solution for our infrastructure woes. It can only be built from scratch after it crumbles. Like Japan after World War II.
So the aam admi, whose ride with a family of four precariously clinging on to the freak mechanics of two wheels moved Ratan Tata and sowed the seeds of the People’s car, will have a not-so jolly-ride in alarming traffic.
At some point of time, if most of the cities would come to such a standstill that traffic would have to be cleared by airlifting people and automobiles, do not blame Ratan Tata.
If there are angry brawls on the streets, think that it is just a by-product of rage which is unassumingly human.Then there would be de facto bans similar to the ones Mumbai’s Virar local commuters are familiar. Some vehicles would not be allowed to ply through certain roads by mobs who take control when the administration fails to deliver. That is mobocracy.
The long-term off-shoot of this is that cities like Mumbai will crumble. Sad, we need disasters to build a performing nation.
Sure this year belongs to Rat and Ratan. Not Buddha’s elder comrade Jyoti Basu, not BJP’s waning deity Vajpayee, but it is Ratan Tata who deserves Bharat Ratna for driving home the most valuable point about nation building to his hapless fellow countrymen. He is missionary zeal personified.
The green e-book
No one is waiting, but this is to inform the stray visitor, the faceless blogger or the unknown netizen that this space is to witness some activity in the days to come. Welcome to those who have nothing worthwhile to do, no horizons to conquer, no goals to work for and no energy worth boasting.