Delhi Diary

Once upon a time, a long-long time ago, when we were in school and life was a series of Biggles and Bunters, interspersed with report cards, yeah, and good guys never saw a movie more than, hey, once in three months, we had a gentleman who was, by virtue of his short height and even shorter temper, named Nazi Hitler for some reason. Being, however, a great fan of Biggles too, nemesis came calling the day a book known as "Biggles takes on the Nazis" or something like that came on our tables.



I have a feeling this column is going to be like that only, so let us lay down some of the ground rules? First of all, there are no sacred cows or pigs being served up here, everything is fit to be decimated that I feel I wish to chop and serve on that Sunday. Next, since I live for most of the time in India, this is likely to have an Indian slant, though that does not essentially mean it will always have a pro-Indian government slant!



And thirdly, mainly because over the past few months I have been called everything from hard-core rightist Hindu bandwagon wallah to soft-in-the-head pinko Paki lover, I shall not let anybody down. The urge to satisfy everybody rides paramount in the human psyche when it comes to being read and is sometimes likened to nymphomania of an intellectual sort. Intercourse without discrimination subject to the whims and fancies of the moment.



Do you know I wrote for over 4 years a regular column for the Asian Age, thank you M.J. Akbar, titled "Diary of a Divorced Delhi Male?". So, based on the interactions of a few years up on chowk, and as a sort of celebration of it's third birthday, let us clear up a few misconceptions from here, standing outside the Red Ford next to the green Hundi as Delhi swelters in the summer.



1) We Indians do not cherish this dream of one larger Akhand Bharat, including Pakistan. Please appreciate, as on date, the average Indian has over 85 cable tv channels at home already, and increasingly cheaper and faster access to the Internet, why would he or she want to refer to Taxila? We already know that in Bangladesh there are floods and cyclones, in Pakistan there is no booze and in Burma they have already sent most of their students to George Fernandes's house. Sri Lanka is full of paedophiles and if Nepal was not there, then where would millions of Indians go phoren, to Singapore? Yes, Singapore we would not mind taking back if they gave it to us, or Aden, too.



But Pakistan? No, we do not want to march into Pakistan. We have to see "Kaun Banega Crorepati" and also play "Antakshri".



Likewise, we are not thinking all the time about Pakistanis walking into India to hoist flags at Red Fort. Apart from the fact that the overcharging parking lot outside Lal Quila is always full, we have this gut feeling that the Pakistanis are also watching Amitabh Bachan. Even the most hard-core of Pakistanis that I have met have told me that even they don't watch PTV.



No Sir, we are very happy with where Pakistan is at the moment.



2) India is not full of rabid Hindus. Yes, we have our loonies and obscurantists and so do you. The Pakistani lot seem to appear to be a lot better fed and armed, in my opinion that simply means that when they finally turn against you, then you will have a tough time. We've been through it in Punjab, now the granaries overflow and all the young men are headed towards Canada.



If you must know the truth and since I am a motoring journalist, then this matters:- not one Indian city has saffron coloured buses or railway wagons, but there are plenty of green ones. Orange is a telecom service, in from Hong Kong. There are millions of green cars and two-wheelers on the roads, even our Armed Forces have a green uniform. The only saffron wave threatening anybody is planes from Indian Airlines which have an orange tail; that too has been changed to blue and red lately for the older aircraft.



I am proud to be a Hindu, yeah. But here in India, you don't mess with my religion, I don't mess with yours. Most of the time it works. Now and then a Christian, a Muslim, they die. So do many Hindus. Law of averages, nuh? Remember, history tells us that India (with or without Pakistan, choice is not mine) is the only country in the world that never ever did anything to the Jews.



3) So that brings us to the Atom Bomb. Yes, we have it, and yes, we would rather not use it against the Pakistanis because the wind would blow everything back to us anyways. yes, we even have the delivery systems ready and can send the bomb floating in, like outside Karachi in 1971, from directions yet unthought of.



But that is not the point. The point is that in an electricity deficient country, we need atomic power. Sure, that is one part of it.



The other major part as has been explained to me time and again by friends of mine is that we as Indians and Pakistanis need to understand that it is not from each other that we are seeking international respect. We are too close for that, geographically as well as as people. We very truly need the bomb to get the rest of the world to respect us. For too long have we, on the sub-Continent, been treated like pariahs and beggars. Time to announce to everybody else that, hey, we got the power, too.



It is not too surprising to imagine a joint Indo-Pak nuclear programme? Between the two of us, we have access to everybody's technologies anyway!



4) Kashmir. Oh boy, that's a tough one. But there is one view from here in India that the Pakistani establishment uses the Kashmir issue as a means to divert the attention of their own people from their own problem. On that note, and with a question to the Pakistanis on chowk, I leave.



Is it true that for the Pakistani government, a solution to the Kashmir issue would mean accountability to the people? And do Pakistanis realise that regardless of the solution, the Kashmiris don't want to ride with Pakistan either?



5) And finally, yes, we make better kababs in Delhi than you do anywhere in Pakistan. I have lived in Sharjah, I have sailed with Pakistanis, and I have had Pakistani guests over in India. This is unanimous and if any of you disagree, you shall see the wrath of a rabid Hindu defending his tunde kababs. Off i go to Nizamuddin while you guys can go chomp-chomp on whatever half-cooked frontier food you got. Hah!



We will never part with that honour.



Our kababs are better than yours.



Can you understand now, how dumb this fight between our countries is?

Veeresh Malik

Delhi