On 2nd June 2008, there was an incident in Mumbai which will perhaps be a landmark in Mumbai's history in so many ways. since it allows me to show so many facets of Mumbai life to you clearly.  This incident was what is now popularly known as the Perriera Wadi incident. ( http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JTS8yMDA4LzA2LzA1I0FyMDA1MDE=&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom )

 The first view I would like to show you is the bleeding heart journalism which is so commonplace today. --- All I saw for weeks was papers screaming about the builder , politician nexus. All they talked about was how people were dragged out of their traditional homes in the middle of Bandra since the property rates had gone so high. Allegations were bandied and urban legends were born about this politician or that politician standing around with sten guns while the houses were being demolished. It seems like a wonder that no one alleged Sonia Gandhiji or Manmohanji or Vajpayeeji was there.

The second view is that of the average slum dweller -- This is the person who comes to Mumbai with a dream in his eye and an optimistic view of the future. Upon landing , he finds that there is not a square foot available for him to sleep. All he knows is that his brother or cousin or whoever has built a shanty on a dark corner of a BMC garden and there is a place available for him next door. He slaps a few tin sheets together and voila, the local politicians man turns up. A few thousand rupees later he has an electric connection. If he's very lucky , he even gets a water connection from (wait for it) the same BMC whose garden he has encroached.**

Mumbai has a very simple evolutionary cycle. I have defined it in the following drawing for pavement dwellers but it applies to all kinds of slums. ( Please click on picture for a larger image.) As you can see its a never ending cycle, with the slum dwellers who have never been used to paying for taxes, electricity, water and a hundred other things that you and me pay for through our nose.

The third view is of the local youths who jump onto any band wagon without looking too deep at the is sues. These are the people my column every week is actually aimed at. They are the youth of tomorrow who wish to do something but are being misled with improper advice. They are the ones who can perhaps make a better tomorrow if led correctly.

For example the Mount Carmel Youth Movement who has been so voiceferous in this particular case. ( http://mtcarmelyouthmovement.com )

The fourth is the builders lobby, for whom the razing of Perriera wadi was a ray of hope of a possible future course of event. The possibility that one day if a small bunch of residents in a slum ever blackmail them for astronomical sums, the spectre of Perriera Wadi will remain present. The ghost that theres a limit to blackmailing the builders after which they can be thrown on the street from land which never belonged to them in the first place.

The fifth view is the police personnel who are supposed to have been standing around and even participated while the residents were pulled out of the shanties. There's perhaps no proof that this did happen but if it did its one of the blackest marks on the already black face of Mumbai

The sixth is of the actual owner of the land of Periera wadi. For him, it was land occupied which he inherited from his father but which was land he could never use since it was encroached upon by the slum dwellers. He owned half of Bandra ( All Periera wadis were his) but died with hardly a penny to his name cashwise.  In reality a poor little rich man.

The seventh view is of the BMC. The BMC is made up of babus who move from post to post without any accountability for their previous actions. At most there is a slap on the wrist called a "suspension" which is a euphemism for "pull your head down till the s**t stops flying".

6 months later they are back to their old tricks.

The image on the left shows the state of a so called garden opposite Bandra (E) station which the BMC has failed to miserably protect and whats more has provided water to the slum dewellers there so that they can continue to encroach.

The eight view is of the politicians. The image shows the BMC garden as a dream of "Shri Sunil Dutt" which his daughter has relagated to the back burner instead of making it come true just for the sake of the masses of votes in the encroachment. 

The ninth view is of you, me and everyone, Mr. Joe Public. The people who pass by large tracts of slums everyday and don't even wonder who owns the very land which is under it. all we do is pass by and turn the other face since our maids, drivers and sweepers come from them. The picture shows how much of the area around Periera wadi is actually covered with slums and is land not available for Bandra and actual facilities that are desperately needed for Bandraites who have paid something like Rs. 35,000 per sq ft carpet area.

(what drives me up the wall is that these Bandraites are the same people who wrote blogs and blogs asking for support for the very same slum dwellers who are depriving their children of the green space they desperately need).

The whole problem with Periera wadi and the endemic of hundreds of Periera wadis around us lies in our whole attitude towards India and Indians. We have this habit of rewarding crime. Be it amnesty schemes for stamp duty, service tax, income tax or the myriad of other levies we pay to subsidse the other 98% who doesn't pay anything at all.

