Remembering Nani Palkhivala - The Man Who Never Became India's Finance Minister

Toba Tek Singh By Sadat Hasan Manto

Kickback Kongress !

By Manuwant Choudhary

Congress should be spelt with a K.

Kickbacks are not new to India but it seems the Italian government is more honest than the Indian government after they arrested their top CEO Giuseppe Orsi of Finmeccanica for having bribed Indian middlemen at least 450 crores in its 3,760 crore rupees deal to supply India some 12 VVIP helicopters.

This is not happy news for the Kongress Party which is not looking at the year ahead as an election year.

Not just the corruption but should a poor country like India give its VIPs a helicopter each for 313 crores ?

And the Kongress Party talks about India being a socialist country.

Bofors is finished but we all know how Ottavio Quattarochi was allowed to get away by the CBI and the government of India.

Still we want a Rahul to lead India ?

If I don't want a Rahul I don't want a Narendra Modi either or any other silent politician who sits in Delhi waiting to become a crorepati from kickbacks.

Nobody is really incharge here...thats the problem with India.

Otherwise how would a Yasin Malik, the JKLF chief, land up in Pakistan and share the stage with Hafis Sayeed, the Bombay terror accused. (what do all our bureucrats who sit at Delhi airport do?)

And then he talks like he is some Anna Hazare sitting on a fast and Hafiz Sayeed the humanitarian worker just came to see him and offer him a glass of orange juice.

No much good news these days especially when the headline says `Indian Economy Hits Rock Bottom'.

And when you see all the good news like it is in Bihar..its more so because of `media management'.

And finally, just a slight tremor in North Korea...only an underground nuclear test !

The Kashmiri Shawlwallah

By Manuwant Choudhary

A few days before Afzal Guru was hanged two Kashmiris came to my house and they were shawlwallahs...dealing mainly in pashminas and embroideries.

Of course, they were not interested in me....but I was curious to understand what brings them to Bihar.

I was surprised when they told me before them their father would come to Patna with the pashminas and in the British times their grandfather would...

They knew more about Patna than I did.

Even my family members..where they lived..who is unwell..who is interested in their shawls and who is not...who has left Patna...and also who has inherited the properties after someone has passed away.

And more.

If I was the Comptroller & Auditor General of India I would just hire them to find out the corruption levels in a state.

Like they told me how they have just sold shawls worth 1.5 lakh rupees....."Saheb, there is a lot of money in Patna..."

But they added that they still prefer the old Bihar where people came from decent families and recognised art when they saw one...

"There are shawls in Patna which are more than 100 years old and I am willing to buy them back for 15 lakh rupees.."

He showed me how to test a pure pashmina...pushing it through a ring....he also showed how it was easy to fool people who do not know about Pashminas....

I wondered whether they would have been able to do business this way if Kashmir was an independent country.

I also thought about Afzal Guru..what motivated him to drop out of medical education....get training from the jihadis..and help Pakistanis  attack the Indian parliament.

I am against capital punishment and I wish they were abolished not because I want the terrorists to live but because I believe the state killing someone does not really help.

We must really be a peace loving people if we want violence to end.

Not like the fatwas being issued in Afghanistan and Pakistan against `suicide missions' which says that killing even one Muslim is like killing the entire Muslim world (but what about those who are not Muslim?)

But the shawlwallah told me something I had not heard from a Kashmiri, "Saheb, the real problem is not Kashmir....the real problem is the partition of India..."

The American Terrorist

By Manuwant Choudhary

One more hanging in India - Afzal Guru hanged in secrecy in New Delhi's Tihar jail - and the Indian government wants us to believe that it is serious in tackling terror suspects and one would like to believe so but the governments response to the 35 year sentence to David Coleman Headley has been muted.

Is it so because Headley is an American terrorist?

It also exposes the United States governments own convictions in fighting terror.

Remember George Bush proclaiming they will find the terrorists anywhere in the world...

But this time the terrorist is on their own soil.

And the judge noted the different response the US government had in dealing with this dreaded terrorist.

Double standards in trying a double-agent.

And the Indian government too has soft-pedalled the issue....like the external affairs minister Salman Khurshid belatedly sent an extradition demand just a few months ago and that too half-heartedly.

Thats not how you fight terror.

The latest issue of Open magazine has an interesting story Headley's Mark about Rahul Bhatts friendship with David Headley...how they met, where they went and what they talked about.

His hunch that Headley was a CIA agent and how Headley would pretend he does not understand Hindi or the expletives being used at a Bombay hotel by Vilas Warak, a fitness instructor, who introduced them.

It also talks about how Headley liked Rahul and even warned him not to go to south Bombay on November 26 !

Rahul has already written a book `Headley and I', the movie rights booked.

Rahuls entry into Bollywood is eerie and how...

His father Mahesh Bhatt once offered him a role and the film would be called `The Blue Film', Rahul declined the offer.

He talks about how his father wanted to name him Mohammed but his mother and neighbours prevailed. Mahesh Bhatt says he shudders to think what would have happened to his son if he had been called Mohammed Bhatt !."

My Dear Norah, Welcome....

Future Prime Ministers of India

By Manuwant Choudhary

Indians and the Indian media seem more concerned with future prime ministers than the future of India.

Like Gujarat chief minister is attending the Mahakumbh in Allahabad with the belief that if the naked sadhus like him then so will all of india.

I am not so sure...and Baba Ramdev does not like the Congress but does he like the BJP?

But Narendra Modi really needs a dip in the sangam...

As for Rahul Gandhi's emotional speech at Jaipur, he said `when I got up this morning it was night'!

And the Congress Party really has not heard of a translator as Rahul chose to speak in Hindi and English to appease both North and South Indians. (such confusion)

But I did not yet see any brilliance in what Rahul said and am not sure how his speech made the grand old party reach orgasm !

Everyone including Manmohan chacha hugging Rahul baba.

The Congress Party strategy was to make Priyanka Gandhi Prime Minister but that Kejriwal fellow ruined it all with corruption allegations aagainst Robert Vadra.

But the BJP is also Poora corrupt and is so relieved to get rid of their Poortee President Nitin Gadkari (more relieved than getting rid of the Congress itself)

The BJP used to be project itself as a tough party - the only party that could defend and protect Hindus and India.

But with stories from Pakistan that their General Parvez Musharraf actually spent a night across the Line of Control just before the Kargil war shows how Vajpayee and the BJP slept like Kumbhkaran  in New Delhi.