In the case of housing the situation is similar, what do we do with the honest house buyer. We allow the garden space around his house to be encroached by the "slum dweller" who when he has captured the space for long enough becomes legitimate and is then REWARDED for his crime of land grabbing by being allocated a flat on the same land.

I know that the right the right to housing is now a fundamental right, but at no point does the right mean the right to own , it basically means right to live in a house. 

We as citizens need not feel sorry for the "residents of Periera wadi" but rather we need to realise that "Periera wadis" will not stop till such time as we  stop rewarding crime, till we stop this nonsensical  scheme of giving away free flats. Under no circumstances should the slum dweller be allowed to own the very place he has grabbed illegally.

What gives the government the right to give away flats built with our taxpaying funds on land on which there was a park to be created for the good of our taxpaying public to people who are to all intents and purposes "land grabbers". If this land grabbing ever has to stop, the SRA should rather be converted to a rental rather than an ownership scheme.

Dont reward the law breakers by making them property owners.

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** At one time, I owned a "godown" in Periera Wadi. By the way, a lot of the so called residences demolished were godowns and other similar structures. The methodology of transaction was simple. All that was needed was a power of attorney which was handed down from occupant to occupant.

If I remember correctly I was the 5th or 6th owner.  No one questioned it, no one doubted it.

I paid approx 10 lakhs for it, and sold it for almost the same amount in a few months a few years ago, the current occupant I believe asked for 60 lakhs from the slum redevelopment people since by the time of demolition it was a two level structure occupied by a mother and son, who according to them were entitled to two flats. ( ownership not encroached mind you)

Isn't life fun.

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Folks, this week I am visiting Hong Kong and its been 9 years since I came here last. My last trip was in 1999 when Hongkong had just recently reverted to China and the difference needs to be seen.

I can sincerely say that our dear CM should forget about making Mumbai into Shanghai and concentrate on making it into a Hong Kong. They have similar problem to ours and see how they have overcome them. They have a small area ( HK is a group of islands off the main land), so is Mumbai. It has a large amount of illegal immigrants, so does Mumbai. It is a financial centre, so is Mumbai.  The similarities are too many to list here , the solutions adopted by both show us in bright spotlight the idiocy and buffoonery of our politicians.

Before 1997, everyone predicted doomsday if the Chinese ever got hold of Hong Kong and the Indians living there were packing their bags en mass. Come 2008 and I'm sure a lot of them are kicking themselves. The market is simply booming.

As to the city, I cannot describe the difference. In 1999, it was a hangover of the colonial era with dirty buildings, semi clogged streets and litter at a lot of locations. Today its neon paradise. Tall buildings touching the skies, wide roads with smooth flowing traffic ( you will see the occasional buffoon blocking the street but Chinese will be Chinese).

What amazes me is the mindset. The buildings are just like India, and the older buildings are equally messy with large garish shops on the ground and first floors and massive neons almost everywhere. Sort of reminds me of Kalbadevi but here the government recognises the need and closes the streets off to traffic and only allows pedestrian movement during certain hours. (I have for long clamoured that the by-lanes of Linking road and Kalbadevi should be made this way)

Parking is a killer and you pay anywhere from 10 to 25 HK$ per hour for parking in main districts, but it is available when needed. Multistory carparks are built since the person who builds it is able to charge a fair price and get a fair return, unlike India where car park owners charge Rs. 10/- per hour (1.2 HK$). If we compare the cost of a similar house in HK Vs one in a metro like Mumbai we see that its definitely more profitable to put up houses / offices rather than carparks.

As you can see there is incentive for people to put up car parks unlike in India. The other factor which makes putting up of car parks viable is you cannot park on the roads in HK. This forces people to use the car parks and leaves the roads free flowing. But the biggest factor is the public transport system. It is well thought of, well designed and easy to use which means that its no problem for even the richest of people to use public transport.

Everywhere we go in Hong Kong is tourist friendly. The best part is they aren't only tourist friendly as in "gora skin" or for the whiteys like we Indians are. They are even tourist friendly to the local Chinese visitors from the other provinces.

Imagine, our fat bloody politicians who scream about "Chaat Pujas" at Juhu Chowpatty actually treating the north Indian tourists who throng the Juhu Chowpatty with an iota of respect instead since they bring a lot of money into Mumbai as a city and Maharastra as a state.

Oh No, the only tourists we recognise as legitimate is anyone with a skin whiter than ours and of course the tourists we look down on are the ones with skins blacker than ours.

Folks, you may not believe this but we are one of the most racists societies in the world.

The Hong Kong government has actually put a lot of thought into making it a tourist spot. Each landmark is carefully marked and everything is made easy for the visitor. Imagine going to lengths to ensure that there are electrical sockets next to seats on the platform of the MTR for that emergency recharge for your mobile/ laptop. If it is India , we would perhaps see someone put up a shanty next to the socket and draw free power or the vada pau vendor (legal or illegal) on the platform would not have to pay any more bills thanks to the WR's largesse.

That brings me to another important aspect, law and order. There are no cops visible in HK. Can you believe that?

The only time we saw any cops was when they were taking down a report of a woman molested close to Chung King Mansion** and within minutes they were gone. Back into some dark corner of invisibility.

The point is despite the limited presence on the street, no one here breaks the law. They all know that even if the cops are not visible , they are lurking unseen, watching through eyes in the skies, waiting to swoop. Its a completely different feeling of security. In contrast, it makes me feel as if I'm living in a prison in India under the all invading eyes of the Indian cops ever afraid of what they will do next.

The laws here are very strict with there being fines like 2000 HK$ for eating or drinking inside places like stations. I asked my friends here how did they enforce it and they said , the enforcement was very strict. That is perhaps one of the reasons we see the city as one of the most visit-able in the world.

I would blindly recommend it to anyone as their next holiday destination.

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Chungking mansions is the den of iniquity in Kowloon side of HK. Here you can buy anything from a pin to a plane. The daytime you'll see it full of Indian , Pakistanis and Afghans selling out of small box like hawking stalls and at night the area becomes chock full of people of every shade of brown from the light brown of India to the dark browns of the deepest part of Africa peddling everything from the latest mobile phone copy to their bodies.

Chunk King has always been a place where the poorer sections of Africa comes to buy mixed bag of stuff which they go back and sell in their country and then come back again for another load.

What is missing in Chung King is the Chinese. They obviously seek the safer regions of HK to do their business.

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Talking about racism, I have two observations. Some time ago I had written about the Gujaratis and their food habits. I am happy to announce that you can now get Gujarati thali on the top of Mount Tittlis and Jain food on ocean cruiser Superstar Virgo.

I have no objection to this since if we can import Thai food and Indianise it and make it available everywhere I think our Indian cuisine should also have a fighting chance across the world albeit the sweeter version which is not exactly my taste. I thank the Gujaratis for making sure our cusine has a fighting chance.

The issue I have is with the way the Gujaratis flaunt their food habits. I am on a ferry boat on the way back from Macau and I have just been treated to a Gujarati blast. As lord Tennyson said "cannons to the left of them, cannons to the right of them".

The whole lot of them ( obviously many families traveling together), had each prepared some "snakes" to eat along the way. And of course as the journey got underway, they decided that that it was time they shared the food. So guess what, they get up and start chatting and passing food across the the passages just like the 5:15 Virar Local.

( Please see enclosed video for the vast contrast of the right side of the boat where the the Chinese and we are sitting and the left side where the gang decided to have their impromptu picnic.)

{ I was fully expecting an "antakshri " competition any time but luckily the trip was a hydrofoil and got over before they got warmed up }

The blocking of the passage and volume got so bad that the steward had to intervene and tell them to sit down and clear the passage before one of these idiots hurt himself when the boat went over the swells.

Lastly , when I was planning this trip, one of my friends told me that he had just visited Singapore and that there were a lot more Maharashtrians there than Gujaratis or any other type of Indians. I didnt believe it, but except for this lot I haven't seen many Gujaratis but I have definitely bumped into 4 groups of Maharastrians. It seems the Far east has lost its charm for the gujaratis ( like my travel agent was saying) and they have all headed for Europe. (I wonder what the legendary German rudeness do when hit against this wall of affability and loud behaviour, that may be real fun to watch)

With no offense meant to any one area of people, The way to recognise the difference between the two types of tourists in absence of them talking is:

The Maharstrians- Normally the group is a couple along with their elderly parents and kids( parents compulsory, kids optional), the wife is normally saying something to stop her husband or kids from doing something.

The Gujaratis- Couples with or without a matched pair of kids , crumbs all around from the time they dust their hands after eating and talking at a volume which makes you think that they are very used to Indian mobile phone networks.

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Lastly, I am enclosing an article written by Shobha De which I think crystallizes the mindset of many a Mumbaiite today. I seriously think this is one of the best pieces of journalism I have ever read so my hats off to her.

Me, Marathi written by Shoba De

Correct me if I am wrong, Raj... but I consider myself an assal Marathi manoos. Born in Maharashtra to Maharashtrian parents etc. Proud to be Marathi (even though my language skills in my mother tongue are embarrassingly dodgy). I don't know how to make the perfect puran poli but I do love aamti.

This is clearly not enough anymore. Going by the checklist, I could be disqualified on several scores. I am married to a Bong, who has lived and worked in Mumbai for over 30 years (but alas, has not been appointed ambassador to the state of West Bengal yet!). He attends Durga Puja regularly and prefers maacher jhol to vangi bhaat.

Fortunately, we don't have a daughter-in-law to name a college after, either in Kolkata or Mumbai. And our children (like yours) did not attend Marathi-medium schools. We employ people based on their competence, not caste or region. And I have never asked the vegetable vendor, breadwalla, taxi driver, dhobi, sweeper, elevator attendant, security guard, pizza delivery boy or any of the other people who make my life easier, which part of India they come from.

This is Mumbai, meri jaan! Who cares where anyone comes from? Dhanda is all that matters. Mumbai is India 's most powerful magnet. Once you get here, you never leave. Don't believe me? Ask those innocent bhajjiwallas and doodhwallas who were beaten up and stoned by your men last week. Even with blood-soaked bandages around their heads, and broken hearts, they are staying put. As they should.

Aaah, the natak of your dramatised 'arrest' was not lost on anybody. Had Rakhi Sawant's slapping stunt not grabbed those eyeballs on Valentine's Day, viewers would still be stuck with the image of a nattily dressed you (mmmm...loved the styling), clambering in and out of the police van. If Rakhi cleverly stage-managed the incident, what should one say about your brilliant coup? Overnight, Raj Thackeray was elevated from being the discarded Thackeray to a national figure. In one well-orchestrated move, you went from being a neglected nephew of an ageing tiger, to a sharp-clawed, teeth-baring cub with an independent act of his own. The
circus acquired a brand new star attraction — you!

It was never easy being a Thackeray. Ask Balasaheb. If he targeted south Indians in the '60s, you smartly headed north. Same agenda, diametrically different directions. By questioning the bona fides of those who have made Maharashtra their home, both of you tapped into the vulnerabilities of the average Marathi manoos. It is worth asking the very people whose interests you are protecting, whether they really want to do the dirty work currently being handled by the northies.

Will the Marathi manoos agree to put in 18 hours a day plying taxis, selling veggies, washing clothes and so on? Who's stopping them from turning into vendors of milk, food grains, and other commodities? Perhaps, the Marathi manoos considers such occupations demeaning? The truth is, these jobs have always gone abegging, and there have been any number of hungry, unemployed people from other states ready and willing to grab them. Kick the 'outsiders' out at your own peril, and see what happens.

Why do farmers commit suicide in such numbers only in Maharashtra ? The answer, dear Raj, may surprise you.
In your defence, let me say you received the worst press — biased at best, and shrill to boot. Most of the semi-hysterical reporters from prestigious news channels were embarrassingly ill-informed as they blabbered incoherently each time a leaf moved outside the magistrate's court!

Surely, you are not complaining? Everything seems to be going according to the master plan. You have 'made it' in one swift move. And women are finding you kinda cute in that sleeveless baby blue pullover. Great copy, great photo ops. What more does a neta want? To keep Mayawati and Lalu out of Maharashtra ? Now, that's a tall order!

Folks almost everyone is writing about the IPL fiasco so I thought it was time that I put my 2 bits in.

First of all, lets look at the whole concept of dividing India into bits. as we all know the idea was to form 8 teams to compete against each other but god alone knows which joker came up with the idea of dividing India into bits.

Its nuts, here we are with the world uniting itself and we are dividing India into bits. I have already written about how a politician the moment she comes into power talks about dividing the state into 3 just to make sure she is elected at the next election. bout how a pimple of a state like Pondicherry is separated to appease some petty politician, now we have these jokers doing it in the name of sports.

We have ads which now show that a young man on a bus refuses to give a seat to an elderly gentleman just because he's supporting a team from another part of the country. Is this what our exulted Indian culture has come to ? Where are the hypocritical self appointed guardians of Indian Culture ?

No wonder no one today remembers that we were once a great united nation called Hindoostan and our borders extended from Persia to Thailand. All we see is a peninsula with a crown which is continuously being divided into smaller and smaller bits and fiefdoms.

  When I talk to people about the IPl teams, almost everyone I know is supporting one team or another because of the owner. So we have one section voting for Preity Zinta's team while another is voting for Shahrukh Khan's team.

Wouldn't it be better to have called them Shahruk's 11 or Mallya's 11. Of course then it wouldn't follow the good old adage left behind by the British of " divide and conquer" which is pulled out by every tin pot Dictator to capture his territory

(Its important to note Mr. Modi has called himself Commissar of IPL -- the word Commissar in Russia is popularly known for Head Enforcer of unpopular laws).

I had someone counter my point of thought the other day using an argument that if I wasn't against the Football leagues which has been doing the partition on basis of areas for ages, how could I be against the division of India on lines of areas ?

All I say was that the leagues have been around for ages and are not creating any new divides. In this day and age with jokers going around talking of North India, South India, Vidharbas and regionalism which is creating hatred in the minds of the newer generation which is seething with resentment and frustration as the divide between the haves and havenots grows wider. (for example, the farmers in Vidharba are committing suicide for 20 rupees a day and a call centre employee blows up 2000 a night at a bar)

The last thing we need is partitions of this kind. Its akin to a dangerous Molotov cocktail we are allowing our children to play with.

If we wish to create divides I would rather it be done on basis of owners names etc rather than areas so that the bomb is diffused. ( By the way I don't know how much its true but someone just told me that the last two matches had just the teams names with the areas issue dropped so Kolkatta Knight Riders was referred to throughout the game as Knight riders, etc so perhaps someone somewhere is coming to his senses)

You know what the ironical part of the whole thing is which is reflected by the IPL rules. It is that a minimum of 4 local players be included in the team. Now remember that the team consists of 16 players plus physio plus coach. ( check rules here)

This means that by rules only 25% of a team has to be LOCAL to an area to which they are identified. So all you need to do is pick 3 jokers (1 seat is reserved for an icon) and backbench them and you're laughing. All the other players can be from anywhere in the world (except a minor reservation against Australians for some reason)

Now lets look at the word LOCAL.

Harbajan is considered local.......Hmmmm wonder if anyone told Raj Thakeray that.  Why do I not see him protesting that Mumbai team should have only Maharashtrian cricketers. ???? Doesn't Mumbai as in Mumbai Indians belong to Maharashtra ????

All those jokers who wrote in screaming at me for talking against Raj Thakeray in my previous articles seem to have missed out this point. Perhaps one of them should get up off their backsides and go tell him something instead of writing nasty emails to me.

Then of course we have the famous cheerleaders and Mr. RR Patil in a quandary. Here we have him screaming hoarse against so called obscenity and on the other hand his Boss Mr. Sharad Pawar runs BCCI and ergo IPl and there you have scantly dressed cheerleaders shaking their booty. What is the poor man to do. He did what any normal hypocritical politico does, he backed off.

He allowed cheerleaders as long as they were "decently dressed". Dear Mr. Patil, would you now please allow bar girls to come back if they are "DECENTLY DRESSED."

Talking about the hoopla around the IPL I notice that we have things like Akshay Kumar coming in on a trapeze to do an opening and Shakrukh doing a jig on stage. All thats missing is an pair of Bollywood actors and actresses running around wickets lip syncing the songs from next movie to be released that week ( a la dance and song reality shows).

I wouldn't be surprised if we now start getting the lead pair from the latest bollywood movie to be released doing item numbers on the pitch at halftime or if the week Bhootnath releases, you have Amitabh appearing on the pitch with posters one each side of him in full blown makeup promoting the movie.

Talking about the IPL, another thing that comes to mind is that I am ashamed of how stupid and saleable our government machinery is. Here we have then doing a little song and dance every few months on surrogate advertising and there we have Vijay Mallya naming his whole team on the brand of a famous MINERAL WATER ( we all know what the mineral water is surogatley named for).

So now you have the team dressed in the colours of the "mineral water" with the logo emblazoned across their chests, and Mr. Mallya gets millions of publicity for a fraction of what it would cost him normally that too legally.  Our health minister Mr. Ramadoss ( must give him credit for having some integrity) raised a stink about it but as usual when a person as powerful as Mr. Mallya is involved the whole thing got tossed to a bottomless pit.

I think if he gets away with it, next year methinks all the teams will sport the names of "mineral waters or CDs". Which may not be a bad thing after all.

There is of course the confusion of which team to vote for on which day. If on Monday we vote for Mumbai Indians against some Chennai Super Kings. What happens if on Friday that team plays against Rajasthan Royals. Do we then do a 180 degree about turn and support  Chennai Super Kings ? 

This kind of confusion may have one of two effects , either the target audience will get divided into bits each of which supports only one team like it happens in football or the audience for these matches will consist of just a bunch of jokers who will watch anything which happens on the idiot box no matter how non-sensical or banal it is. Either way the commercial aspects and eyeballs attraction of the game will decline with the novelty wearing off.

Lastly, one good thing I see coming out of this, with the teams being limited to 8, there are a lot of mee toos out there, sitting on a lot of hot money.

They will see Sharukh and Priety and imagine themselves as being team owners too. Now that they can't own a cricket team, we may see money spill over into football, hockey and other such sports. If even one other sport starts getting organized the way IPL is, that to me is worth this whole fiasco.

The first is about one of my favorite people, Mr. Amitabh Bachhan. Today there was an article in the paper about him arriving at a studio to show his support for the "anti-honking" day. The things which had me rolling in the aisles, were things like :

1) Mr. Bacchan arrived for the launch an hour and a half late, obsessively due to traffic

2) he was condescending enough to say "I always tell my driver to horn less"

Amazing...isn't it how the high and mighty live.

The second is this stupid idea we have about the thing called "rape". I'm amazed when I read stories of women who have two children from some man and then suddenly turn around and claim "rape" since the man refuses to marry them. The idea is they slept with him since HE PROMISED that he would marry them, then one day WHAM he refuses so what was consetual sex becomes rape.

For example, the other day there was a woman screaming rape about some priest who met her after an exam she gave and picked her up a bus stop and then took her to a lodge in Thane where he "raped" her. Amazing isnt it, that she didnt know that he was going towards Thane from Mumbai despite the fact they were on a motorbike. Also isnt it amazing that a college going girl didnt realise that she didn't know she was entering a lodge in broad daylight with a PRIEST ? I'm sure they must have registered for a room, so what was she going to do in there with him, pray ?

So if I'm to take this down to the lowest common denominator , these women were sleeping with these men only because they promised something or that they were expecting something back in return. It was a barter of their bodies, no more, no less.

If you sleep with someone in return for something you expect to get from them , there's a name for it isn't it ...oh yes prostitution.

I am shocked that the courts are admitting these cases and that some day some clever lawyer could use these stupid cases as precedents to sue a husband for a house in a bad divorce case saying the wife only slept with him since he promised her that house. Now that he's not giving her that, its RAPE.

Thirdly, of course is another thing which I have repeatedly warned about and unfortunately I see the signs of my fears coming true:

The first spoke about shades of paedophilism which is creeping into our movies : http://theindipatriot.blogspot.com/2007/06/sena-vs-sify-and-arrival-of-pedophiles.html

The second spoke about how parents can walk into a store with a 10-12 year old kid and buy her clothes which would look perfectly at home on a dancer from Deepa bar: http://theindipatriot.blogspot.com/2007/05/taxes-and-common-mans-party.html 

I see the disease has gotten worse , not better. I know as a kid, I and my sister were trotted out to dance to "jooth bole kavaa kate" ( a song from Bobby which was very popular in those days) and we lived for the adoration and the synthetic clapping of our relatives for the monkey see monkey do actions we mimicked. Now that I'm grown up, I can see how wrong it was to dress a 10 year old in a micro mini skirt just because Dimple Kapadia wore one in the movie. 

I am horrified to see the hoardings of young kinds dressed in shocking red vinyl skirts with black leggins and tube boob tops in order to push the latest kid dancing / singing mind numbing show on television.

I seriously think , we should put some kind of age limit to this kind of nonsense, as long as it was grown men making fools out of themselves trying to warble what they thought was their best impression of Kishore Kumar, i had no problems, but this is where I draw the line.

I switched on the television as  a matter of curiosity to check out if the show was really that bad or was I being too judgemental, and almost dropped off my chair. The singers were dressed in clothes I would say un befitting their age but that was bearable, what I couldn't stomach was the dresses on the kids in the chorus. Those parents need their heads examined. Are they that desperate that they allow their kids to be seen in clothes like that ? Next step in desperation is we will see a kids casting couch.

I switched my TV off, but I could see the other people around me ooohing and aahing, not realising that they were feeding the beginnings of a whole new age of pedophilism.

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My son just shared a joke with me which is very topical considering that we are in the middle of childrens exams:

He said, it takes 15 trees to make paper for each exam we give, so support the ban the exam movement and save trees, save the environment.

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Before I start, let me apologise for the bad quality of the Mumbai timeline enclosed in last weeks article. I have recd many many complaints about it so have uploaded a fresh copy at http://theindipatriot.blogspot.com/2008/03/mumbai-timeline-clear-picture.html

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I normally discourage the circulation of any email the facts of which have not been thoroughly checked by me. Thus to date, I have kept my mouth shut on the nonsense circulating about MF Hussain but cannot restrain myself anymore.

I’m sure a lot of you have received this mail wherein there are pictures said to be painted by MF Hussain which show that he’s a Hindu Hater and a Muslim lover.  Its one of the most circulated mails on the internet.

The straw that broke the camels back and made me break my silence on this mail is a piece of rabid nonsense quoted to me by a fanatic who in turn, was merely quoting a well known writer who has professed himself to be an authority by de-riding the ‘so-called’ Hussain paintings.

I am pained to see sensible balanced Indians lapping up this nonsense and then re-circulating it.
To begin with, let me say that I have done a search on the net and cannot find any of the paintings sent to me, except 3 – the Draupadi, the nude Bharatmata and Saraswati ones, as confirmed Hussains.

These are the same paintings which the Honorable Court has taken cognizance of as being possible offenders of public morale.

The others may or may not be the work of someone with Photoshop and a lot of free time. (As a matter of fact, I would not mind buying some of the paintings as they are quite good and who knows, someday they may even become invaluable “piece-d’arts”)

Hussain, according to me, is nothing but a man for whom adulation has gone to the head – someone who has now started abusing his artistic license by making paintings on the edge.

The one about him in the form of a bull in copulation with a Manaxi signed as a "Mcbull " is Freudian at the very least and reflects a mind which needs some serious "meditation".

Artists are known to be a bit edgy ( for example Van Gogh was put in an asylum and shot himself in the end or Chintan Upadhaya sits nude as his own installation). But, someone needs to sit Hussain down and tell him the facts of life.

However despite Hussain and his eccentricities , I do not see any greater sinister design in these paintings, except perhaps some manipulation by some clever politicians over a bunch of weak minded fools for their own gain.

I found that upon trying to research MF Hussain there are very few links to paintings done by him and a lot of blogs repeating and attributing the same unconfirmed pictures said to be drawn by him.

If any of my readers have confirmed links to any of the images I have labeled as unconfirmed, then please do forward these links to me immediately, so that I can do a follow-up for our readers.

Now, here’s my interpretation of the paintings (even if the unconfirmed ones have been done by him) as compared to the misinterpretation in the mails sent to me:

1) Hussain unconfirmed ( Durga on a tiger)	Explanation of this painting sent to me: Goddess Durga in sexual union with Tiger My reading of this painting; How does one have sexual union with a tiger in the middle of his back ? and isnt Durga's mount a tiger, wouldn't it be more logical to assume Durga riding a tiger since shes on the tiger instead of vice versa. What king of sexual union are these people used to ? I've heard of woman superior position but this is too much. Also why has no one objected to the use of 3 breasts on Durga instead of 2, isnt that an insult ?
2) Hussain unconfirmed: ( 4 leaders)	Explanation of this painting sent to me: Out of the four leaders M. Gandhi is decapitated and Hitler is naked. Hussain hates Hitler and has said in an interview 8 years ago that he has depicted Hitler naked to humiliate him and as he deserves it ! How come Hitler's nudity cause humiliation when in Hussain's own statement nudity in art depicts purity and is in fact an honour ! This shows Hussain's perversion and hypocrisy. My reading of this painting; Buddhist art has used a symbol for Buddha with things like sun showing that his light was so big that it could not be shown as a normal being. Can we not also read this like Gandhi's light of knowledge was so brilliant that Hussain was overwhelmed by it and a sun has been used to symbolise it. Whats more important why is no one talking about why Gandhi has only one arm in the picture ? perhaps because it would not serve any political purpose ?
3) Hussain confirmed : ( Bharatmata nude)	Explanation of this painting sent to me: Naked Bharatmata - Hussain has shown naked woman with names of states written on different parts of her body. He has used Ashok Chakra, Tri-colour in the painting. By doing this he has violated law & hurt National Pride of Indians. Both these things should be of grave concern to every Indian irrespective of his religion. My reading of this painting; Hussain during this time was a person in a madness phase overwhelmed with the adulation which mad people gave him by quoting 100 crores for 100 paintings. He's a monster created by us and the media and now he's come back to bite us.
4) Hussain unconfirmed:	Explanation of this painting sent to me: Full Clad Muslim King and naked Hindu Brahmin. The above painting clearly indicates Hussain's tendency to paint any Hindu as naked and thus his hatred My reading of this painting; Can this painting not be seen as an evil Muslim leader pulling a wicked looking sword behind the back of a defenseless innocent Hindu ( the nudity symbolizing defenselessness) , thereby be-lying the claims of the detractors of Hussain who say that he shows Muslims in good light and Hindus in bad.
5) Hussain unconfirmed:	Explanation of this painting sent to me: Naked Lord Hanuman and Goddess Sita sitting on thigh of Ravana My reading of this painting; Hanuman is a monkey god, would it be right to clothe him ? I dont see Ravan wearing a loin cloth, so why are the people not protesting that ? Is it ok to show the genitalia of villians ? I don't see Sita sitting on Ravan's lap. What I do see is a Sita behind Ravana in a repeat of Sania Mirza-Indian Flag controversy. What I see is a ferocious Hanuman fearlessly coming to rescue Sita after Ravana has tried to outrage her modesty.
6) Hussain confirmed : ( Draupadi)	Explanation of this painting sent to me: Naked Draupadi My reading of this painting; Offical title is Draupadi on dice. It is supposed to symbolise Draupadi who fell after she was lost in a dice game and the cloth covering her almost nudity ( along with her falling motion which is a symbol of her helplessness at the hands of the men who used her as a plaything) symbolises the cover she was provided by Sri Krishna. ( If Hussain really wanted , he could have made the cloth transparent like the ones we see in a lot of older Hindu paintings so that we could see her nudity, just the fact he made it opaque says volumes)
7) Hussain Unconfirmed:	Explanation of this painting sent to me: Naked Shri Parvati My reading of this painting; I'm not even sure this is a genuine Hussain since the style is definitely different but I could be wrong. Why are we not seeing an objection to Parvati being portrayed with three arms like a freak instead of 2 ?
8) Hussain unconfirmed:	Explanation of this painting sent to me: Goddess Lakshmi naked on Shree Ganesh's head My reading of this painting; Again style seems different doesn't it. Again 3 arms ? What does this man have with 3 arms / why not 2 or 4 or any other even number? Is there is Christian conspiracy with the Holy trinity being shown in the three arms subminally ( just joking)   (There is another piece of rubbish circulating on the net talking about the Christian Churches and how they control the media. Why are these jokers not alleging that perhaps the Christian Churches could easily have bribed Hussain to Show the Holy trinity sublimely in Hindu Gods thereby pushing Christianity as superior to Hinduism)

Among all the mails showing Hussain as against Hindus there were a few pictures which said he was slanted towards Musims since he showed prominent Muslim and other figures he respected as clothed.

So I went out and found some pictures confirmed as done by Hussain which we can compare with the unconfirmed and confirmed clothed paintings in the mail which are said to portray the evil Mr. Hussain.

This shows that all in all we should not make hasty judgements by just pulling a sample out.

Last but not the least, a Hussain I found was a durga but alas , fully clothed:

As to Mr. Hussain , if he wishes to paint himself as Mc bull or any other kind of animal in a copulatory or any other pose, he's welcome to do so as long as he keeps the sensibilities of the public in mind.